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Kit Kat Accused of Copying Atari Game Breakout (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Kit Kat's maker Nestle has been accused of copying Breakout, the 1970s computer game, in a marketing campaign. Atari, the company behind some of the most popular early video games, has filed a suit alleging Nestle knowingly exploited the game's look and feel. The advert showed a game similar to Breakout but where the bricks were replaced with single Kit Kat bars. Nestle said it was aware of the lawsuit and would defend itself "strongly" against the allegations. Breakout was created as a successor to "Pong" by Apple founders, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. In the advert, which is titled "Kit Kat: Breakout", a row of people, of varying ages and appearance, share a sofa and play a video game during their work break. In the game depicted, a primitive paddle moves side-to-side to bounce a ball into a collision with the horizontal bars ranged across the top of the screen.
The current iteration of Atari is just recycling the Intellectual Property (IP) from the 1980's. And, not surprisingly, filing a lawsuit to protect the IP from everyone else.
Money != Greed. Money is a medium through which we exchange goods and services; money is a "good thing" unless you want to get chickens or have your wagon wheel repaired in exchange for writing software.
I'd also point out that even the oft misused quote "money is the root of all evil" is a wrong - the actual quote is ".... for the love of money is the root of all evil."
Stupid sexy Flanders.
It's pathetic. How fucking desperate have "Atari", or rather the people who own the Atari name, got to be to try to sue over something like this? Key points:
*The game is old.
*The game itself is a ripoff of Pong.
*Nobody has cared about Breakout for a long time.
*Kit Kat's commercial is clearly a parody and thus protected by fair use/fair dealing laws.
Maybe Atari should try creating something new instead of resting on ancient laurels. Past accomplishments don't mean shit, what are they doing NOW? That's the only thing that matters.