Wargaming sues Project Tank developer over clone claims

World of Tanks developer Wargaming has sued Changyou.com Limited and Beijing-based Gamease Age Digital Technology Co for their hand in creating Project Tank, a title the Warsaw outfit claims borrows heavily from its highly successful MMO.

Polygon reports that while the game is in closed beta, Wargaming claims it has, "Copied the plot, theme, dialogue, mood, setting, pace, and character of World of Tanks, in addition to copying specific features, items, tanks, and artwork", and called it, "Disturbingly similar".

Counter to Wargaming's claim, Changyou posted its own rebuttal on Gamebox, that states:

Wargaming.net LLP (developer & publisher of World of Tanks) has recently launched a series of underhand actions against Project Tank, including using their connections to shut down our facebook page (http:/www.facebook.com/projecttankofficial), over PT’s purported “infringement” of their intellectual property rights.

Continuously sabotaged by Wargaming, Project Tank and Gamebox have never intended to pose a threat or compete at any platform with World of Tanks. The graphics used in Project Tank are our efforts to reconstruct WWII battle scenes.

We feel truly shocked and bullied by Wargaming, a giant company of the gaming industry who is apparently “threatened” by a closed beta phase browser game aiming to provide a cheaper, fairer, and more accessible war game to players around the world.

As we are dealing with this issue with legal measures to protect this game, the PT closed beta has now come to an end. The open beta server will be open in approximately a month. Please go to the link below to leave your email address to receive your reward (for open beta server) and updates of Project Tank.

Compiling more evidence, Wargaming also believes the Project Tank team has copied tank textures and designs wholesale from its own game.

The studio's statement on the matter added, "Copying is evidenced by the fact that the designers of Project Tank copied historical inaccuracies found in WoT, each of which does not affect game play, but which was included in WoT to simplify the tank modeling and rendering process.

"Copying is further evidenced by the fact that the designers of Project Tank copied tanks from WoT that never existed in real life, and which included features original to WoT."

It is also claimed that one of Wargaming's own patents - US8425330: "Dynamic battle session matchmaking in a multiplayer game", has been copied in Project Tank.

What do you make of the above? Let us know below.

Thanks GI.biz.