American video game developer Blizzard Entertainment has filed a lawsuit against Chinese mobile application and online game firm Unico Interactive for infringing its intellectual property rights in the upcoming free-to-play collectible card game "Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft."
According to reports, Blizzard and its Chinese partner Wangzhiyi (NetEase) claim that the Unico mobile game Legend of Crouching Tiger copied heavily from the Hearthstone without authorization. The suit, reports claim, seeks 10 million yuan (US$ 1.65 million) in damages and possibly an injunction against Unico requiring the company to completely shut down the Legend of Crouching Tiger game.
Blizzard finished the game last March and released it for an invite-only closed beta testing period. Unico launched its game last October. Last November, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime announced that the company was aware that a "copycat" game had recently been released and that they were in the process of taking legal action to protect their intellectual property rights.
Blizzard further announced that Hearthstone was now open to general beta testing and available for immediate download from its website. A final market version is expected to launch sometime later this year for PC and Macs. No release date for an iOS or Android version has been determined but sources expect both to be out before the end of the year.
The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court has accepted the suit but no hearing dates have been set.