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CBS are being taken to court by a video game developer who claims they plagiarised storylines and characters while creating Star Trek: Discovery.

Anas Abdin, the creator of the 2014 indie title Tardigrades, announced last week that he’d tried to ‘prevent’ his dispute with the media company going to court but felt he had no other choice.

He claims that the show, which is a co-production between the American broadcasting company and streaming service Netflix, has stolen key characters and plot lines from his game series.

After initially claiming the show had infringed his creative property last year, Anas has said that CBS have refused to engage in a dialogue with him and he had no choice but to take the matter to court.


CBS are being taken to court by a video game developer as he claims they plagiarised storylines and characters while creating Star Trek Discovery (Picture: Anas Abdin/YouTube)

‘I tried to prevent this as much as possible but CBS treated me in disrespect. I am officially going to court against CBS’ Star Trek Discovery [sic],’ he tweeted.



He explained exactly why he was attempting to sue the company in a blog post, writing: ‘I wanted to keep you updated regarding the Tardigrades and Star Trek Discovery post from October 18th 2017. First of all, I want to thank everyone who posted videos, articles and even talked about the issue in their social media.

‘The last 10 months were so hard on me and the development of the project. I tried every possible way to have a respectful and reasonable discussion with CBS but they treated me in disrespect and just dangled me around with postponing meetings due to their vacations and being busy.

Among his claims are that the likes of Stammets and his storyline involving the tardegrade and Hugh Culber have been taken from his game (Picture: CBS)

The character does certainly share a resemblance with that of one in the 2014 game (Picture: Anas Abdin/YouTube)

‘The first conversation turned into the last one. I gave them a lot of time to make things right. Unfortunately, I found myself at a dead end with them, and so I had to enforce my rights by filing a lawsuit to treat me seriously.’

Anas’ claims revolve around the show supposedly stealing the idea that an alien Tardigrade is the key to interstellar transport and humans are exploring this through a scientific breakthrough, while he also claims the relationship between Paul Stammets and Hugh Culber is more than similar to one explored in his 2014 game.

While the Tardigrade is very much a living real-world organism, the souped-up alien one in Star Trek allows the ship to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other (Picture: CBS)

It’s a very similar story in the Tardigrades video game (Picture: Anas Abdin/YouTube)

The video game was first announced in 2014 and then published greenlit for a release on the Steam platform back in 2015.

Star Trek: Discovery – a joint production between Netflix and CBS – was announced in 2015 and premiered last year on Netflix. It has been commissioned for a second season with an expected release coming sometime in 2019.

Metro.co.uk has reached out to CBS and Netflix as well as Mr. Abdin for comment on the matter.

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