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Burnout cover is a coincidence News

Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 News by Ellie Gibson

18 January, 2008

Electronic Arts has told Eurogamer any similarity between the Burnout Paradise box and the cover of an album by US band Karate is "pure coincidence".

As reported by Joystiq earlier this week, the album was released in 2000. It shows a car coloured with red, black, blue and yellow tones on a white background.

Burnout Paradise is due out later this month for PS3 and Xbox 360. The game's cover shows a car coloured with red, black, blue and yellow tones on a white background.

However, an EA spokesperson today dismissed suggestions the similarities between the images were anything more than a fluke. "It is pure coincidence," he stated.

Burnout Paradise will hit the shops on 25th January.

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Comments: 1-38 of 38 in total

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kissthestick
18/01/08 @ 12:56
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this is news?
JediMasterMalik
18/01/08 @ 12:56
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That does look remarkably similar, the colours are almost identical, I think someone's fibbing.
ecureuil
18/01/08 @ 13:00
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They're not THAT similar. I'm willing to believe it's a coincidence.
kangarootoo
18/01/08 @ 13:01
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The colours are the only thing that is similar though. The art style and the city scape of the BO cover don't match the album cover.

I suspect someone could have perhaps seen the album cover and been influenced by it, but frankly so what? Being influenced by things you see is part and parcel of creating art. Its blatantly NOT a copy.
sd99
18/01/08 @ 13:12
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I thought the cover looked a bit too classy compared to EAs usual fare.
Edited 1 times, most recently on 18/01/08 @ 13:13
Stormflood
18/01/08 @ 13:19
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There's nothing new under the sun in design. I would say the Burnout cover was inspired, whether intentional or not. No biggie.
jack_klugman
18/01/08 @ 13:29
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Some unintentional free advertising for Karate there.
boabg
18/01/08 @ 13:35
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They should see if they can get some tracks in the game.

Also - no chance that's a coincidence.
jonarob
18/01/08 @ 13:47
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Some images would be nice, to save us trawling through joystiq. Work hard news-man!
miiiguel
18/01/08 @ 13:54
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Monet also plagiarized nature by drawing nenufars.

Yet again, "is this news?"
KreyAtiv
18/01/08 @ 13:59
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They really aren't that similar. The Burnout cover has the outlne of the car with Paradise City filling it in whereas the cover for the album is a car that is smeared with paint that are similar covers. More likely they are trying to get themselves a bit more recognition by comparing the two.
muscleblade
18/01/08 @ 13:59
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Best cover in ages thats for sure.
NthSimulachum
18/01/08 @ 14:07
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So, better than Gears' cover, then?

/coat
ecureuil
18/01/08 @ 14:13
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Also - no chance that's a coincidence.

The images really aren't that similar. The Burnout cover maintains the colour inside of the car, and the car alone, with the outside city etc. as grey.The lining is different, the Burnout car is just an outline, the other is solid. The Burnout colours come from blue sky, and orange/red of tail lights. On the album cover the colours are clearly from different sources. (I'm not entirely sure what image is overlaid on the Karate album cover, I can't make it out.) There's pretty much no way the Burnout cover is taken from this, the whole idea behind both designs is clearly very different. Obvious coincidence, really.
boabg
18/01/08 @ 14:25
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I disagree, it looks very much like "Ooh that looks nice, draw something that looks like that."
asphaltcowboy
18/01/08 @ 14:33
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You'd be VERY hard pushed to say it was a copy, but there's clearly some inspiration drawn from the original. Hardly a problem since nothing is completely original and it does look bloody cool!
optimusprym8
18/01/08 @ 14:34
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It hasn't turned up here yet: http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/
JediMasterMalik
18/01/08 @ 14:36
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I do think the burnout cover was inspired by the album personally, but I also don't really mind cause I love the cover.
Der_tolle_Emil
18/01/08 @ 14:37
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I don't think it's a total rip off. It might be inspired by the design but frankly, the similarity of the colors is not really surprising seeing as they are mostly blue (sky) and red (car tail lights).

