The Traitors has some explaining to do. As anyone familiar with the Peacock reality show knows, Traitors is almost identical to the popular dinner game, Mafia. In fact, I would argue that Traitors is basically just a weeks-long Mafia game with celebrities. And yet, the creator of Mafia is claiming that the creatives behind The Traitors never reached out to him before launching the show.
Dimma Davidoff created Mafia in the mid-80s. The game splits players are split into Villagers and Mafia, with the Villagers tasked with identifying the murderous Mafia and voting them out before the Mafia kills all the villagers—which sounds a lot like how Traitors separates contestants into Faithfuls (aka the Villagers) and Traitors (aka the Mafia). Dimma reportedly published official rules online in 1998 and holds a copyright for the game. And he’s been asked for the rights before, including for a 2015 Russian film called Mafia that gave him full credit.
According to Dimma, he tried reaching out to The Traitors through their website but never heard back. “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 told Vulture in a new interview. While he admits that game rights are “complicated,” Dimma said, “Game designers’ work deserves recognition and reward.”
In the past few years, Traitors has become a world-wide phenomenon, starting with the 2021 premiere of the Dutch show De Verraders. A UK version launched the following year, with Peacock’s US version premiering soon after. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Belgium also have their own versions of the show, and just last month, an Indian version debuted on Prime Video. And with the success of the franchise showing no signs of slowing, you can’t blame Dimma for speaking out.
Despite his lack of credit from the show, Dimma told Vulture that he did watch season 3 of The Traitors, adding that he was surprised to see Boston Rob booted so quickly. “Watching Boston Rob being sniffed out while being so good reminded me of my own Mafia games for many years,” he said. “The lesson of this season is: If you are too good, it’s a disadvantage. But this makes it more interesting.”
