Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Not so much an elephant as a mouse in the room.

Imnewherewheresthebathroom wrote:
^^ The only reason I mentioned Star Wars is because I'm sure somebody would but you are right. There is NO similarity.

When talking about Starship Troopers, I feel like they took an idea. They just said hey, armored space marines and bugs fighting. People will love that gak. And they brought it to life.

Whereas I feel like Blizzard took more then an idea. They modeled their marines after GWs. Same with Zerg and Nids. Then again with eldar and protoss. Granted there are visual differences in the latter but still very similar in many ways some of them still visual.

But it seems like GW may be the only ones that can really be blamed.

The Protoss look nothing like the Eldar. What are you talking about? Eight foot tall giant aliens with dreadlocks and giant, plasma Wolverine Claws are somehow space-elves?

buddha wrote:Starcraft was meant to be a 40k RTS before GW pulled the plug. What's more, before starcraft, Blizzard was in licence talks with GW for what we know as warcraft to be liscened from warhammer fantasy. Apperantly GW is bad to partner with so the story goes.

Not really. This is oft-repeated urban lore, but I have yet to see anything from GW or Blizzard that says they were partners in the project. While Blizzard may have been inspired by the 40K IP, I think Starcraft is visually and thematically different enough to have been its own IP originally, and is not "adapted" to be different from 40K. There's far, far too much work in Starcraft (as released) for Blizzard to have been holding a completed, or near-completed, game if/when GW pulled out of any backing. Had they have been, it simply would have been shelved, much like Starcraft: Ghost was.

Iron_Captain wrote:
Well, WoW was supposed to be a Warhammer game at first, and the whole Warcraft universe is strongly based on Warhammer,

lol. No. Urban legend. The original Warcraft was going to be/started life as a Warhammer game (according to its wikia, which is uncited) and is, supposedly, further cemented by a "hidden" sound file in WC2.

Here's the trivia bit off their Diablo Wikia:

Blizzard's Diablo Wikia wrote:
Blizzard struck a deal with Games Workshop to create a PC version of the "Warhammer" table top miniatures game. After completing work on the game, the deal fell through, and Blizzard, left with unfinished and unpaid work on Warhammer, created "WarCraft". WarCraft's factions of Orcs and Trolls versus Dwarves and Elves bears many similarities to the Warhammer factions. This does not explain the correlations between Warhammer 40,000 and StarCraft however. For example, the Zerg and the alien hive mind Tyranids of 40K look similar and are nearly identical in concept, and Space Marines are literally named the same in both games. In "WarCraft III", if you repeatedly click a griffon rider he will say "This Warhammer cost 40K", 40K being a shortening of 40,000.

... this strikes me as fan-written, and may not be true.

I used to be of the opinion that they were heavily inspired by WH40K alone, but over time that opinion has changed. It's more that science fiction often inspires itself.

For example, the Tyranid and Zerg. The similarities are staggering, but psychic bugs with overminds? Those are in Enders Game and Starship Troopers too! And the latter was made in 1959!

And you can pretty much do this with the Terran, Protoss, and the Xel Naga.

I say Blizzard completely ripped off GW. GW should totally sue Blizzard for IP infringement*.

*It's possibly my opinion here is based on seeing GW squirm in court more.

In order to steal IP from someone they must first possess the IP. If anyone wants to claim X is stolen they must first show X was created by GW (a concept GWs lawyers might want to get a grip on).

Yes there's a strong element of inspiration in Starcraft from 40k. That said, 40k takes a lot of stuff from other sources in its own turn, and SC is different enough to not be a direct ripoff.

However, it should be noted that Andy Chambers was creative director for much of StarCraft 2's development, so it's probably a little more obvious there

I'm still stuck on people refusing the believe Necron = Terminator.

"Living Metal"
Metallic skeleton
Promo images of both same stance, same weapon grip, barring some minor style differences (Hunched, etc.)
"Kill the living/humans"

Though if GW made Necron Warrior models resembling Arnold, I'd probably buy a few dozen boxes.

