Riot Games creators of Valorant sue NetEase for plagiarism

NetEase has gotten into trouble with its mobile FPS dubbed Hyper Front, as Riot Games is suing the tech giant over what it believes is a copy of its own multiplayer shooter, Valorant.

Polygon reports thatIn a UK court filing, Riot claims that Hyper Front duplicates “substantial parts of Valorant”, such as characters, weapons, skins, maps and much more. The case has been taken to several other European countries, including Germany, Brazil, and Singapore, and while the individual cases have some slight variations, the gist of each is that Hyper Front is copying Valorant.

Riot Games’ lawyer, Dan Nabel, commented that “all of our creative choices are reflected in the NetEase game”. He further stated that “We don’t believe that changing the color of a character’s ability or slightly modifying the visual appearance changes the fact that this is copyright infringement.”

NetEase evidently tweaked the game slightly after Riot’s initial complaints, but Riot still feels that copyright infringement goes further and that these minor cosmetic differences leave Hyper Front in the same state. As a result, Riot is asking the court to close the NetEase title, while seeking an unspecified but “substantial” amount in damages.