Is the technology that fuels No Man's Sky being used without permission?
A Dutch development company has accused No Man's Sky developer Hello Games of using one of their patented computer formulas without express permission, according to a report by Ars Technica.
Genicap, a software development company, has been working on a computer formula dubbed the Superformula which—according to the company's website—is capable of taking "a single equation that uses only a few variables to create an infinite number of supershapes." This formula was patented by the company in 2004 and now they are claiming that Hello Games is using it without a proper license.
In an interview with the Telegraaf, a representative of Genicap claims that they have never licensed the use of their Superformula to Hello Games and that they "certainly do not want to stop the launch, but if the formula is used, we will have to sit at the table at a given time.”
The representative goes on to state that Genicap is working on their own gaming application based on the formula and would like to exchange information with Hello Games as part of the development process but have "received no response" from them.
No Man's Sky developer Sean Murray had previously commented on the use of the Superformula in an interview with The New Yorker during which he stated that he first heard of the concept when it was published by a geneticist named Johan Gielis in 2003 and that the use of the Superformula allowed Hello Games to eliminate many redundant programming lines from their process of creating procedurally generated worlds.
At present, Hello Games has not yet commented on whether the exact formula they are using is in violation of the patent that Genicap has on the concept, and Genicap has not filed any kind of legal action against the developer. Should any additional information regarding this situation become available, we will update this story.
