Blizzard Entertainment filed a lawsuit in California earlier this month that alleges developer Sina Games blatantly copied several elements of the Warcraft games in the latter studio’s free-to-play Glorious Saga. Glorious Saga is available in China and other markets, but in the United States, it’s notably available for download on the Google Play Store under a different name - Glorious World.
Glorious World is even listed under a different developer and name, although the screenshots are directly taken from Glorious Saga. Sina Games is an off-shoot of Sina Corp., a Chinese software and tech company. Sina Games has a number of titles available in the app store, with many of them straddling the line of legality thanks to having extreme similarities to other popular properties - beyond just Warcraft, Sina Games has titles that look remarkably like Naruto and Yu-Gi-Oh!, too.
According to a report from Polygon, Blizzard’s lawsuit is seeking a court order to stop what it perceives as infringement and is requesting maximum damages for what’s being described as “serious and irreparable harm to Blizzard and its business.” Blizzard is reportedly asking for $150,000 per infringed work as well as attorneys’ fees and other various requests that the court could deem “just and appropriate.” Blizzard’s lawyers say that Sina Games have attracted thousands of consumers" to Glorious Saga by ripping off Warcraft imagery, resulting in large profits for the studio at the cost of Blizzard’s hard work in establishing the brand.
Blizzard’s suit has a lot of different complaints, and all of them seem valid. Glorious Saga even blatantly uses Warcraft character names, including but not limited to Gul’dan, Malfurion, and even Jaina Proudmoore, the latter of which has been a consistent presence in recent WoW expansions. Blizzard’s lawyers have noted that Glorious Saga’s mobile icon also recreates the Battle for Azeroth expansion cover and swaps the side of the human and orc. The suit further alleges that “every” monster, vehicle, and animal were copied from Warcraft games, as well as audio cues and sound effects.
Sometimes, lawsuits over copyright or intellectual property infringement can be sloppy and difficult to prove. This is not one of those times. Nearly everything in Glorious Saga is a blatant ripoff of Warcraft aesthetic or lore, and given that Blizzard is looking for $150,000 per infringed work, it’s possible Sina Games will be no more by the time this lawsuit is settled. It will be interesting to see what response, if any, Sina Games has to the allegations - it seems like it will be difficult to prove the studio’s innocence given the amount of evidence currently available to download for free on the Google Play Store.
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Source: Polygon
