A Tale Of Two Covers
Look carefully at the two images above. Now if you ignored the slightly different titles, one might be inclined to believe that these were simply two versions of the same cover. However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
The cover on the left was released by THQ back in June, while the other is a more recent piece of art for a new game released by Activision. Now I’m no lawyer, but I have been known to do a bit of artwork. I fully understand that if you take a picture, and then draw it in almost the exact same way, with only a few slight changes in color and positioning, it is going to be considered copying. That is exactly what the art team behind Activision’s cover has done here. Considering that THQ’s cover has been publicly available since June, it’s hard to believe that they weren’t staring at it while making their version.
THQ is now taking Activision to court over the matter, as they have spent over $1 million in marketing for their title, which can now be easily confused with Activision’s work. They even claim to have contacted Activision early this month when they discovered the new cover, which was nearly identical to their own. Unfortunately Activision refused to change their art.
