A Chinese invested a lot of money in a character in the MMORPG “Justice Online”. He lent it to a friend. But when the friend wanted to return it, a serious mistake happened. The character was sold for €500 to a third party. The Chinese sued NetEase and his friend.
This is the backstory: The player Lu Mou purchased a character in the MMORPG “Justice Online” and invested between 8 and 10 million Yuan into this character. That’s between 1 million and 1.3 million Euros.
However, he barely played this character; that was done by his online acquaintance Li Mousheng. The two later became friends in real life, as weixin.qq reports.
The character was linked to a smartphone number, which Lu Mou had provided to his friend.
Player made a mistake due to excessive gaming – €500 instead of €50,000
This was the big mistake: Later, the studio behind Justice Online, NetEase, introduced the “Treasure Pavilion” feature. Li Mousheng wanted to resell the character back to Lu Mou:
- He intended to specify the amount of 388,000 Yuan as the purchase price (about €50,000) – The purchase price should be so high that other buyers would be discouraged
- However, Li Mousheng mistyped and entered only 3,880 Yuan (about €500) – He said he was so tired from excessive gaming that he was dizzy and made a mistake
- Now a third person, Li Moulong, came along, saw the bargain, and bought the valuable character for €500
Owner sues friend and NetEase
This is what the affected parties did: The actual owner, Lu Mou, subsequently sued his friend and the company NetEase. They should reverse the transaction:
- NetEase, however, stated that they had nothing to do with it, they do not interfere in these prices and transactions
- Buyer Li Moulong said he did nothing wrong. Anyway, it was none of his business. He had purchased legally and did not have to give anything back.
Court finds a solution after 3 hours
This is how it turned out: A mediation court in China took over the case and discussed it with the parties. Some were present on-site, others were connected electronically.
It is said that all parties were willing to reach an agreement. After 3 hours and after everyone fully understood the case, an agreement was reached:
- The owner, Lu Mou, pays the buyer Li Mulong a compensation of 90,000 Yuan (€11,600)
- NetEase cancels the original transaction and refunds the buyer his €500
- Lu Mou gets his extremely valuable character back
The big winner is therefore the bargain hunter who earned over €11,000 with a click.
Who is NetEase and what kind of MMORPG is it? Justice Online is the new “flagship MMORPG” from NetEase, a huge Chinese company. NetEase is partnered with Bungie and Blizzard and is considered a major player in the global market:
- They are developing Diablo Immortal together with Blizzard
- NetEase invested $100 million in Bungie in 2018, so they would develop a game for them
- NetEase even posts in Asia on behalf of Blizzard
- and they have also entered a partnership with the MMORPG hope SpatialOS
Justice Online is based on a novel and offers a typical Asian setting. Whether the game will ever come to the West is currently unknown.
More about the MMORPG Justice Online can be found here.
