Sony slammed for ‘copying’ Sackboy costumes, explained as coincidence

The hard thing about unbound creativity is that somewhere, somehow, there will be similarities and overlaps. Sony knows this full well, and they seem to be getting washed over by complaints in the wake of one of their contests. Someone who wasn’t able to win a contest is calling foul, implying that Sony (and Media Molecule) may have copied his designs.

The hard thing about unbound creativity is that somewhere, somehow, there will be similarities and overlaps. Sony knows this full well, and they seem to be getting washed over by complaints in the wake of one of their LittleBigPlanet contests.

See, in a DLC competition, users were asked to design their own Sackboys (and Sackgirls), and the winning entry will be made available as a DLC. All is not happy though, as someone in the PlayStation EU community is calling foul, implying that Sony may have taken his designs and used it as the winning DLC, even though he didn’t win the contest.

The Sackboy in question: the Shark costume. The picture above is his design. Many users in the forums sympathized with his plight, pointing out that some “ripping off” may have taken place.

An SCE representative in the forums replied with an explanation though, saying that these are mere coincidences. He elaborates:

This was always going to be a possibility when we ran the costumer competition – releasing new costumes which are similar in theme to ones that were entered. Here’s the fact of the matter, the art team who are responsible for designing new original (ie unlicensed) costumes were involved at the very final stage of judging, by which time the number of entries had been whittled down to 10 from each batch of entries (Europe, Japan, USA).

If at any time we take inspiration from a costume competition entry that didn’t win overall we will contact the creator directly.

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