Blizzard Suing Mobile Dev for ‘Massive’ Warcraft Copyright Infringement

Blizzard Entertainment has filed a lawsuit in California against Sina Games, stating that its free-to-play Glorious Saga is “almost entirely copied from the Warcraft games and related products.”As reported by Polygon, the lawsuit was filed on August 16, 2019, and Blizzard is “seeking a court order to stop the infringement and maximum damages for the “serious and irreparable harm to Blizzard and its business.””

Blizzard has asked for “$150,000 per infringed work,” which is in addition to attorneys’ fees and other charges deemed “just and appropriate.”

Sina Games is a subsidiary of Sina Corp. and Blizzard also alleges that “many” of company’s games are based off of existing properties, including Yu-Gi-Oh! and Naruto.

Glorious Saga is available in China, and in the US it can be downloaded from the Google Play Store as Glorious World. Its description paints the game as a “real time strategy game for building an empire.” Furthermore, even though the name is different, the screenshots still feature the name Glorious Saga on them.

“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.”

Glorious Saga appears to include “what seem to be copies of Illidan Stormrage, Grommash Hellscream, Malfurion,” and even the app icon looks extremely similar to the Battle of Azeroth expansion cover.

This news arrives shortly after the official launch of World of Warcraft Classic, which recently broke one million viewers on Twitch.