Simpsons Road Rage Vs Crazy Taxi
Dec 05, 2003 A result in Sega's favour would certainly lessen the likelihood of any more uninspired Simpsons games turning up - given that Simpsons Skateboarding was a Tony Hawk clone, Road Rage was allegedly a Crazy Taxi rip-off and Hit & Run made liberal use. Dec 15, 2019 Eric plays The Simpsons Road Rage and does even more terrible impressions of Simpsons characters. Storm's Adventure with The Simpsons Road Rage, Crazy Taxi, and The Simpsons Hit & Run.
Sega of America has filed a patent infringement suit against an entertainment division of Fox, Fox Interactive, Electronic Arts and game developer Radical Entertainment alleging that The Simpsons Road Rage, released in late 2001 and nowadays a million-selling title, is a deliberate imitation of arcade favourite Crazy Taxi.
The suit, filed in San Francisco federal court, names Fox Filmed Entertainment, Fox Interactive (a former Fox unit which is now controlled by VU Games), Road Rage publisher Electronic Arts and developer Radical Entertainment as defendants. Ironically, Radical went on to work for VU Games as developer of The Simpsons Hit & Run, another game which critics felt 'borrowed heavily' from existing genre titles.
Simpsons Road Rage Vs Crazy Taxi Lyrics
According to court documents, Sega is alleging that Simpsons Road Rage was designed to 'deliberately copy and imitate', citing several reviews. Sega, it seems, holds a patent on the style of gameplay in Crazy Taxi, in which players take the role of a goofy taxi driver to deliver various folks to their destinations as quickly and smoothly (but usually destructively) as possible. Sega believes they are fully entitled to a cut of the game's earnings, and they want it off the shelves, too.
Virtually nobody connected with the case was prepared to comment on Thursday when the suit was first reported on Reuters, but it will definitely be an interesting one to watch, because we'll happily bet there are more than a few developers and publishers out there eager to safeguard their own creative formulas. In fact, so concerned were Nintendo earlier this year that the innovative Mario 128 might be copied, that they actually held it back from E3 in order to protect its ideas.
On the other side of the coin though, the suit could be very damaging for a lot of publishers and developers in an industry where imitation is often the only way to guarantee sales. A result in Sega's favour would certainly lessen the likelihood of any more uninspired Simpsons games turning up - given that Simpsons Skateboarding was a Tony Hawk clone, Road Rage was allegedly a Crazy Taxi rip-off and Hit & Run made liberal use of Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto for inspiration. As long as their are patents to back things up, it seems, there's the potential to press the case. Whether that applies in any other areas is something we'll presumably learn if the litigation goes Sega's way..
Happy Tax Day everyone! (I’m writing this on Monday!) Also, happy Crazy Taxi patent expiration day!
If you’re a millennial like me, you’re probably familiar with the Sega arcade game, “Crazy Taxi.” (arcade release in 1999) And…if you were suffering through high school a few years later, I bet you know of that classic Crazy Taxi ripoffcopyhomagederivative work “Simpsons Road Rage” (released in 2001).
Personally, I was a bigger fan of Simpsons Road Rage, but Sega of America was not. At issue in Sega of America, Inc. v. Fox Interactive was Sega’s software patent for the Crazy Taxi in game directional system. You might be thinking, “What in game directional system? What the heck is that?” “In game directional system” is a super fancy way to say, “those big arrows that showed you where to go in the game.” Remember, in Crazy Taxi (and Simpsons Road Rage…) you didn’t have to drive on the roads, you could go pretty much anywhere you wanted, and the big arrow would point you towards your next destination – but watch out for pedestrians!
There was pretty much no question that Simpson’s Road Rage was a copy of Crazy Taxi, and the case eventually settled out of court. The implications of the suit (and the patent, in the first place) were not that widespread, but there weren’t many more “Crazy Taxi-esque” games in the following years.
That said, this example gives us a glimpse into what the world was like when it was much easier to obtain a software patent, and, although the greater effects here were muted, it begs the question, what if id Software claimed patent protection on Wolfenstein 3DDoomQuake etc.? (What about the Quake Engine?) What if Epic Games claimed patent protection on the Unreal Tournament in game mechanics? It would surely put a stop to the countless copies and knockoffs that follow every successful franchise, but does that help or hurt innovation? How many games would we have missed?
Mar 06, 2020 The Simpsons Road Rage is a video game made by EA and released in 2001 for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and Game Boy Advance. According to GameSpot, who gave the game a 6 out of 10 scores, 'The only saving grace Road Rage has is that it's a Simpsons game.' The game also gained some controversy. Apr 23, 2014 AT LAST! ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Thank you all for bringing me back time after time, this game is just so insane when you try to reach that mark without losing your mind! Love you all. Simpsons road rage ending. May 03, 2009 The ending and credits of the GBA version of The Simpsons Road Rage. Jun 19, 2014 this is completely it in part eight, we succeed in raising everything to get the city busses back from burns and in the second evergreen terrace run, i never did expect to make over $70000 at all.
It’s a big question, without obvious answers. But, either way, today the Crazy Taxi patent expires, so maybe we’ll see a “Road Rage 2” in the near future!