Capcom wins Dead Rising lawsuit

By Robert Purchese Published 20 November, 2008

They officially didn't copy George Romero.

Capcom has won a court battle proving that Dead Rising does not copy either of the Dawn of the Dead films.

The clincher, ruled Judge Richard Seeborg, is that the videogame doesn't offer a social commentary on the real world.

"It is confined to the killing of zombies in the process of attempting to unlock the cause of the zombie infestation," said the Judge of the Dead Rising theme, according to GameSpot.

"The social commentary MKR draws from Dawn of the Dead, in other words, appears totally absent from the combat focus found in Dead Rising."

The MKR Group, which is the self-proclaimed owner of the George A. Romero horror film, threatened Capcom with a lawsuit back in February.

But the publisher pre-empted the blow, seeking a legal declaration of individuality from the US court. This move, like a well-timed Dragon Punch, seems to have paid off.

Eurogamer recently learned that Canadian developer Blue Castle is working on Dead Rising 2. All other details for the moment, however, are scarce.

Shamble over to our original Dead Rising review to find out more.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (24) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • PlugMonkey #1 3 years ago

    The clincher, ruled Judge Richard Seeborg, is that the videogame doesn't offer a social commentary on the real world.

    Well, it kind of does, but I don't really see how someone can copyright the idea of zombies being in a shopping mall.

  • Vice.Destroyer #2 3 years ago

    Capcom wins. Sony loses.

    /No point. Just musing. As you were.

  • DoctorZoidberg #3 3 years ago

    What happened to Dead Island? Was that in anyway related to the Dead Rising family?

  • nickthegun #4 3 years ago

    No matter how stupid, the whole main storyline is a commentary on the real world.

    I hope I get this judge next month when im up for pinching that womans arse.


  • menage #5 3 years ago

    Sure it's a parody on society, all the uberfreaks in the mall have some sort of mesaage attached to them.

    Still, nice to see an idea can be used by more people instead of greedy bastards wanting to have it all for themsleves. I'm getting quite sick of all these copyright lawsuits drm patent crap.

  • Triggerhappytel #6 3 years ago

    DrZoid - good question, I haven't heard anything from that in a while. It's nothing to do with Capcom or Dead Rising - it was from Techland, who last made Call of Juarez, or whatever it was called. I don't think it has a publisher yet, and the last videos/tech shots I saw were about eight months ago.

    Maybe it quietly died? Shame, it looked promising.

  • SEVQA #7 3 years ago

    Maybe Romero should come up with a new zombie movie for our times where people playing games turn into zombies.

    My favourite recent zombie time waster would be ‘Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave’ where some kids decide to make ecstasy pills from zombie gas only to get high and slowly turn into zombies when overdosed, culminating with a mass zombie rave.

    Utter class A shit!

  • Gearskin #8 3 years ago

    LOL. They did copy. Zombies. Malls. Zombie Malls.

  • kangarootoo #9 3 years ago

    This is great news. If Romero had won this case it could have had big implications for game development. Most video games are pretty generic in many ways, and if someone could get successfully sued for something so trite as putting zombies in a branch of Argos, imagine what sort of trouble CoD or Oblivion could get themselves into.

  • miiiguel #10 3 years ago

    While I do agree that for us video-games enthusiasts, this was a good decision, I believe that Dead Rising wouldn't exist (as we know it) if it wasn't for Dawn of the Dead.

  • kangarootoo #11 3 years ago

    I don't doubt it. I'm not saying the influence isn't clear, I'm just glad that a legal restriction wasn't put in place.

  • renzo #12 3 years ago

    You mean the "This game was not developed, approved or licensed by the owners or creators of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead" disclaimer they put on the front cover didn't um... cover them? :)

  • miiiguel #13 3 years ago

    yeah, I'm all for recicling and re-inventing good ideas, and that extends to shit like "NXE wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the lame Miis". I never understood that "oooh booh, they copied that..., so lame...". As long as it maintains the contemporaneity, and improvement, I'm all for it.

    World would be a worse place if we couldn't use a good idea ever again.

