Limbo in limbo after plagiarism outcry

By Emma Boyes, GameSpot UKPosted Jun 12, 2008 4:12 am PT

Tri Synergy pulls Majestic Studios' controversy-laden adventure game from online and retail stores after screenshot comparison furor.

When it saw limited release back in September, point-and-click adventure game Limbo of the Lost didn't exactly make the headlines. Now, the Majestic Studios-developed game is famous for all the wrong reasons.

Yesterday, screenshots from the game emerged showing a number of environments that bore a remarkable resemblance to some from Bethesda Softworks' role-playing game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Others also appeared to highly resemble scenes from Eidos' action adventure Thief: Deadly Shadows.

Publisher Tri Synergy responded yesterday to the shots, saying that it was unaware of the similarity, and was unable to reach the game's developer. Now, it has announced that it will no longer be distributing the game to online or brick-and-mortar outlets.

"Tri Synergy is just as shocked as everyone else is by the recent screenshot comparisons," said the publisher in a statement. "At no point during our dealings with Majestic Studios up until the point that the comparison was first publicly made by a third party did we have any knowledge of these similarities."

The publisher added that it had contacted developer Majestic and was "anxiously awaiting their response." A further statement will follow once the response has been received.

Limbo of the Lost is a PC adventure game, which features protagonist Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs exploring the realm of Limbo and attempting to steal a book from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

233 Comments

  • fairygirl116

    Posted Aug 12, 2009 9:04 am PT

    What other great games will these loosers try to steal from next? Bioshock!?...Half-life!?...Mass effect!?....Halo!?....Zelda?! and movies like The dark knight?!....Gone with the wind!?.....but if were going to..WE'LL FACE THEM TOGETHER!! right my fellow gamers?

  • fairygirl116

    Posted Aug 12, 2009 8:59 am PT

    Mysterylobster...How could you!? When these horrid people try to ruin and tarnish Oblivion's,thief's,dablo's and other games and movies names out there..you defend them! I'm dissopointed in you

  • fairygirl116

    Posted Jul 26, 2009 6:11 am PT

    I'm gald they paid for laziness. the fable in this story is" Laziness comes with a price" and I hope they learnt their lesson! This horrable game will be rembered as the worst game in history and why!? because of it's copying of the content from games and movies

  • luigi13579

    Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:44 pm PT

    @Fady

    I honestly think that the Tri Synergy spokesperson is telling the truth. They are only publishing the game after all. It looks like Majestic Studios are to blame, because they developed the game. From what I understand, Majestic Studios developed the game, passed it to Tri Synergy, and they published it without any knowledge of the plagiarism. I mean, if a games company pithced an idea to me (of a game that isn't even in the same genre as Oblivion), and I gave them £2 million to develop it, I definitely wouldn't suspect them of anything like that. I'd be just as shocked as everyone else.

  • Fady117

    Posted Feb 6, 2009 6:48 am PT

    "oh wow, i swear i didn't know" and "it's the first time i see this" won't work. Never. Those people KNEW they were getting stuff from Oblivion and still deny their crimes. i mean, anyone could notice the similarities. Of course they knew about the Oblivion title during development time, and tried to alter a few things just to conceal the true identity of this so-called epic. and oh god, did anyone see their trailer??? well the trailer says it all

  • Mr_Versipellis

    Posted Feb 5, 2009 6:14 pm PT

    This sickens me... Loads of people hate BethSoft because of FO3, but TES are some of my favourite RPGs!

  • deshazerg

    Posted Dec 31, 2008 11:27 am PT

    not just sad, but disappointing too. Did they really think they could steal ideas and scenes from two very popular franchises and that no one would notice?

  • shani_boy101

    Posted Dec 20, 2008 6:57 pm PT

    these people are just sad.

  • SPD_WeBmAsTaH

    Posted Sep 9, 2008 1:13 am PT

    I was shocked when I first heard of this lol. If the game was absolutely original, but had some barely similar parts to Oblivion, then sure, but to have parts of the game copied directly from Oblivion, now that's just going too far and too low for any developer. That company is now considered a real loser of a company, and that game is the worst in history...........EVER!!! Yay Oblivion.

  • Xeuton_Mojukai

    Posted Aug 10, 2008 12:55 am PT

    The thing that has to be kept in mind is that This is a completely different animal from either Thief or Oblivion.

    This is a point-and-click adventure game. It is not a first-person action-RPG.

    Not only that, but the screenshot similarities are not in any aspects of either game that could possibly be considered a signature of said game. No Ayleid architecture was seen in Oblivion-esque shots. Nothing involving sneaking into homes or any other such thing.

    This game is most likely making what we in the world of art call an homage. To you neanderthals, that may be some kind of sensational form of information theft, but really an homage is nothing of the sort.

    Now, if it turns out that Limbo is actually Oblivion? In that case, Majestic can rot in Limbo... I mean Oblivion... I mean... you know what I mean.

    ~ XM

  • runkii

    Posted Jun 29, 2008 6:56 am PT

    Wow, Im pretty sure this may qualify for the worst game in history, it might even beat E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 - ALMOST!

  • Myounage posted Jun 26, 2008 2:51 pm PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    Myounage

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 2:51 pm PT (hide)

    I don't know, Oblivion's environments are so generic and uninspired that it could just be coincidence.

  • PrototypeNM1

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 9:37 am PT

    M. Lobster is either a very obvious troll, or a very ignorant individual. Either way he does not merit response.

  • EchoEcho

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 4:32 am PT

    What Mr. Lobster seems to keep ignoring in all the comments against his defense of Majestic, is that the developers of this game abandoned it as a "work of art" a long time ago. Maybe ten years ago when development began they wanted to tell an interesting tale, but by this point all they wanted was to get their cash and get the hell out of dodge.

    To reiterate for the dozenth time: They didn't plagiarize because it would be "artistic", they plagiarized because they're LAZY AND INCOMPETENT and wanted easy money. Tell me how that is remotely artistic or intellectual.

    For someone who tries to come off as art-savvy and intelligent, you're dumb as a f***ing brick, and about as dense as one, too.

  • Philliephan923

    Posted Jun 24, 2008 9:40 pm PT

    Wow that's really sad to steal from such a great game like Oblivion for this piece of crap game. It's funny that they released that screen shot when it looks practically the same, like no one would notice,right?

  • thenewau25

    Posted Jun 19, 2008 1:59 am PT

    ok i dont dissagre but i ll try the game for the story

  • king_bobo

    Posted Jun 18, 2008 11:03 pm PT

    Well, it's a shame, but I guess they got what was coming to them. It was pretty stupid to even try doing that, because if your going to release games with such blatent similarities, people are going to notice sooner or later. Either way, it's ruined 'Majestic Studios' reputation as a games developer, for now anyway...

  • mauro_rubens

    Posted Jun 18, 2008 4:17 pm PT

    Maybe, just maybe "Publisher Tri Synergy" has been in coma since 2006 and never saw or heard of Bethesda Oblivion... Hard to believe.
    And as Agulf said, "very ironic, stealing areas from EIDOS Thief. ahahahahaha.

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