The developers of Call of Duty: Warzone recently showed off a dog costume. Problem ? It looks a little too much like the creation of an artist, who let it be known.
“ Even though I’m a Call of Duty player, I’m disappointed to see my work being plagiarized by a big company like Activision “, laments Sail Lin in a tweet posted on July 29, 2022. This artist realized that Call of Duty: Warzone was preparing to integrate a costume with the effigy of a Samoyed dog, which strangely resembles a creation he had published in 2019 on ArtStation.
Sail Lin has not been contacted, neither by the publisher Activision, nor by the Raven Software studio. “ I have contacted Activision for an explanation, possibly compensation, and hope this situation will be resolved soon. As an independent artist, I can’t do anything else, and I have to talk about it to prevent it from happening again in the future. “, he testifies. Unfortunately, accusations of copying are far from rare in the industry.
Activision caught red-handed
As noted by Polygon in a July 29 post, the original release has been edited on Raven Software’s blog. The first version showed the problematic outfit well according to this archive, when the current one, published the next day, replaced the screenshots. On the French version of the site dedicated to Call of Duty: Warzonewe notice a change in the illustration attached to the press release: while the thumbnail displayed on the main page still shows the dog, this is not the case when we click on the news.
Everything suggests that Raven Software and Activison are trying to make themselves small in this case, the evidence, in particular documented in this video, being overwhelming and difficult to dispute. Just quickly compare the original and the copy to realize the resemblance.
When we go through Sail Lin’s ArtStation account, we realize that he is a specialist in anthropomorphism: for years, he has had fun imagining humanoid animals that put on military uniforms. In addition to the Samoyed which caught the eye of Raven Software, there are other breeds of dog, a crocodile, a red panda or a polar bear. In short, if you want to integrate an animal soldier into your game, Sail Lin seems to be the person to contact. Alas, Activision has apparently forgotten to do so in the case of Call of Duty.