Blizzard is hitting Chinese mobile game developer, Sina Games with a lawsuit for copyright infringement over copying its Warcraft characters’ traits for its mobile game, Glorious Saga. On top of that, the Chinese developer also reportedly took weapon designs and sound effects straight from the MMORPG and applied to its own game, verbatim.
The Warcraft developer and publisher is currently seeking a maximum damage claim for US$150,000 (~RM632,265) per infringed work, attorney fees and other claims. Plus, a stop to the infringement.
Upon observation, a few notable characters within Glorious Saga clearly resemble characters from the original Warcraft realm, including Illidan Stormrage, Gul’dan and Jaina Proudmoore. Blizzard also points out that Sina game blatantly stole the logo design of its latest expansion, Battle For Azeroth.
Sina Games is a subsidiary of Sina Corp, the Chinese tech company responsible for Chinese Twitter, Sina Weibo. According to the lawsuit, games studios often try to copy characters and imagery due to the popularity of the Warcraft games and universe. Glorious Saga just happens to be the latest title to violate Blizzard’s copyright content.
In the lawsuit, it was also mentioned that Sina Games has gained a huge profit using the copyrighted characters and has attracted thousands of players using its copied imagery.
The mobile game is available worldwide and can be found in the Google Play Store, though it is parked under a developer named “INSTANTFUNS GAMES”, but is still known by its fan as as Glorious World. However, screenshots in the Google Play store still displayed the title as Glorious Saga.
(Source: Polygon, Image: Polygon, Blizzard Entertainment, Google Play Store)
