A few days ago, because of the plagiarism of in-game characters, Tencent's "Glory of Kings" and NetEase's "Onmyoji" "quarreled", and the relevant entries rushed to the hot search on multiple platforms, attracting widespread attention.
NetEase "Onmyoji", Tencent "Glory of Kings"
Accusing each other of plagiarism
At 19:47 on March 21st, NetEase's well-known game "Onmyoji" mobile game official Weibo @NetEase Onmyoji Mobile Game Aite King Glory official Weibo said: "Although we are going to produce the God of Wealth, but Xiao Wang himself has made a lot of money, right? This paragraph is suspected of implying that the characters of "Honor of Kings" are plagiarized.
At 18:52 on March 22, @网易阴阳师手游 said that he had sent a lawyer's letter to Tencent's "Honor of Kings". According to the lawyer's letter, Tencent released materials in the game "Glory of Kings" that were suspected of infringing NetEase's game "Onmyoji" without the permission of NetEase, including the "Honor of Kings" game character skin "Li Bai Broken Moon Kenshin" suspected of infringing the game character "Susanoo" of "Onmyoji", and the game materials of "Glory of Kings" and "Dasi Ming" were suspected of infringing on the "SP God Apocalypse" in "Onmyoji".
Regarding the "Glory of Kings" 'Li Bai Broken Moon Kenshin' is suspected of infringing on "Onmyoji" Susanoo, and the game materials of "Glory of Kings" and "Dasi Order" are suspected of infringing on the 'SP God Apocalypse' in "Onmyoji" mentioned in the lawyer's letter", multiple comparison pictures have also appeared on the online platform.
On the left is "Glory of Kings" Li Bai Broken Moon Kenshin Right is "Onmyoji" Susanoo Source: Internet
The left is the "Glory of Kings" Da Si Ming The right is "Onmyoji" SP God Apocalypse Source: Internet
Late at night on March 22, "Honor of Kings" issued a statement on Weibo saying that it has completed the investigation and evidence collection for the series of malicious behaviors of some games today and in the past, and will take legal measures to seriously fight back.
Not long after responding to "Glory of Kings", at 1 a.m. on March 23, @网易阴阳师手游 posted a "?" and a picture with the words of the character Kagura in the game, "I don't know when I can practice such a skill...", which is suspected of responding to @KingGlory.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time that "Honor of Kings" has been accused of plagiarism. In April 2022, NetEase's game "Painted Traveler in Time and Space" posted an official Weibo post, saying that Tencent's mobile game "Honor of Kings" plagiarized its original design drawings, and then related keywords quickly rushed to the top of the hot search list. Soon after the incident fermented, the Honor of Kings supplier Full Speed Network issued an announcement saying, "The column announcement map designed for Honor of Kings may be similar to other product announcement pictures, and the actual situation of the design creation is being urgently investigated."
In October 2021, the "Honor of Kings" IP new game "Codename: Zero Three" was revealed to be plagiarizing "Genshin Impact" promotional poster, which used the material of "Genshin Impact" Starfall Lake, after the incident, the official issued an apology the next day, and said that this incident is mainly an issue of the outsourcing company that produced the poster, and Tencent will seriously deal with the relevant personnel of this incident.
Disputes over plagiarism in the game industry are not uncommon, but some people in the legal profession said that judging "plagiarism" from a judicial perspective is not a "clear at a glance" thing, and the determination of specific cases is often quite complicated.
The performance of the game is outstanding
"Honor of Kings" is one of Tencent's most prominent games. Tencent's 2023 financial report shows that in 2023, Tencent will achieve revenue of 609.015 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10%, and a net profit of 157.688 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36%. In 2023, Tencent's game business revenue will reach 179.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5%.
In addition, Tencent's financial report also mentioned that in 2023, Tencent's annual turnover in the domestic market will exceed 4 billion yuan, and the quarterly average daily active user scale will exceed 5 million (mobile games) or 2 million (PC games), and the number of key popular games will increase from 6 to 8. Driven by this, Tencent's domestic game market will recover in 2023, with revenue increasing by 2% year-on-year to 126.7 billion yuan. With the steady contribution of popular games such as "Honor of Kings" and "Peace Elite", as well as the excellent performance of new games such as "Valorant" and "Ark of Destiny", Tencent Games' performance in the domestic market will pick up in 2023.
NetEase's 2023 financial report shows that NetEase's annual revenue reached 103.5 billion yuan, an increase of 7.3% from 96.5 billion yuan in the same period in 2022, and the net profit was 32.6 billion yuan, a sharp increase of 44.64%. The game business is the main pillar of NetEase's revenue, with full-year revenue reaching 81.6 billion yuan in 2023, net income increasing by 9.6% year-on-year, and gross profit margin increasing to 69.5%. Among NetEase's game products, "Egg Boy Party" occupies an important position, and the cumulative number of registered users of the game has now reached 500 million.