Treadful Mistank: EA Explains Tiberium Alliances' Tanks
So EA made a bit of boo-boo. The publishing behemoth recently came under fire for seemingly commandeering and conquering tank designs from Warhammer 40K for use in bite-sized browser-based disaster C&C: Tiberium Alliances. The resemblance was pretty much unmistakable. Every turret, tread, and grindy, mashy thing was replicated almost 1:1. So, EA, it all looks pretty incriminating, and I've heard prison is a rough place for giant multi-national conglomerates like yourself. What say you in your own defense?
In a statement to GameSpot, EA wrote the whole situation off as a big misunderstanding.
"Games Workshop and EA are aware of the IP issues around the artwork in question, which have now been resolved. The artwork was internal EA concept art that was unintentionally released publicly. No Warhammer 40,000 tanks have ever made an appearance in Command and Conquer: Tiberium Alliances, and never will. Games Workshop and EA continue to have a strong relationship working together on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and the new free to play game Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes which just entered open beta."
Internal concept or not, that still means someone (or maybe even a few someones) at EA found themselves a bit too "inspired" by Games Workshop's pioneering work in the field of hulking metal death machines. So one would expect that perhaps those people have since boxed up their collections of desk-adorning WH40K figurines and found a new place of employment. And yet, it's hard not to be skeptical of EA as a whole, if only because big publishers have ended up with giant spotlights shone on their gleaming red hands far too frequently as of late.