Offside game

The "Dream Cup" gaming tournament has concluded, with the Dream Team living up to expectations and winning the CS championship. Winners were also announced for other games. Following the awards ceremony, some of the top three finishers in StarCraft, Counter-Strike, and FIFA signed contracts with the Dream Gaming Club, becoming professional players for the club.

On May 10th, Lechang Live was updated again, adding a Lechang Doctor tool that can detect and remove some popular Trojans, viruses, and malicious software. This included a malicious tool from a certain shopping website.

When "Evolution" completed its one-month open beta, it had already reached 3000 million users, with a peak concurrent user count of 520 million. This achievement puts it at a level that all other online games currently dwarf.

After fixing some bugs and incorporating user feedback and suggestions, the game's paid operation will soon begin.

Lechang Network will no longer sell game points separately for the game "Evolution". Like other platforms within the company, "Evolution" will use Lechang points for top-ups. A 10-Lechang coin point card can be redeemed for 200 game points, equivalent to 20 hours of game time. Currently, monthly game cards are only available to Lechang VIP members. Players who are VIP members of Lechang Chat, Battle Platform, or Space can redeem a monthly subscription service for 600 game points.

It's important to note that due to varying price levels, the price of Lechang Coin recharge cards differs across countries. For example, a 10-Lechang Coin recharge card costs approximately 10 RMB in China, but around 5 USD in Europe and America—a difference of over 40 times. Therefore, to prevent cross-border Lechang Coin recharges, recharge card numbers are different for each country. Players whose country is selected as the United States cannot use Lechang Coin recharge cards sold in China to purchase Lechang services. Furthermore, in *Evolution*, points are not directly purchased with Lechang Coins; instead, they are redeemed using the corresponding recharge card number and password, thus minimizing the possibility of cross-border recharge transactions.

Just as Evolution Online had just started charging fees and Su Yi hadn't even had time to get excited about the booming sales of Lechang Coin recharge cards around the world, he encountered a major spoils of the mood.

Su Yi received a call from Liu Jun, the president of Dream International, while at school, and then went to the Century Building. Inside the office, Liu Jun handed him a document.

This matter involves a lawyer's letter from Shenzhou Software. The letter alleges that Lechang Network's online gaming platform's services for several games, including popular titles like *StarCraft*, *Half-Life: Counter-Strike*, and *Red Alert 2*, infringed upon Shenzhou Software's rights. Shenzhou Software is the sole distributor of these games in China. The letter demands that Lechang Network immediately cease these infringing activities and compensate them for the losses caused by the infringement, with the requested damages amounting to a staggering 2 million yuan…

"Brother Liu, what do you think?" Su Yi asked Liu Jun after carefully reading the lawyer's letter.

"They're doing this purely for profit. Think about it: they didn't protest our services before, but now that broadband is being rolled out nationwide, it speaks volumes. We'd already started charging for services before, but even if their protests or lawsuits were successful, they wouldn't have gained market share because they lack our data compression and encryption technology. However, they see the era of personal broadband networks is just around the corner, and even without our powerful technology, they can still offer online gaming services, so they're starting to target us."

Liu Jun's words made perfect sense. Placing this matter within the current domestic context makes it easy to see the driving factors behind the incident. Su Yi nodded in agreement with Liu Jun's analysis, signaling him to continue.

"After investigation, we discovered a month ago that Shenzhou Software Company had created an interactive game platform similar to our Lechang gaming platform, called the China Game Interactive Platform. Their actions this time are simply aimed at squeezing our dominant platform out of the market. It must be said that this company is quite powerful. If we lose the games they distribute, which currently have the largest player base, then we are destined to be limited to a casual game platform. After dealing with us, they can continue to target platforms like QQ Games, Haofang, and China Broadband, based on their status as distributors, ultimately aiming to monopolize the domestic market. However, their status also means that they are limited to the domestic market."

“We cannot give up this market. Have you asked our legal counsel what our chances of winning are if we insist on going to court?”

“Legally speaking, there are currently no specific laws in China regarding the online copyright of game products. Furthermore, we can only be considered a platform provider; we haven't committed any direct infringement. Generally speaking, game distribution contracts for Chinese companies shouldn't involve online multiplayer. Although we don't yet know the specific details of the contracts between Shenzhou Software and those companies, they shouldn't be too different. So, if we go all out, our chances of success are over 50%,” Liu Jun continued. “Of course, there's also the simplest method. We already have the European and American licenses for the games on the HappyPlay platform we acquired. We just need to upgrade these licenses to global coverage. However, there are rumors that Shenzhou Software is also seeking online licenses for the Chinese market from those game developers. But with our company's partner relationships, securing global licenses for many games shouldn't be difficult. The most important factor is Blizzard Entertainment. They have their own platform and they value its development and promotion, having long since stopped licensing online multiplayer to other companies.”

This is quite a headache. Su Yi thought for a moment and said to Liu Jun, "Given the current situation, we can't accept their conditions. We can send someone to communicate with Shenzhou Software for now; Brother Liu can arrange that. However, this probably won't yield any results. Our main focus is preparing for the upcoming lawsuit from Shenzhou Software. We need to hire the best legal team to handle this case. Our goal is to win, if possible, before a better solution is found, or at least to delay it indefinitely. In addition, the public relations department needs to take action, handle the crisis, and wage a media war. It seems that Shenzhou Software itself isn't entirely clean either; we can't let them easily stand on the moral high ground."