Lawsuits fly in Chinese MMO market
We all know that the videogame industry is a cutthroat business but check out some legal action going on the other side of the pacific courtesy of Gamasutra takes on the increasingly lawsuit-prone Chinese online game market, with publisher 9you and developer T3 Entertainment clashing over smash hit music title Audition, and a Romance of the Three Kingdoms battle sparking another suit.
July was supposed to be a month of celebration for Chinese casual game operator Nineyou International Limited (9you). Two years after launching its first licensed online dancing game O2Jam, 9you was ready to list on the Osaka stock exchange on July 12. 9you has a monopoly on online music games in China, with around 900,000 combined peak concurrent users for its portfolio of four music games O2Jam, Audition, Super Dancer Online, and Burst a Fever.
Unfortunately for 9you, almost 800,000 of those peak concurrent users were recorded in one game - Audition, licensed from Korea’s T3 Entertainment. 9you and T3 have been squabbling over Audition for more than a year. The feud started when 9you decided to develop its own music games to compete directly against Audition, but was aggravated by 9you actively promoting its in-house developed games to overseas markets.
And another involving trademark disputes
Beijing based online gaming company Perfect World Company Limited listed on Nasdaq last Thursday under the symbol “PWRD”. The IPO priced at US$16, and quickly climbed to US$20.4 by the end of the day. Unlike 9you, Perfect World develops its own online games and has no licensing problems. But the 9you-T3 soup opera already had the lawyers excited.
Chinese game operator Tianchang Tech, recently acquired by Hong Kong-based Finet Group Limited, announced that another unnamed game developer has infringed on the copyright to its game Chibi. Chibi is the name of a decisive battle in the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and is also the name for Perfect World’s upcoming game, scheduled to launch before the end of 2007.
via Gamasutra
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2 opinions for Lawsuits fly in Chinese MMO market
Mike
Aug 7, 2007 at 5:39 am
Damn, that looks really hairy, though I’m not really surprised. Lawsuits do abound there.
The9 bags exclusive Audition license in China
Aug 9, 2007 at 8:32 am
[…] exclusive rights to distribute MMO rhythm game Audition in China. We earlier reported on lots of lawsuits being filed in China regarding disputes in the distribution of Korean made MMOs and it looks like clear sailing for […]
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