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Accusations of Plagiarized Engines

By Chris Bennett, Tudor Carsten, Michael R. Coburn, Sarah Dale-Harris, Pablo Guzman, Danielle (Dani) Lemon, Chris Metcalfe and David Spratley

According to Develop-online.net, GSC Game World ("GSC"), the Russian studio which developed the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, is alleging that Kiev-based studio 4A Games' proprietary engine has plagiarized its tech and that it is in fact copied from a pre-release version of its x-Ray code.

GSC's lead programmer and technology architect on S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Oles Shishkovtsov, allegedly left the company a year prior to its release to become the CTO of 4A Games, a fact which is apparently fueling GSC's allegations. However, Shishkovtsov reportedly claims that both firms' tech are incompatible and that it would not be feasible to port games to consoles using GSC's x-Ray code. Conversely, it appears that 4A Games' tech will power the upcoming Xbox 360 FPS Metro 2033.

Metro 2033's producer has reportedly said that 4A Games would not want to work on a pre-developed engine and that it doesn't make sense to do so when you have the technology to make your own.

Coverage at Develop-online

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Full post as published by Video Game Law Blog on February 19, 2010 (boomark / email).