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Blizzard Entertainment has filed a lawsuit against Sina Games, claiming the latter’s Glorious Saga free-to-play mobile game is “almost entirely copied from the Warcraft games and related products”.
Lodging the complaint in Californian law on August 16th, 2019, Polygon reports that Blizzard deems the game to pose “serious and irreparable harm to Blizzard and its business” and requests $150K “per infringed work”, along with “just and appropriate” fees, including attorney costs. It is also seeking a court order to stop the alleged infringement.
Known as Glorious Saga in China – and Glorious World elsewhere, including the UK – Blizzard says the game includes “objects […] taken straight from the Warcraft games”.
“Every monster, creature, animal, and vehicle in the Infringing Game was copied from the Warcraft games,” the suit alleges. “Weapons, amulets, and other objects were taken straight from the Warcraft games, without pretense. Audio cues and sound effects from the Warcraft games were reproduced for the Infringing Game.”
Blizzard further alleges that other games in the company’s portfolio may also infringe other copyrights, including Yu-Gi-Oh! and Naruto. Blizzard’s lawyers maintain that even Glorious Saga’s mobile icon is taken from World of Warcraft’s Battle of Azeroth expansion cover, with both images featuring a human and an orc-like character eye-to-eye.
Glorious World describes itself on the Google Play storefront as “a serious [sic] of free rpg game developed by instantfuns”. At the time of writing, 41 reviews have awarded it 2 stars out of 5, with many commenters complaining that it “rips off” World of Warcraft.
Neither Blizzard, its lawyers, nor Sina Games have yet responded to Polygon’s request for comment.
