Korean Game Developers Say They Suffer Seriously from Chinese Pirated Copies

[Len]

The Korea Association of Game Industry, or K-GAMES, which is consisted of the nation’s leading game developers such as Nexon, NCsoft, Netmarble Games and NHN Entertainment, announced a statement that Chinese gaming companies have reached a very serious level of copyright infringement and the stronger measures need to be taken at the government level to improve the current situation.

According to the K-GAMES on November 23, Chinese gaming firms are indiscriminately releasing games that exactly copied popular Korean games. Recently, they are not only copying computer graphics and the way of play but also characters, skills and their names. Dozens of copycat games that infringed the copyright of Nexon’s Dungeon & Fighter which leads the "hallyu" craze, or the Asia-wide boom of Korean culture in the Chinese gaming market, are illegally in service every year. Moreover, about 20 pirated copies that infringed the copyright of Battlegrounds, which is considered a next-generation hallyu game product, are already illegally in service before the official launch.

In addition, a large number of Korean games that are raising the status of Korea in China, including Webzen’s MU Online, NCsoft’s Aion Tempest and Blade & Soul, Netmarble’s Stone Age, WeMade’s Legend of Mir, SundayToz’s Anipang and Party Games’ I Love Coffee, are struggling with piracy.

An official from the K-GAMES said, “Chinese pirated games are causing huge material, psychological and economic losses for domestic game developers and the losses are snowballing year after year. Korean gaming companies are actively blocking the service and filing a lawsuit for copyright infringement through their Chinese partner companies but those are not practical solutions as it takes a long time for a court to make a final decision due to the nature of international litigation.”

In this regard, the K-GAMES has urged the government to take firm action. An official from the K-GAMES said, “The government should come up with the effective measures that stop Chinese piracy and protect the right of Korean firms as soon as possible for the Korean game developers to have normal service competition and spread the game hallyu.”