Member-only story
It’s 30 Years Since Capcom USA Inc. v. Data East Corp
The ruling in Data East’s favor was the seed that grew the global fighting game community. Things would have gone differently if Capcom won the lawsuit.
Whenever an original game is created, other developers will create similar games. Two games of the same genre could be similar but completely different. Take Infogrames’ Alone in the Dark franchise, which became the “father of survival horror.” This laid the groundwork for Capcom when it developed Resident Evil, which became the “mother of survival horror.”
It is important to point out that Capcom’s original intention wasn’t to make it a survival horror game. The original concept went in the direction of science fiction and supernatural before changing to survival horror, leading to one person being cut out and another redesigned as Barry Burton.