Rebirth of the Wild Age

During the U.S.-Iraq War, a lawsuit filed against Excalibur Network's "Legend" by South Korea's Weimei De Company for infringement was opened in Beijing's First Intermediate People's Court. Moreover, this is the fourth court session of an Intermediate People's Court on this case. International lawsuits have been filed for more than a year.

Due to the extreme popularity of "Legend" in China, every court session can attract a lot of media, and even the game industry and the judiciary have been watching, because the verdict of this lawsuit will have far-reaching impact. As long as Excalibur's "Legend" is judged to be legal, domestic game manufacturers will be able to copy Korean online games after changing their skins.

The content of the lawsuit filed by Weimei De South Korea is: "Legend" copied "Mir 2" and violated the plaintiff's exclusive rights to "Mir 2". The defendant plagiarized as many as 294 items in terms of game characters, occupations, props, skills, scenes, values, etc., and directly used the plaintiff’s source code, requesting the defendant to stop the operation of "Legend", destroy relevant data and information, and stop For the promotion and sale of related products, the official website of the "Legend" game was closed, and an apology was publicly paid, and the relevant litigation costs were assumed to compensate the plaintiff for economic losses.

Today, the First Intermediate People's Court announced the final result.

Because of the commercial secrets involved, several court sessions were not heard publicly, and reporters had to wait outside for news. This time, I waited from morning to afternoon, and finally when the relevant personnel came out, the reporters immediately surrounded him.

"Mr. Zhou, what was the outcome of the lawsuit?"

"Lawyer Qin, did Excalibur Network win?"

"Lawyer Zhang..."

The representatives of the South Korean company were all black-faced, ignored these reporters at all, and quickly walked to the car on the side of the road with their leather bags. The South Korean lawyer said: "I have tried my best. From the first trial to the present, this case has gone through one year and three months. Regardless of the outcome, it is of great significance to the Chinese judicial community, and it will also be of great significance to the Chinese judiciary. The similar cases of the People’s Republic of China are useful for reference.”

"In other words, the defendant won in the final trial? Will the plaintiff continue to appeal?" the reporters asked.

The attorney attorney said as he walked: "I don't know if the South Korean side will continue to appeal..."

At the gate of the court, Zhou Hao, the representative of Excalibur Network, said with a smile: "The content of the Korean lawsuit is very outrageous. "Legend" and "Legend of Mill 2" are two completely different games. Said we use Korean Fang’s source code? It’s simply the best of the world. "Legend" is a game engine developed by Kingsoft's Xishanju Studio, written in C++; and "Mir 2" is written using Bornd's Delphi engine and uses other languages. Written. Two different game engines, two different computer languages, how can it be possible to copy the source code?"

The reporter asked again: "But "Legend" seems to have borrowed a lot of gameplay and data from "Mir 2"."

Zhou Hao smiled and said: "If these things are to be prosecuted, did "Jian Xia Qing Yuan" copy "The Legend of Sword and Fairy"? According to this statement, "Mir 2" copied "Heaven" and "Heaven" by itself. I also copied "Diablo"!"

"What about the game props? Some of the props of the two games have exactly the same name." The reporter asked again.

Zhou Hao suddenly filled in righteous indignation and said: "Since you asked about this, then I must make a statement. All the props and equipment in "Legend", but we have obtained the authorization of the original author for all copyright issues. For example, "Jing Zhongyue" The weapon belongs to Mr. Huang Yi’s literary original. We have obtained the exclusive authorization of Mr. Huang Yi. If the Korean "Mil 2" dares to use the name "Jing Zhongyue", then Excalibur Network Technology Co., Ltd. reserves the right to pursue its legal responsibility s right!"

"The Dragon Sword and the Heavenly Sword have also been authorized by Mr. Jin Yong?" The reporter continued to ask.

Zhou Hao shook his head and said: "As far as I know, the Dragon Sword is from the "Swordsman in Shu Mountain" and "The Legend of the Dragon Slayer in the North Sea" by the original poster of Huanzhu. The source of the Yitian Sword is even earlier. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao’s two sabers are the Yitian Sword and the Blue Night Sword, and they are called Peerless Double Swords. Luo Guanzhong and Huanzhu have already passed away. The work has also passed the literary copyright protection period, so we don’t need to pay any more copyright fees."

Another reporter said with perseverance: "But according to netizens who have played "Mir 2", they knew they were copied as soon as they entered "Legend" because the two games are too similar."

Zhou Hao smiled and said: "What's the coincidence? The background of the game's story is different. "Legend" belongs to the eastern background and is in the mainland of Central China. We can also capture wild horses as mounts in the game. If "Mir 2" also introduces a mount system , Can we also sue him for plagiarism?"

