Webzen copied hit mobile game Lineage M, court rules

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Webzen copied hit mobile game Lineage M, court rules

Published: 18 Aug. 2023, 17:58

LEE JAE-LIM
lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr

Poster for NCSoft's Lineage M [NCSOFT]

Korean game publisher Webzen copied NCSoft’s popular mobile game Lineage M, a court ruled Friday.

The Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of NCSoft who filed a copyright infringement suit against Webzen’s mobile game R2M on June 2021.

“The defendant should compensate the plaintiff 1 billion won [$747,191],” the court said. “Further distribution of R2M, including promotions, are to be halted.”

R2M is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) released in August 2020, a mobile version of Webzen’s existing computer game R2.

NCSoft’s Lineage M is one of the most successful mobile games domestically and was released in June 2017. Due to its popularity, the Lineage franchise continued to be released, including Lineage2M and Lineage W.

NCSoft claimed that Webzen’s R2M mimicked Lineage M’s content and system from game settings to user interface.

“This is not a matter of merely copying a part of the game system,” NCSoft had said. “[Webzen] even mimicked the gameplay related to the in-game economy.”

Webzen retorted that Lineage M’s system derives from a 1987 video game Nethack developed with the NetHack DevTeam and that NCSoft “cannot argue that it is a copyright infringement just because the game rules are similar.”

“It’s meaningful that the company’s most crucial asset — the game’s intellectual property including copyright and its creativity were legally recognized by the court,” NCSoft said on Friday. “[However] we will raise the litigation sum through an appeal as the compensation handed out by the first court covers only part [of the damage].”

In April, NCSoft also filed a suit against Kakao Games and subsidiary XL Games for alleged copyright infringement of its Lineage2M online game.

Webzen said in a statement that it will "file for an appeal after reviewing the verdict."

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]