Atari starts lawsuit against Nestlé over advertising with a variant of Breakout game

Atari has sued food manufacturer Nestlé in the US over a KitKat ad that would show a variant of its retro game Breakout. In doing so, the company infringes the copyrights of the game maker, he believes.

The commercial shows a group of people playing the game together, with the blocks from the game replaced by chocolate bars. Until recently, the advertisement could be seen in an online video, but it is no longer available at the time of writing. According to the lawsuit filed in San Francisco, Nestlé used the game’s look and feel in addition to sounds and visuals, according to The Financial Times.

Atari believes the food company should have asked for permission and says the game “holds a special place” across generations. Now the company is demanding, among other things, triple the revenue generated by the commercial. The video was only shown on TV in the UK.

The arcade game was released in 1976 and was created by Steve Wozniak with the assistance of Steve Jobs, both co-founders of Apple. The idea was to bounce a ball on a bar at the bottom of the screen and shoot blocks at the top of the screen. Since then, the game has been adapted and re-released many times.

Image via Wikipedia