I wouldn't be surprised if there are other images around that use a similar scheme, ie. a solid background with an object that is only visible because the 'innards' display another image. It's a somewhat common technique and that Burnout features a car on the cover is not necessarily something noone would have expected.
monkie_king
18/01/08 @ 14:39
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Nice to see something other than the usual pre-rendered drivel gracing a game box though.

Does Japan still tend to get more artistic stuff on their boxes for home-grown stuff? Compare the Jap, US and PAL box art for Ridge Racer 4 to see what I mean.
BM
18/01/08 @ 14:46
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Still laughing at the captions...
Retroid [mod]
18/01/08 @ 14:47
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Also: both covers are "shit".
kelly's_h
18/01/08 @ 14:52
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It's not as bad as the movie 300 ripping off the God of War cut scenes. That movie is shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit........
Edited 1 times, most recently on 18/01/08 @ 14:53
Retroid [mod]
18/01/08 @ 14:57
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"It's not as bad as the movie 300 ripping off the God of War cut scenes. That movie is shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit........"

God of War was out before the original 300 graphic novel, was it? :P
f01re
18/01/08 @ 15:10
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Where's the review so we can start moaning about it ?
FreakyZoid
18/01/08 @ 15:26
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At least they tried to do something a bit different for their racing game box art.
http://mainlyaboutgames.blogspot.com/200...
Triggerhappytel
18/01/08 @ 15:59
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Fairly similar, nothing major, although I'm sure a good lawyer could still get a settlement out of EA.

Some great free publicity for the band, though.
ecureuil
18/01/08 @ 16:11
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There is no way they'd ever get any money out of EA for this. Upon analysis they are vastly different. Do you think Karate were the first people in the world to have a left centred image on a white background? I've even made designs like that, and I've sure as hell never heard of this band before.
mingster
18/01/08 @ 16:14
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They look identical to me..
tried doing spot the difference..
/failed
ecureuil
18/01/08 @ 16:15
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Google for the higher res images.
8bitMofo
18/01/08 @ 17:31
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Expect a law-suit from the yanks any time soon
walledcity
18/01/08 @ 17:49
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i went on holiday especially to see karate once. they were ace.
polar
18/01/08 @ 19:07
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Pure plagiarism. Looks to me like they saw the album cover and used it as a base idea for theirs.
Talha
19/01/08 @ 08:31
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it is cool. It was too good to be an EA original cover
gungrave
21/01/08 @ 12:21
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They should have copied it. The album cover is good, the burnout cover is, in all honesty, quite shit!...as I found the demo to be also. One game too many in the series to be fair. It's just not new OR original. That speaks for both the cover and the game.

They should have ended on a high with Revenge.

How it is now, if they changed the name to Need For Speed I doubt anyone would notice!
zoidberg
21/01/08 @ 12:46
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they do look similar... and if these were movie posters, the americans would be crying out for copyright enfringement in a heartbeat.
SomaticSense
21/01/08 @ 12:55
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EA talking bollocks again. It was clearly at least 'inspired' by the album cover, so why don't they admit that and say it was an homage to it or something.This is just like when they said that using page 3 models to advertise NFS was a mistake. Yeah right, unintentional, whatever.....

EA should really stop their rapidly increasing rate of PR bullshit. It's embarassing.
SomaticSense
21/01/08 @ 12:58
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"There is no way they'd ever get any money out of EA for this. Upon analysis they are vastly different. Do you think Karate were the first people in the world to have a left centred image on a white background? I've even made designs like that, and I've sure as hell never heard of this band before. "

Have you even looked at the design for the car, the use of colour, transparency, and the style in which they've drawn it? It's a damn sight more than just "a left centred image on a white background" that is similar.

Comments: 1-38 of 38 in total

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