  • Shakey_Jake33 #14 3 years ago

    While I am very glad that Capcom won this lawsuit, it would be extremely ignorant to genuinely believe that Capcom wasn't consciously using the Dawn of the Dead concept. Capcom won through a loophole, in that most games have to offer some kind of objective (i.e something to actually do), whereas films by their nature, do not.

  • penhalion #15 3 years ago

    Can capcom now be sensible and go get Dead Rising 2 back from this unknown canadian developer please.

  • PlugMonkey #16 3 years ago

    If Romero had won this case it could have had big implications for game development.

    I'm not sure it had much to do with Romero, but if they had won it would have had prety big implications for everything.

    If there had been no Dawn of the Dead, there would have been no Dead Rising. But then, there would have been no Zombi, no Return of the Living Dead, and no 28 Days Later.

    Just because your idea is influential doesn't mean you can try and own it wholesale.

    If there had been no Matrix, there would have been no Max Payne. No Saving Private Ryan, no Call of Duty. As long as I'm not using your name and your characters, you don't actually own anything else.

  • Shakey_Jake33 #17 3 years ago

    ^Make that an unknown Canadian baseball game developer.

  • Tomo #18 3 years ago

    An absolutely ridiculous lawsuit in the first place. How the fuck can you copyright a situation?

    So... any combat flight sim is copying Top Gun? Jesus.

  • IneptPercy #19 3 years ago

    "So... any combat flight sim is copying Top Gun? Jesus. "

    Only if they lose that loving feeling while playing...

    Its nothing to do with protecting ideas, its all about getting more money by claiming other people used yours.

  • Mashum #20 3 years ago

    ..it's not just a concept that they copied - Capcom also lifted some of the sets from the 2004 Dawn of the Dead pretty much intact.

    The glass fronted sports shop..
    [link url=http://www.fu-manchu.com/dawnofthedead2004/p ages/insidethemall04.htm
    ]http://ww w.fu-manchu.com/dawnofthedead20...[/link]

    Coffee shop, same colours, same display counter as I remember..
    [link url=http://www.fu-manchu.com/dawnofthedead2004/p ages/insidethemall03.htm
    ]http://ww w.fu-manchu.com/dawnofthedead20...[/link]

    Can't find a photo of the toy shop but that was the one that stood out - anyway, who cares really, it was a great game.

  • Lebowski #21 3 years ago

    In Dawn of the Dead they escape off the roof of a shopping mall in a helicopter so - ... Oh. Wait, hang on a second. Erm...

  • eric2k5 #22 3 years ago

    Like a well-timed Dragon Punch.

    Nice.

  • RazorObsession #23 3 years ago

    George Romero came up with neither Zombies, nor shopping malls.

    The idea of a zombie apocalypse, and of retail outlets precedes him, he simply drew the logical conclusion that a shopping mall with its variation of supplies would last a small group of survivors a long time should they choose it as their fortress. he cleverly worked in a consumerism theme after that.

    the whole film as i recall it took place on planet earth. does that mean any game with zombies in it, taking place on earth was his idea?

  • ghostgate2001 #24 3 years ago

    Guess it's down to the fine line between homage and rip-off. Dead Rising undoubtedly homages Dawn of the Dead, and is all the better for the association, but that's about as far as the similarity goes. I'm glad the lawsuit failed, because it reeks of retrospective money-grabbing rather than any honest protection of intellectual property. It's not quite as daft as that time Sega copyrighted transitions between views on driving games, but it's close. As other posters have said, if the lawsuit had succeeded then any number of videogames would have been in big trouble as videogames often ape classic movies.

    If the license-holders begrudge Capcom's game so much, then for crying out loud the answer's obvious: license Dawn of the Dead to a decent game developer and get an official game made! The existence of Dead Rising would not damage their sales one bit if the game was good in its own right.

    Personally, I'd love to see an official Dawn of the Dead game with a more gritty tone than Dead Rising, and I'm sure many others would too. The license would lend itself very nicely to a co-op survival horror format like Left 4 Dead, with the players' small group of survivors having to set up their safe-room, make supply runs into the mall, attempt to clear areas, and "win" by securing and clearing out the entire mall. You could even have the biker gang arrive after a certain number of days to shake things up, just like in the movie...