Dimma Davidoff created the Mafia party game in Russia in 1986 and says that The Traitors producers never reached out to him about crediting him.
The Peacock competition series is based on the Dutch series De Verraders, which splits its contestants into two groups: The Faithful and the Traitors. At the beginning of the season, host Alan Cumming picks the Traitors that will pit the Faithful against each other by murdering them one by one while trying to remain undercover. The Faithful attempt to uncover the Traitors in a roundtable where they vote each other out and banish them from the game.
At the end of the game, if there are Traitors left in the game, they will split the money between them. If there are no Traitors left, the money is split among the Faithful.
Mafia, also known as Werewolf, follows a similar structure, but the players are split into the Mafia and the Villagers.
In a new interview with Vulture, Davidoff said he finally watched an episode of The Traitors ahead of his interview.
“They have made an entertaining show, but the way they went about it is disappointing,” he said.
Davidoff claims producers didn’t contact him and said he “tried to contact them through their website portal some time ago but did not get any answer.”
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“Of course, they know about the Mafia game. How can they not? If you do any kind of due diligence, you see that Mafia is my game, under copyright. My email is right there,” he added. “Of course, games are a complicated part of intellectual property, but it does not mean they do not have value. Game designers’ work deserves recognition and reward.”
Davidoff said he is fighting to be recognized and it’s not only for himself “it’s a problem because not respecting other creators is bad for everyone.”
“It does not help game designers to create better games,” he said. “If even a well-known game such as Mafia could be pirated by big organizations, and a young game designer sees this, they think, What chance do I have? It sends a message that all of their work is up for grabs.”
The party game creator likened himself to Boston Rob, saying that “everybody assumed I was very good and always killed me first.”
