Shanda liscenes Korean MMO for the Chinese market

Gamasutra had a really interesting piece up a few days ago entitled The China Angle: All Sins Forgiven, in light of the news that Shanda Interactive Entertainment was licensing the third online game of Korean company Wemade for the Chinese market. It's the second for Shanda, and the continuing relationship is proof that the huge potential market of mainland China is too much for companies to resist.

Despite Legend of Mir 2's popularity, Actoz terminated Shanda's license for the game in January 2003. Shanda continued to operate the game without a license and without technical support. In February 2003, Wemade started an investigation of World of Legend, a new MMORPG Shanda was developing in-house that shared many similarities with Legend of Mir 2, including name, content, and playing style. A month later, Wemade licensed the next game in the Mir series to Guangdong based Optisp. Wemade's legal battle against Shanda dragged on for another two years.

"Intellectual property rights? What intellectual property rights?" is a point of view that runs pretty deeply in China (and to a slightly lesser extent, Taiwan), and has incurred the wrath of some very big companies. But considering the potential goldmine waiting to be tapped, and Shanda's position as the most prominent game operators on the Mainland, it's not surprising that Wemade would come back for a (hopefully more productive/less lawsuit heavy) third round with Shanda.

And proving just how seriously Chinese gamers take their gaming, the article has this nice little side note on an incident surrounding accounts on a popular MMO being suspended for cheating:

Two days after Moliyo's announcement, a group of gamers stormed into and vandalized Moliyo's Shanghai office. In the aftermath, it appeared as if a tornado swept through the office. Graffitied on the office walls were phrases like "reactivate accounts," "return money," and "deceived gamers." Three were led away by the police.

Oh, China. Never a dull moment.

The China Angle: All Sins Forgiven [Gamasutra]