NCSoft lost again on appeal in a copyright infringement lawsuit it filed, alleging that Kakao Games' mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) "ArcheAge War" plagiarised its game "Lineage2M".

The Seoul High Court's Civil Division 5-2, chaired by judges Kim Dae-hyun, Kang Seong-hoon and Song Hye-jeong, on March 12 rejected NCSoft's appeal in a lawsuit seeking to stop copyright infringement against Kakao Games and its development unit XL Games.

The court rejected NCSoft's copyright infringement claims, ruling that it was difficult to see the plaintiff's game as having reached a work with creativity and individuality that distinguishes it from earlier games. On the claim of unfair competition, it also found that some of the elements cited by the plaintiff, such as scenarios, characters, items and the user interface, belong to a public domain that anyone can freely use.

NCSoft filed the lawsuit in April 2023, alleging that ArcheAge War copied the user interface, character progression methods and convenience functions of Lineage2M, which it released in 2019. It specifically claimed that the following were almost identical: a system in which weapon types and skills are limited by class; a system that combines 4 classes of the same grade; a class collection completion system; a reward system for completing quests on specific dates; a character alignment score system; settings items; and the basic screen layout.

But in January last year, the first-instance court ruled in favour of Kakao Games, finding that Lineage2M's systems also lacked originality because they modified rules from earlier games such as Ragnarok M (2018) and V4 (2019). At the time, the court said that ideas that fall under game rules or the way a game is played are not subject to copyright protection even if originality or novelty is recognised.

The appeals court maintained the same reasoning. It ruled that the components of the plaintiff's game were implemented by borrowing and modifying earlier games, and that the components could not be seen as implemented as they were in the defendant's game. It therefore concluded that it was difficult to view the plaintiff's game as a protected work with creativity and individuality.

A Kakao Games official said, "We respect the appeals court's ruling, and we will do our best to provide stable service for ArcheAge War."