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Warzone was recently accused of plagiarizing the work of an artist following the release of the Floof Fury skin. The game frequently does crossover events with characters like T-800 from the Terminator, Rambo, Godzilla, King Kong and other iconic pop culture characters making it into the game. A Samoyed skin called “Floof Fury” was set to release in Season 4 and as soon as it was announced, an artist claimed that their artwork was created back in 2019 and it was plagiarized and turned into a skin.
Activision issues apology for “misstep”
Artist “saillin” made a post saying, “Even though I am also a Call of Duty player, I am very disappointed to see my work being plagiarized by a big company like Activision in this way.” The artist reached out to Activision for an explanation and/or compensation and they revealed later that Activision had reached out to the artist soon after to resolve the situation.
Saillin did not reveal the details of the conversation between the Warzone publisher and the artist. On 5th August, Activision told Polygon, “We have the utmost respect for creativity and content creation. We love the Loyal Samoyed, but regrettably we erred in our process and have removed this imagery from the game. We apologize for the misstep.”
This is not the first time a major studio has been accused of plagiarism with major publishers like Capcom and Sony being drawn into controversy as well. Capcom was accused of copying unlicensed copyrighted photos in its games extensively which includes environments, details and even a logo for its Resident Evil games.
Designer Judy A. Juracek filed a complaint earlier this year alleging that Capcom used photos from her book “Surfaces” in multiple games. There are over 1,200 images in her book and she claims that hundreds of images were copied. This came to light following a massive data breach that affected Capcom in 2020 and the file names of images used in their games are allegedly the same as Juracek’s digitized book.
Apex Legends was also accused of plagiarizing “Fuse” by an indie studio back in Season 8. However, the allegations were not proven. With Activision taking ownership for its actions, Saillin may be entitled to compensation or a settlement from the publisher’s end.