The original Cybertronic Chasseurs from Warzone REALLY resembled Arnold

Back on track, Psiensis pretty much nailed it. Also, I've read somewhere that Warcraft started life as an historical battles simulator that was going to be published as a series of collectible boxes. The Warhammer rumor is really well-entrenched, and it is difficult to find reliable info on Warcraft's development process, but the more I read about this issue the more unlikely that scare story about rich GW scamming poor Blizzard seems.

robam45 wrote:For example, the Tyranid and Zerg. The similarities are staggering, but psychic bugs with overminds? Those are in Enders Game and Starship Troopers too! And the latter was made in 1959!

Actually, the Zerg Overmind and the Warcraft Dreadlords share the same origins - Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" (which is as close to high fantasy and military science fiction as "Pride and Prejudice" is to hardcore pornography )

Nope, no IP infringement here.

Know what else arguably has a sort of hive mind and hordes of warriors? Actual insects. Nature should sue GW AND Blizzard.

But really, if you dig into the Starcraft lore and compare it to GW lore, there's not that much similarity beyond guys in space vs. scary aliens of different sorts. This is me being pretty reductive of course, but I personally don't even find starcraft Marines that similar to GW space marines. There's no genetic enhancement, all they get is a fancy suit (which can presumably be mass produced, unlike ceramite armor) and a standard rifle.

Zerg look like Tyranids.
Tyranids look like bugs.
Bugs were created by God.

Thus, Bliz is ripping off God.

Flawless logic!

Blizzard 'took inspiration' from 40k.

But to be fair GW 'took inspiration' from everything it could get it's claws into

anyone here ever heard of Dune, Judge Dredd, or 2000 AD? 40k is like anything else, it borrows heavily and lends heavily to others.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Necrons are not ripped off the terminators.

Simply because Terminator isn't an original idea.

The Terminator robots going mad and attacking their creators is simply the old "necromancer raises zombies and loses control" plot recycled IN SPACE.

Can you cite an example of that predating Terminators?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I'm not going to say 'stolen' per se, since the sci-fi and fantasy creative landscape is a post-apocalyptic warzone where everyone steals from everyone else, and there's nothing more egregious going on there than anywhere else.

That being said, I can't think of a single original concept Blizzard has ever done.

Can you think of a single original idea GW has though?

Is "The Warp" as a parallel universe, underlying universe fed by emotions to the point of coalescing into independent Gods original?

If any fraction of that has been sourced elsewhere, I'd probably be pretty interested in checking it out.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the fact that the Zerg look nothing like how the Nids looked when SC first came out. Hell, many Nids were borderline humanoid with armored carapace at the time...

Nids started looking more Zerg like after SC became successful, not the other way around.

Also, the Zerg have very little in common with the Nids beyond the whole "fast evolving hive mind bugs" theme, which is a hugely broad and generic category, the Protoss share nothing with the Eldar save for being an ancient psychic race and some broad and very shallow similarities between the Webway and Warping in, and the Terrans share nothing with the IoM other than being future humans with powered armor, which is the most generic sci-fi trope of the lot.

 Galorian wrote:
I'm surprised no one mentioned the fact that the Zerg look nothing like how the Nids looked when SC first came out. Hell, many Nids were borderline humanoid with armored carapace at the time...

Nids started looking more Zerg like after SC became successful, not the other way around.

Also, the Zerg have very little in common with the Nids beyond the whole "fast evolving hive mind bugs" theme, which is a hugely broad and generic category, the Protoss share nothing with the Eldar save for being an ancient psychic race and some broad and very shallow similarities between the Webway and Warping in, and the Terrans share nothing with the IoM other than being future humans with powered armor, which is the most generic sci-fi trope of the lot.

This, I'm surprised nobody else brought it up. Before Starcraft, Tyranids were a weird assortment of alien and utterly weird looking models that certainly didn't look like anything else at the time, and the Zerg sure weren't ripped from Nids- if anything the Zerg are directly inspired by Xenomorphs and their appearance, nothing else.

Tyranid Raveners especially look suspiciously similar to the main heavy infantry of the Zerg.

 Ascalam wrote:
Blizzard 'took inspiration' from 40k.

