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Tabletop Gaming, Models, and Minis => Other Games Around the Table => Topic started by: bayonetbrant on April 27, 2018, 07:14:43 AM

Title: In Space, no one can hear you plagiarize?
Post by: bayonetbrant on April 27, 2018, 07:14:43 AM
https://kotaku.com/alien-board-game-accused-of-plagiarism-1825551686

QuoteGames publisher Wonder Dice has been accused of stealing a designer's ideas for its upcoming board game Alien: USCSS Nostromo.

A statement by the SAJ (Société des Auteurs de Jeux, a group of French board game designers) first sounded the alarm, raising concerns that Wonder Dice's game was built on both the setting and rules of a project designer François Bachelart had shown them years earlier.

Bachelart's Alien game—here's a 2010 version of it—reportedly came very close to development with Wonder Dice, but an agreement couldn't be reached between the parties. He since moved on, but Nostromo has now surfaced with a similar design, only with no mention of Bachelart's original work. Instead, Wonder Dice claim this version of Nostromo is entirely a creation of their own in-house team.

Board Game Geek user Domitien AW has uploaded the rule books for both Bachelart's 2010 design and Wonder Dice's 2018 release so they can be compared. They're obviously not identical projects; in dispute is whether the changes made by Wonder Dice are sufficient to be able to call it an all-new design, or whether they've simply made alterations to Bachelart's original work without crediting or compensating him.

It gets much, much more entertaining in the rest of the article. Wonder Dice threatens to sue anyone who says anything bad about them in the event that the Kickstarter doesn't meet funding