China online games publisher and developer, Shanda Games, did the rather unthinkable a few days back when it lodge a police report against a new and much smaller development studio on the basis of IP infringement.
You see, the new studio is made up of ex-employees of Shanda Games, core staff who worked on the game which brought Shanda to the limelight back in 2003, The World of Legend (a copycat version of Legend of Mir 2).
Shanda Games is accusing the studio’s first title, loosely translated as “Battle of the Dragon Realms”, of having similar assets and features as The World of Legend. Police raided the studio and arrested 3 employees. This happened despite official documents from the government which sanctioned the development.
This incident is rather peculiar, as The World of Legend was actually a duplicate of Legend of Mir 2 back then, with Shanda getting into a nasty lawsuit with original developers WeMade which only settled after 6 years of court battle.
Despite being China’s second biggest online gaming company, Shanda Games made several weird decisions over the years, including the current dire situation of RIFT China, with only the acquisition of Dragon Nest developer Eyedentity Games as the only sound piece of business decision.
