Sony and designer David Jaffe sued over God of War

Kratos is displeased.

A suit against Sony Computer Entertainment of America and game designer David Jaffe was filed in February by Jonathan Bissoon-Dath and Jennifer Barrette-Herzog, who are suing the company and designer in the U.S. District Court in California for copyright infringement.  SCEA and Jaffe both filed responses with the Court on August 29.

The lawsuit states that both parties allegedly stole ideas from both Bissoon-Dath, the author of "a series of related works of fiction, including Olympiad, a screenplay," and his wife Barrette-Herzog, who submitted a map called Island at the Edge of the Living World with Bissoon-Dath's work.  Both plaintiffs allege that they sent their works to Sony Pictures and SCEA agents in 2002, and the first God of War game shipped in 2005.  Jaffe apparently said the game took about three years to develop, which the two plaintiffs cite as more evidence of Sony's copyright infringement.

Bisson-Dath and Barrette-Herzog have also claimed that God of War shares a similar plot, character relationships, themes, settings, mood, pace and dialogue with their original works, and they've compiled these similarities into a seven-page list.

SCEA and David Jaffe deny everything, of course, stipulating that the game's inspiration, Greek mythology, belongs in the public domain.  In addition, they are calling the plaintiff's accusations "inaccurate, incomplete, abstracted and/or misleading."