Terrans are different enough from Space Marines to not be IP infringement. Hell, even if you look at a picture of a Starcraft Marine and 40k Space Marine, they don't look the same other than that they are wearing armor. The Protoss are nothing like the Eldar in either philosophy or looks, and, as for the Zerg, there's only so many ways you can make a bug-monster look cool, especially if you have to make an entire roster of units for a game. And, they are probably more inspired by the Xenomorphs from Alien, as both 40k and Starcraft have similar heads to the Xenomorphs on pretty much all of their iconic units.

The only thing GW and Blizzard really have in common is that they both like big, epic fantasy/space fantasy stories that have lots of cool things happening.

And that they are all really huge nerds.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Necrons are not ripped off the terminators.

Simply because Terminator isn't an original idea.

The Terminator robots going mad and attacking their creators is simply the old "necromancer raises zombies and loses control" plot recycled IN SPACE.

Isn't that the Prague golem story ?

buddha wrote:Starcraft was meant to be a 40k RTS before GW pulled the plug. What's more, before starcraft, Blizzard was in licence talks with GW for what we know as warcraft to be liscened from warhammer fantasy. Apperantly GW is bad to partner with so the story goes.

The real stealing was the amount of stuff stolen from Dune in the 80's when GW was creating the 40k background.

Iron_Captain wrote:Well, WoW was supposed to be a Warhammer game at first, and the whole Warcraft universe is strongly based on Warhammer,
so I can very well imagine Starcraft being a 40k ripoff as well.

Wow, so much misinformation.

Warcraft: Orcs vs Humans (also known as Warcraft I) was supposed to be a WHFB RTS, but GW pulled the plug on that. Blizzard decided to finish it anyways and added some stuff that has never been GW property, especially the characters and lore. If you google the WC1 intro, you'll see the orks looking a lot like old fantasy models, unlike Blizzard's orcs today.

Warcraft II, Warcraft III and World of Warcraft don't use GW property any more than any other part of the fantasy genre. Every fantasy universe has orcs, drawfs, trolls and magic in it, without any sort of stealing from anyone. Also, none of them was supposed to be a GW product, but rather follow-ups to the already popular

The original StarCraft took a lot of ideas from 40k (Space Marine visuals, siege tanks are Leman Russes, Dragoons are pretty much SM Dreadnoughs, Protos are a lot like Eldar/Dark Eldar etc.). It was never supposed to be a WH40k game though.
What they "invented" all by themselves is what the Zerg visuals - GW liked those visuals enough to change their 3rd Edition Tyranids to look a lot like them. Previous models didn't have the Zerg scythe-hands, for example.

Again, StarCraft 2 has evolved into just another sci-fi setting, which has as much in common with WH40k as it has with the Star Wars or MassEffect universes.

Considering neither meddled in the other's territory, they probably saw no need to sue each other. Nowadays they probably would, but considering the last "theft" of IP was 1999/2001, I guess the time frame for that has passed.

Okay, to the best of my knowledge it was like this:

Blizzard started to cooperate with GW, talking about rights and so on. Then GW just kept increasing the license fee until blizzard sayd screw this and did their own thing.

As for my opinios:

Intelectual properties - I think the first mention of space marines or some sort of armored soldiers in space is from the 30s. Orks elves and the like is at least tolkien, if you won't take folk tales as source material. Nids are Alien clones. Necrons: generic robot uprising. Tau: generic high-tech aliens. So most of the tropes of WH40k have been around since way longer than GW or Blizzard.

Speaking about the relationship of the two, I say GW f*cked up big time here. SC was THE RTS game for about 10 years or so, the golden standard and a franchise starter in its own right. Hadn't GW pushed their luck, it could have been THEIR franchise turned inot the most epic RTS for a decade. Now they have a competing franchise they have to fight against by means of a dev company that does a decent job in game design and is horrible in everything else (especially network code, game stability, ballance and the general ability to write patches that don't introduce new or allready fixed problems to the game). Great job, GW, excellent descision, as usual.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:


The original StarCraft took a lot of ideas from 40k (Space Marine visuals, siege tanks are Leman Russes, Dragoons are pretty much SM Dreadnoughs, Protos are a lot like Eldar/Dark Eldar etc.). It was never supposed to be a WH40k game though.
What they "invented" all by themselves is what the Zerg visuals - GW liked those visuals enough to change their 3rd Edition Tyranids to look a lot like them. Previous models didn't have the Zerg scythe-hands, for example.

