The court ruled in favor of Kakao Games in the plagiarism lawsuit filed by NCSOFT.
The Seoul Central District Court's Civil Division 63 ruled against the plaintiff on the 23rd in a copyright infringement injunction lawsuit filed by NCSOFT against Kakao Games and its development subsidiary XL Games.
The court noted, "We dismiss all claims by the plaintiff against the defendants."
Previously, NCSOFT filed a lawsuit claiming that Kakao Games' multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) "Archeage War," released in 2023, plagiarized "Lineage2M."
"Archeage War" is a PC and mobile MMORPG created by XL Games, utilizing the intellectual property (IP) of "Archeage," which was released in 2013. It ranked high in app market sales shortly after its 2023 release.
However, some gamers and YouTubers pointed out that the user interface (UI) and overall game system of "Archeage War" are excessively similar to other MMORPGs, especially "Lineage2M."
In response, NCSOFT stated in April 2023, "We believe that 'Archeage War' has heavily borrowed many contents and systems from our representative work 'Lineage2M' (released in 2019), and has unlawfully exploited and plagiarized NCSOFT's intellectual property (IP), deviating from genre similarities," and filed a lawsuit in court.
A representative from Kakao Games said after the trial, "We respect the court's decision."
NCSOFT stated, "We will carefully review the judgment document and seek to have it reassessed through a higher court."