"Then how do you explain the agency contract that the South Korean Weimei De company has come up with?" the reporter asked.

Zhou Hao said: "Mr. William Zhu, the president of our company, did act for "Mil 2" at the time. However, due to the problem of capital turnover, the agency company has already closed down and has nothing to do with the current Excalibur Network Technology Company. Zhu Mr. William became the president of Excalibur. It was also after the failure of his own business that the Korean side could find another agent!"

...

Of course, Wonderland Co., Ltd. of South Korea found a new agent, and it started looking for it as early as last year. Many domestic manufacturers were crying and wanting to be an agent.

When Timetong defeated many Chinese counterparts, the agency contract was almost signed, and suddenly it was discovered that the Korean side had already launched "Mir 3" (that is, "Legend 3"). After spending the money on Guangtong, of course he did not want to represent outdated old games, so after multi-party negotiations, after promising to increase the game share, the Korean side finally handed over the agency of "Mir 3" to Guangtong.

As soon as the final result of the "Legend" lawsuit was announced, the industry was in an uproar. Isn't this called plagiarism? Domestic games have since embarked on the road of copycats!

And Guangtong also took advantage of this upsurge of public opinion and announced that it would act as "Legend 3". The game has just begun the pre-heating promotion, and before the public beta, Excalibur Network Technology Company suddenly issued an announcement: "Teaching Huadu Guangtong Communication Development Co., Ltd., "Legend" is an original online game independently developed by the company. The "Legend of Mill 2" operated by the German company has nothing to do. Please do not use "Legend of 3" as the title of the "Legend of Mill 3" that your company represents, and don't mislead consumers into thinking that this is a sequel to "Legend"... Shenjian Network Technology Company reserves the right to pursue legal liabilities."

Not only that, Excalibur Network also caused the matter to the approval department, and Guangtong’s "Legend 3" was stuck because of the game name.

It's really ugly to eat!

I copied other people's games, and even ran out to card other people's sequels.

But then again, the IP of "Legend" is indeed a bigger one of Excalibur. What does it have to do with Korean companies?

Mr. Guangtong’s Mr. Yang’s background was also very hard. He didn’t even care about the announcements made by Excalibur.com, and continued to pre-heat "Legend 3" frantically, and even imagined that the name would pass the trial. Until the beginning of April, the examination and approval department gave a clear reply: "Legend" belongs to the registered trademark and game registered name of Excalibur Network Technology Company. In the fields of the Internet, computers, games, clothing, catering, etc. (all registered), other companies are not allowed to do so again. Use similar trademarks or names.

Arms couldn't twist the thighs, Guangtong had to change the name of the game to "Legend 3", which sounded like a copycat. But in terms of publicity, the sequel to "Legend" was still used as a gimmick, and the slogans of "a different legend" and "a brand new legend" were openly shouted.

This kind of propaganda is certainly possible, because "legendary" is a Chinese term.

However, Guangtong's "Legend 3" has just started public beta and was immediately brought to court by Excalibur.com. Because the weapon names in the game, such as Banyue, Promise, Judgment, Purgatory, Soul Breaking, and Lingfeng, are the originals of Excalibur Network Company and enjoy the corresponding copyrights. The Korean names in the game are not these.

In order to save trouble, Guangtong and Hanfang directly copied the Excalibur company's set when translating the game.

The lawsuit is fought again, this time it is South Korea and Guangtong suspected of plagiarism. Moreover, the evidence was conclusive. The lawsuit ended after only half a year. The Korean side was ordered to modify the names of similar equipment in the game, and compensate Excalibur Company for economic losses of 8 million yuan and bear 2 million yuan in litigation costs.

"Legend 3", which has only been in operation for half a year, was originally very popular with the gimmick of the sequel to "Legend", but its popularity plummeted because of the suspension of the service and the modification of the equipment name-only the modification of some equipment names, the Korean side actually dragged it for more than a month , The day lily was cold when the service was opened again, and Guangtong wanted to cry without tears.

Netizens who are familiar with the cause and effect all say that Song Weiyang is really awesome, and the "thief shouts and catches the thief" set is really slippery.

In fact, even if Excalibur Company did not intervene, "Legend 3" or "Legend 3" would die miserably. Because Guangtong has no experience in operating online games, the game is full of flying, and one person hangs more than a dozen numbers to automatically kill monsters. Looking at the map, there are all robots. How long can this game live?

...

"Old Song, congratulations on winning the lawsuit!" At the end of March, Xiao Ma specially brought Tencent game personnel to the meeting.

This time in history, it was only this time that Xiao Ma Ge met Chen Tianqiao. Tencent’s main profit point is the online text messaging business, but the competition in this field is getting more and more fierce, so Xiao Ma naturally focuses on online games. But he has no experience in this, so he led a team to visit Chen Tianqiao, hoping that industry leaders can give pointers.