Look at the concept art and the actual models ingame (i know, it's low pixel but still). Siege tanks look nothing like Leman Russes and have a completely different battlefield role.
Dragoons are Dreads in lore only, the art and design are vastly different.
I think the Marines visuals are pretty much the only thing where they came close and Blizzard developed the idea in a different direction with the introduction of firebats (bigger, single-purpose-power armour instead of just swapping weapons). Also, Blizzard Marines were lorewise mostly Convicted Criminals, not superbred humans.

Again, StarCraft was never supposed to be a WH40k game. Blizzard did steal from GW quite obviously in a lot of aspects, and in turn GW stole some of Blizzard's ideas back.

StarCraft was the successor of Warcraft II, which itself was the successor of the game GW original licensed to Blizzard.

It's quite hard to find the actual history behind all this due to forums, blogs and wikis flooded with assumptions and misinformation. I spent quite some time researching this, and there was nothing about any licensing cost. GW simply didn't renew its license with Blizzard, and thus they were stranded with the project, which was supposed to be released before the established RTS veterans Westwood Studios released their next game (which was a good Idea, considering that game would be nothing less than the first Command&Conquer).

Popular assumptions are that GW didn't believe in the game, they simply forgot to renew, or some other sinister scheme. The most likely is that some investor forced them to withdraw their licenses which they were happily handing out to everyone who asked at that time. Nothing official from either side on that case though as far as I'm aware.

And just to mess with the meta



All art is derivative and starcraft and 40k merely have similar sources of inspiration. How much of the above can you trace back to Asimov?

Also Necrons are a development of the Chaos Androids from Space Crusade, which look very different from Arnie:

 Kosake wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


The original StarCraft took a lot of ideas from 40k (Space Marine visuals, siege tanks are Leman Russes, Dragoons are pretty much SM Dreadnoughs, Protos are a lot like Eldar/Dark Eldar etc.). It was never supposed to be a WH40k game though.
What they "invented" all by themselves is what the Zerg visuals - GW liked those visuals enough to change their 3rd Edition Tyranids to look a lot like them. Previous models didn't have the Zerg scythe-hands, for example.

Look at the concept art and the actual models ingame (i know, it's low pixel but still). Siege tanks look nothing like Leman Russes and have a completely different battlefield role.
Dragoons are Dreads in lore only, the art and design are vastly different.
I think the Marines visuals are pretty much the only thing where they came close and Blizzard developed the idea in a different direction with the introduction of firebats (bigger, single-purpose-power armour instead of just swapping weapons). Also, Blizzard Marines were lorewise mostly Convicted Criminals, not superbred humans.

Well, obviously they didn't carbon copy anything. However, the vast amount of similarities is no accident - a StarCraft developer even confirmed in an interview that they took a lot of ideas from 40k, because some of them were playing it themselves.

In addition, just like they did in WarCraft, they added a lot of their own ideas. Zerg being bug-like hive creatures with scything claws, the purpose-oriented power armor of marines, firebats, and (later) medics, battlecruisers and carriers, both kinds of archons and many more.

Because both companies stole single ideads (not entire concepts) from each other, a lot of things became similar. I couldn't bother to research which one was first in each case, but there are a lot of similar units:
Ghosts and Vindicaere Assassins (human stealthy sharpshooters)
Vultures and Scout Bikers (mine-dropping hit-and-run scouts on bikes)
SCVs and Dreadnoughts (just visuals - on concept arts SCVs look like SM dreads with drill and forklift)
Valkyrie and Valkyrie (flying missileboat with curved wings)
Siege Tank and Leman Russ (heavy, block-like tank with immense firepower)
Shuttle/Corsair and Wave Serpent (crescent-shaped space ship used in surface wars)
High Templars and Farseers (masters of psychic powers in battle-robes)

Don't get me wrong, the universes aren't anywhere near identical. But you can't deny that both Blizzard and GW borrowed ideas from each other.

Oh is it that time of the week again?

