http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/lawsuit-claims-ubisoft-copied-assassin-s-creed-from-novel/0

Novelist John L. Beiswenger is suing Ubisoft for copying a substantial portion of his own work when shaping the Assassin’s Creed series.

The sci-fi author claims the game franchise rips off his novel Link, and will seek millions in damages as well as attempt to cease the launch of Assassin’s Creed III.

The 2002 novel includes in its story using technology to access ancestral memories, biblical and spiritual nonsense, and assassins—all of which Beiswenger is claiming Ubisoft copied.

Jesus fuck, look at the reviews on Amazon. All 1 stars written today and yesterday.

Oh, how I wish those fucks just die.

I don't care who did what, but I'm guessing it's all EA's fault.

Totally agreed. Also, to hell with Steamworks and the damn DRM! I'm not paying to rent the gamez!

Crappy games copying from crappy novels? Say it isn't true.

Well, I don't think either of them are bad. I actually had a conversation with someone that had read this book about the similarities to the Assassin's Creed franchise. He seemed to really like the novel, although I never got around to reading it. However, I did play both Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 and liked them.

Regardless, my friend said that while the book has many similarities to the game, the plot and premise were fairly different. It makes sense to me, DNA memory and Illuminati conspiracy theories involving Templars (or whomever) are not exactly new concepts. Take that with a grain of salt, since I never did read the book myself and this is very much hearsay.

The entire plot of AC games would maybe be somewhat okay if it was just a historical take on assassins in various times, the sci-fi aspect of it is just beyond ridiculous.

I liked it. So, it is all a matter of opinion. That was my main point. My ancillary point was that it is hardly conclusive that anyone copied anything regarding this lawsuit. At least not with the information I have.

EDIT: Perhaps I should reverse my main and ancillary points so that I remain on topic :P.

It's a framing device. It's not a particularly good one, but still.

Maybe there is something in one of the more recent releases that is more obvious (at least to him) plagiarism. The link did mention Revelations by name, after all. Just playing Devil's Advocate.

According to the article they only recently made a statement that they were familiar with his book. So that gives him a legal leg to stand on. Because his book isn't a bestseller, they could just SAY that they'd never heard of it, even if they really DID copy his book. But now that they've publicly acknowledged his work, it would boil down to "how close is too close," which will probably either be in court, or Ubi just make a small settlement to shut him up. But I don't think he has a chance in hell of actually stopping the next game, even if it turns out they ripped his book off completely.

I think the thing is this...Nowadays, Media copies a little bit or a lot from other media. Look at all the modern songs "sampling" older songs, rehashed movie plots, rehashed gaming plots. There's just no innovation in any kind of media today. If I come up with a movie or game today that i thought was brand new, i'll still get 3 people telling me that I ripped off their ideas..

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. I suppose it is possible he had never heard of the series if he isn't a gamer at all.

I went to his web page, which denotes him as "Christian, Author, Engineer".

Apparently the whole series was written to explore some "astonishing hypothesis" the author has come up with, dealing with the brain and the soul and all those "why?" questions about life and death, etc. He's certainly not the first to write a book like that.

I haven't read them; hadn't even heard of them until now. I don't know... I agree that it took him an awful long time to get around to bringing it up. Maybe if he said "If you like Assassin's Creed, you'll love my books!" He'd probably sell more that way.

But it seems like his books' main message is "Live like Christ did and everything will be great." There's even a related site called "Villages of Christ". Make of that what you will.

EDIT: Here's a link from the Villages of Christ site. It's called Robots and Spiders. Enjoy. And if any of it makes sense, explain it to me. http://www.beiswenger.com/robot/