Tencent: Maybe Sony should sue Tencent over that alleged Horizon “clone” in China, not the U.S.

Plus: Bungie lawsuit drama and a shock Wall Street Journal report about EA going private

Light of Motiram. Screenshot: “Polaris Quest” (via the game’s Steam store page)

Back in July, Sony sued Tencent for copyright infringement, arguing that the upcoming Tencent game Light of Motiram is a “slavish clone” of the PlayStation maker’s Horizon series.

Tencent was due to respond this month. Last week, they did, with a motion to dismiss that got a lot of headlines for its counter-argument that Sony was trying to “fence off a well-trodden corner of popular culture.”

Zelda, Far Cry and other games have covered some of the same ground as Horizon, Tencent argued.

Company lawyers even provided a time-stamped YouTube link to a 2017 NoClip documentary about the first Horizon’s creation at Sony-owned Guerrilla games. In it, NoClip’s Danny O’Dwyer states: “The studio loved the pitch, but there was a snag. At around the time the time they were talking about Horizon, a similar-looking game was announced just across the North Sea in England.” He’s talking about Ninja Theory’s Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. A Guerrilla developer follows by saying the games seemed similar and that the team decided to hold off on the Horizon concept at the time.

Another part of the lawsuit, potentially the part this case will hinge on, is less colorful and got less play. It might even come off as absurd to regular folks, though we’ll see what the courts make of it.

This section—more arcane and vaguely amusing—is about jurisdiction. And it’s about which part of Tencent to sue, if you’re upset about a “Tencent” game from the Chinese gaming giant.

Let me break this down.