 FirePainter wrote:


Did GW "steal" elves from fantasy in general and put them in space?

Did GW "steal" ideas of vampires, werewolves, and angels (light and dark) from other sources?

Incidentally, the part where they put these things in space is probably the most unique element of the 40K setting.

You can't really work in sci-fi or fantasy without taking inspiration from those that have good before.

Disagreed.

A large part of 40k is the Warp, Chaos, and the God Emperor, none of
which is present in Star Craft or a lot of other fiction involving power
armour and bugs.

NOW. Back at the time Starcraft came about, a lot of these elements weren't in the setting or were significantly toned down.

Imnewherewheresthebathroom wrote:
It seems only the people falling in the "no" category are posting. The poll contradicts the general climate here.

Not really, we have more people voting 'no' and more people posting saying as such, there is no contradiction there.

It's about Starcraft being a blatant ripoff.

Except its not (keep in mind I loathe Starcraft). If GW never existed, and Starcraft came into being, you could conceivably make the claim that Starcraft is a blatant Starship Troopers ripoff or a ripoff of one of the other dozens of sci-fi settings that features power armored humans fighting alien insect hordes. For that to be the case, would require it to NOT have been a blatant ripoff of GW. Also keep in mind, that the 40k setting was VERY different at the time Starcraft was released. Tyranids were NOT space insects (nor did the Hive Mind exist), and Eldar were space pirates entirely unlike the Protoss, that alone kinda blows holes in any chance of Starcraft being a blatant ripoff, if anything the Tyranids are a ripoff of the Zerg, as the design for them changed post Starcraft to a more Alienesque/Zerglike style. I'd say Protoss are fairly unique to Starcraft and have no analogue in 40k, if anything they're more a ripoff of Predators, and even thats a huge stretch. The only real case you could make is Terran Marines = Space Marines, except the power armor styles are entirely different and 40K DIDN'T DO POWER ARMOR FIRST.

While Blizzard may have been inspired by the 40K IP

Doubt it, as stated 40K was a different animal in those days.

It seems WAY too many people are either completely unaware as to how 40k evolved from its original inception to today, or are looking at Starcraft from the present day point of view and not the environment of the time of release, because there really is NOTHING to say that Starcraft was even remotely inspired by WH40K.

The original StarCraft took a lot of ideas from 40k (Space Marine visuals

Huh?

siege tanks are Leman Russes

lolwut? I dont think the Leman Russ existed until after Starcraft was released, and the two seem nothing alike.

Dragoons are pretty much SM Dreadnoughs

Wha? Wtf are you even talking about?

Protos are a lot like Eldar/Dark Eldar etc.

Stop talking.

Dragoons are Dreads in lore only, the art and design are vastly different.

And in that case, I think its GW that stole the ideas from Starcraft, IIRC dreadnoughts at the time of Starcrafts release were piloted by marines, not marines entombed in a machine.

Also, Blizzard Marines were lorewise mostly Convicted Criminals, not superbred humans.

To be fair, GW marines weren't much different in those days in terms of being criminals and thugs (and weren't superhumans), but if anything thats also something GW took from Starcraft, as Starcraft marines are said to be neurally reprogrammed and experimented on biologically (which wasnt the case with Rogue Trader marines AFAIK).

Ghosts and Vindicaere Assassins (human stealthy sharpshooters)
Vultures and Scout Bikers (mine-dropping hit-and-run scouts on bikes)
SCVs and Dreadnoughts (just visuals - on concept arts SCVs look like SM dreads with drill and forklift)
Valkyrie and Valkyrie (flying missileboat with curved wings)
Siege Tank and Leman Russ (heavy, block-like tank with immense firepower)
Shuttle/Corsair and Wave Serpent (crescent-shaped space ship used in surface wars)
High Templars and Farseers (masters of psychic powers in battle-robes)

I think everything you just listed are examples of things that GW took from Starcraft, not the other way around.

chaos0xomega wrote:

A large part of 40k is the Warp, Chaos, and the God Emperor, none of
which is present in Star Craft or a lot of other fiction involving power
armour and bugs.