After Xiao Ma explained his origins, Song Weiyang laughed and said, "I will call you back. You can go to Rongcheng to talk to William Zhu, and you can also learn from the operation team of Excalibur."

"I plan to go to the EA exhibition in person in May," Xiao Ma said suddenly, "In fact, I have already taken a fancy to a Korean online game called "Triumph", a 3D game created by Unreal 2 engine. But I have I heard you said that the domestic market needs rough and simple online games. I'm afraid this "Triumph" is too complicated. So I want to listen to your suggestions."

Song Weiyang said: "The game should be rough and simple. Two years ago, everyone didn’t know much about it. But now it’s different. There are already a large number of people who are very boring to play "Legend". Now I am doing a slightly more complicated game. It’s time for casual games."

"In other words, 3D online games like "Triumph" are still very promising?" Xiao Ma took a reassurance.

Song Weiyang said: "But I want to remind you that if you are an agent of Korean online games, it is best to get the source code. Otherwise, the bug fixes and version updates will drag you to death, and the bugs of the kimchi game are flying all over the sky. This is something everyone knows. "

"I'll give it a try, but I'm afraid it's hard to get it." Xiao Ma smiled bitterly.

This has to be blamed on Song Weiyang. Originally, Korean game companies were unwilling to provide the source code. "Legend" was unable to find an agent in South Korea. Only after Zhu William gave the super-high agency share contract, did he agree to take out the source code. of. Now that Excalibur has copied other people's games and won the lawsuit, how could a Korean manufacturer still give the source code? They are afraid of making a second "Legend"!

Song Weiyang said: "Be an agent first, exercise the team, and you will have to develop it yourself in the future."

Xiao Ma also said: "In terms of operation and promotion, in addition to the routines on the market, I plan to engage in'Playing games to send a QQ account'. What do you think?"

"Very awesome strategy." Song Weiyang laughed.

At this time, applying for a QQ account not only requires a fee, but also limits the amount of registration. If you want to register, it may not be successful. If the classmate in the class can help other people apply for a QQ account, then he is definitely the most popular girl in the class.

In history, Tencent’s first online game "Triumph", many people rushed to send QQ accounts to play the game. After Tencent announced the news, nearly 200,000 people signed up for the closed beta one day at the highest time. It has to be said that with the big killer of QQ, Tencent is too cheap to promote new products.

Unfortunately, "Triumph" belongs to the South Korean online game, and there are too many bugs. The equipment disappeared inexplicably, the characters disappeared inexplicably, the data was abnormal from time to time, and the number of online users was reduced by 90% in half a year.

This year is the year when China's online game market takes off. New games are launched every month, sometimes four or five games are launched in the same month. Under the huge stimulus of the huge profits of "Legend", both cats and dogs jumped into it. Under Zhang Chaoyang's decision, Sohu launched "Knight OL" before the Spring Festival. So far, Song Weiyang invested in NetEase, Sohu, and Kingsoft all have games online. Tencent plans to go online ~www.readwn.com~ and even Ding Ming wants to represent a game.

At the same time, "World of Warcraft" is here!

After the release of "Warcraft 3", Blizzard officially released "World of Warcraft", which has been secretly developed before.

As soon as this news came out, although everyone did not know what "World of Warcraft" looked like, let alone when the development of "World of Warcraft" would be completed, game manufacturers all over the world began to scramble for agency rights because of its stand-alone version. The sister game "Warcraft" is too influential!

There are dozens of agents in China alone, and the top executives of Vivendi frequently come to China for inspections, but don't say who "World of Warcraft" intends to act as agents.

In another time and space, after layers of screening, the scope of agents was finally narrowed to the two companies of Jiucheng and Guangtong.

Guangtong is still too young. Ninetowns secretly united Singapore Telecom, Sohu and Intel to form a joint venture to win the agency rights of "World of Warcraft". As a result, before the public beta of "World of Warcraft" started, Ninetowns left Sohu and other partners aside, and won the exclusive agency rights. Don't be too ugly!

As for Song Weiyang's "Shan Hai Jing", it is still under hard development, and it has already cost more than 100 million yuan. The development members of each group add up to more than 400 people, and each month’s salary alone will cost more than 2 million yuan. .

Although the game progress is slow, the results are very gratifying. Zulong Studio has successfully developed the "Excalibur 3D Engine", which is even better than the "World of Warcraft" engine. Of course, you don’t need to be too proud, because the "Warcraft" engine was not the most advanced at the time. The reason why the effect is so good is that the art team is awesome!

"World of Warcraft" released the news of selecting agents, Song Weiyang was surprised, and quickly asked Zulong Studio to speed up the development.

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