Activision has 'ORION' removed from Steam Store via DMCA Takedown

Did you get your money back or any kind of a refund or credit?

+1

Auto rifle one linked above also has near-identical stock, trigger and magazine housing on the rear end of the gun.

This. I was mislead too, but they're just lying to cover their asses.

Using false evidence to rally people to their side and it's a lot easier with how crappy Activision is.

No problem ^^ It would be a shame if the game franchise would end, but I also feel that the devs should just change the gun models (and anything else too similar), even if they disagree. It could save their franchise.

and anywho. before steam summer sale it was only $0.99 just like their first game. and they were just about to rollout a big update too after the sale or so :(

well I agree with you.. DMCA'ing a whole game for something that could have been solved with an update, that's going too far.
these are crazy times we live in..

They don't look alike actually. If you want to put a real-life car into a game, you have to license it, and they can cost a pretty penny sometimes. (And if you are making a racing game and want them to get damaged… well, there is a reason even a giant like EA doesn't like to make games like that.)

Same with weapons. If Activision's studios designed a new weapon look, they have a copyright claim on it. And in this case Orion's two guns are close enough for any court to agree with Activision.

The other question, the more serious one here is again with the DMCA takedown practise, where the content owner can file a claim and the service provider just goes through with it without ever asking the accused. This is the digital equivalent of getting arrested and held in prison without revealing the accusation.

Except they have a history of doing this with other developers. They're not just stealing from Activision, this is just the only one that's been made internet-famous.

If the artist responsible for the weapon design extracted the meshes directly from Activision's game, then that is copyright infringement.
Which is extremely suspicious given the model/parts similarities.

How would Activision claim that without infringing copyright laws (reverse engineering) another devs content? I don't know.

In the real world, if you would manufacture a gun like that—just combining parts of other weapons into a new one—you would get sued so much, even your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren would be paying the debt.

You're arguing that they can't defend their own designs, but while you're half-right in that anyone can make a gun like that, this isn't the case.

They're not just copying the design, they're literally ripping the product and putting it into their game, piece-by-piece in obscure ways.

Nope, both are just dirt cheap.

actually, every assault rifle look a like

better to to take down metro too then, it look pretty similar to me

View attached image.

There is a mile of difference between creating content based around things observable in reality (like actual brands of vehicle, weapons, specific fatigues, etc), and outright taking some other developer's created content and using it as your own in a commercial product.

What you're talking about is a licensing issue.
What I'm talking about (and what iis actually happening here) is that pieces of content are being taken and used in a commercial product without consent. A better comparison would be an upstart gun company stealing pieces of guns from another company, using them as part of the assembly on their own gun, and then selling it as their own work without acquiring any rights or permissions, and without recompense or negotiation to those they're taking from.

Just because the content is digital, and just because the whole models were not ripped intact, it doesn't mean what they're doing is any less wrong. Why would you defend this?

So are we going to get gun manufacturers sueing Activision for using the guns in CoD?

That could very well happen, if they tried to replicate a real gun, or part thereof. That's why they, and every other game company that tries to create shooters set in a modern setting, are very careful with how they design their guns, so that they don't infringe on anyone else's property. I'm sure Activision have people who carefully check every single gun model to make sure that they are not too close to any real gun that's protected.

No, they wait for them to become hits, then sue them for millons in courts.

Like Spirit suing Led Zeppelin for Stairway to Heaven allegedly plagiarizing their song (looks like in the end and after some losing, Zeppelins finally won, but then I have no idea if that was final win or there will be any more appeals).

It was a cheap game though, so I would not call it all that generous ;)
I'll add you and send it your way (you can recognize me by my avatar).