NOW. Back at the time Starcraft came about, a lot of these elements weren't in the setting or were significantly toned down.

Are you sure about that? I have some Rogue Trader era books that go on a great deal about the Warp and Chaos and the Emperor. I think Starcraft came out during 3rd edition of 40k? The Warp, Chaos, and God Emperor certainly predate Starcraft.

I think a lot of people's thoughts on the relationship of Starcraft and 40k are based on the idea that writers and artists see something, then directly incorporate it into their work. Now, although copying and plagiarism does happen, it is rare. I don't think the early writers of 40k read Starship Troopers, and then decided to make Space Marines and Drop Pods. What probably happened is the concept of 'power armour' now existed in sci-fi, and the early 40k writers would be aware of that concept. They may have read Starship Troopers, they may have not. In any event, they sat down to write the back story and they drew upon this really cool concept of power armour that has probably been floating around in their mind for some years. This is a process of synthesis.

Same thing probably happened with Starcraft. The writers of Starcraft may have never even heard of 40k, but they could still draw upon the same influences to come up with their flavor power armoured marines.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I think everything you just listed are examples of things that GW took from Starcraft, not the other way around.

Which is not what I said

I just listed a number of parallels after stating that I didn't bother to check who was first.

The StarCraft developers "admitted" taking ideas from other popular sci-fi backgrounds (explicitly including 40k), which pretty much is what everyone writing fiction ever does.

Also, the Leman Russ Battle Tank appeared in the guard codex of 1996, years before StarCraft.

The LRBT was also a mainstay of Epic from quite early on before it got introduced into 40k. The earliest design was taken from WW1 tanks and this has been continued through the ages and model scales. Siege Tanks are self propelled guns, more than tanks.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Necrons are not ripped off the terminators.

Simply because Terminator isn't an original idea.

The Terminator robots going mad and attacking their creators is simply the old "necromancer raises zombies and loses control" plot recycled IN SPACE.

The aesthetics for the Necron warriors at least are inspired by the Terminator movie, but the back story is completely different.

I think that the terminator Franchise as a whole drew a lot of Inspiration from West World (1973) where Yul Brinner makes a truly terrifying antagonist that cannot be stopped, and pursues the main character relentlessly. The sequel Futureworld (1976) took it one step further with the robots plotting to take over. Its perhaps not as extreme as 'Judgement Day', but the underlying principle is computers becoming self aware and trying to take over.

Necrons themselves also have a great number of cyberpunk references(RPG released 1988), with a whole race eschewing mortal bodies, achieving what is essentially immortality, but at the same time losing their humanity (for want of a better word), and this was always a risk you took in Cyber punk (and shadowrun) if you replaced too much of your human body with cybernetics.

It also wasn't until 1999 that necrons had a useable army list, and then it was a WD one and fairly limited, previously making appreances in space crusade as Chaos androids, were the similarites were pretty apparently inspired by terminator, in epic as chaos androids. The fluff for the chaos androids (daemons trapped in metal bodies) has been used in the daemon engines, to quite good effect.

Looking back further than 1973 i think there will be many more literary inspirations for Terminators and necrons, however literature isn't my strong suit. but i think its apparent that its very hard to determine who owns an IP, and just who owns what, because the nature of literature is that you draw references from many sources.

lest we also not forget that good ideas can develop quite seperately from each other in different places. Frank whittle started work on the jet engine in 1930, while Hans Ohain had a similar idea in 1935, and was initially unaware of Whittles work

madtankbloke wrote:


lest we also not forget that good ideas can develop quite seperately from each other in different places. Frank whittle started work on the jet engine in 1930, while Hans Ohain had a similar idea in 1935, and was initially unaware of Whittles work

Neither of whom did their homework as Henri Marie Coandă build the first jet engine in 1910...

The elephant in the room circa 1998. Starcraft borrows heavily from 40k, Warcraft even heavier from Fantasy, but they all draw on the same series of tropes and themes that have been part of science fiction since Starship Troopers in 1959. Conversely, after Starcraft, the Tyranids got a pretty significant redesign that reflects the more bestial look the Zerg have. Whether or not that's a coincidence is up to you, but I think it's a case of two companies borrowing from each other.