Webzen lost an appeal in a certificate of copyright violations and is obliged to pay NCSOFT $ 11 million and close the R2 Mobile. This is the second court decision in the dispute of two companies, which began almost four years ago. Then the players and authors of Lineage M noticed too many borrowings that go beyond the “genre similarities”.
In its lawsuit, NCSOFT indicated that many elements of the game were subjected to copying: the interface and the location of the icons, the system of transformations and agac, characters, the “Einhasad blessing”, the weight and overload of the character. Copying concerned both the general meaning of the mechanic and numerical values. For example, the chances of falling out things and successful sharpening coincided up to three signs after aim.
Representatives of Webzen explained the similarity by the fact that the game interface is a well -established standard familiar to the players, and it cannot be patented. In addition, Game mechanics, according to them, NCSoft also previously borrowed from other games, including Nethack’s roars, released in 1987.
However, the court has already sided with NCSOFT, even though the R2 Mobile has made changes to reduce the number of borrowing. The first decision was announced in August 2023, and then Webzen was obliged to pay about 800 thousand dollars and stop servicing the game. However, the company decided to appeal and try to prove its innocence again.
The second court decision, voiced on March 27, 2025, set a record amount of a fine for proceedings related to copyright violations in the South Korean Game Industry. Initially, NCSoft demanded about $ 40 million, but the court decided that 10% of the total profit of the R2 Mobile would be sufficient compensation.
Commenting on the second court decision, representatives of NCSOFT and Webzen said the following:
“We respect the court’s decision and will continue to do everything possible to protect our intellectual rights and game content, which are our main assets,” the representative of NSSOFT.
“We plan to appeal as soon as possible and petition for a court prohibition for the suspension of service,” the representative of Webzen.
