In the world of law, things can get quite curious. Blizzard has filed a lawsuit against Snail Games, which in turn is now suing another development studio in response. Interestingly, this is not the first time this has happened.
The Chinese development studio Snail Games distributes a mobile game titled Taichi Panda. This does not sit well with Blizzard at all, as the pandas from the game strikingly resemble the Pandaren from the MMORPG World of Warcraft. So, Blizzard sued Snail Games. However, the response is not what one might expect. Snail Games filed a lawsuit against another Chinese development studio, as their game The Journey Of Flower is very similar to its own game Taichi Panda.
It gets even more curious
But this is just the beginning of the curiosities. Because a nearly identical situation occurred recently. In March, Blizzard filed a lawsuit against the Chinese developer Lilith Games, as their online game Soul Clash apparently infringes on Blizzard’s copyrights.
The response from Lilith Games was to abruptly sue the competing company uCool, as their online game Heroes Charge is almost identical to Soul Clash.
In China, copyright laws are not taken as seriously. There, one can essentially buy “clones” of all products. In the USA, however, this is not taken lightly, but as long as the cloned products are only sold in China, this is likely to be grudgingly tolerated. However, when it comes to online games crossing borders, the fun ends.
Whether the Chinese companies were inspired by Blizzard to file lawsuits for copyright violations or filed a lawsuit against their competition to have enough money available in case of Blizzard’s victory is unknown. This story is certainly curious, especially because it has happened twice in a row.
Developers are not only “inspired” by WoW. For Hearthstone seems to be a popular “model” for game companies as well: Hearthstone: Copied – lawsuit against China-copy on iOS and Android. But anyone who wants to see an even more similar WoW clone should not miss this article: Blizzard wins lawsuit against blatant WoW clone.
