As the gaming industry matures and market competition intensifies, legal conflicts over copyright are on the rise globally. In Korea, the legal battle between Nexon and Ironmace over 'Dark and Darker' continues, and internationally, Nintendo has filed a claim against Pocketpair to block the use of 'Palworld' IP, citing patent infringement. A major game company that is never absent from such discussions in Korea is NCSoft.

NCSoft has filed lawsuits against Kakao Games, XL Games, and Webzen, alleging copyright infringement. They appealed after losing the first trial against Kakao Games and XL Games, while they won the second trial against Webzen. In these cases, the courts dismissed NCSoft's copyright infringement claims, and in the second trial, only Webzen's violation of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act was acknowledged. Even now, NCSoft maintains its stance that it will 'do its utmost to protect its intellectual property.'

From a game company's perspective, responding to acts that infringe upon their own IP is perfectly natural. However, NCSoft, which emphasized 'IP protection' while suing various domestic game companies, has shown a blunt perception regarding the protection of other companies' copyrights. During a special broadcast on the official 'Aion 2' YouTube channel on October 14, they introduced one of the game's contents, the 'Arena', using images from Ubisoft's action game 'For Honor'.

Looking at the 'Aion 2' Arena images revealed in the broadcast, it is not just a case of referencing 'For Honor' screenshots to create something similar. They separated character images from the background and slightly altered the floor and colors. It can be seen as an intentional appropriation beyond simple usage.

Many companies, including game developers, often use third-party images for internal reference when developing new products, and there is no problem with that. However, making them public is a different matter. Of course, they likely won't use the 'For Honor' images in the actual game, but the negative label of 'third-party image theft' has been attached to the game even before its release.

Furthermore, even two weeks after the broadcast, there has been no official response to the incident. As of October 30, the highlight video containing the problematic screenshot remains unedited, and despite numerous comments and articles, there has not been a single word on their official website or YouTube channel. 'For Honor' is a long-standing Ubisoft title released in 2017 and still in service, and this incident has even reached the international community on 'Reddit', causing embarrassment on a global scale.

Of course, development and marketing schedules can be tight as the launch approaches. However, the lack of follow-up measures despite loud criticism regarding the 'For Honor image theft allegations' is fatal in terms of corporate image management. For a large game company with over 20 years of history and more than 3,000 employees, it is embarrassing to claim that they could not thoroughly inspect the content due to a lack of manpower or systems.

In particular, as mentioned earlier, NCSoft has strongly asserted the protection of its own IP while suing many major domestic game companies. In such a situation, using images from Ubisoft's 'For Honor', a representative European game company, to introduce content in an important broadcast before the game's release is neither respectful to other companies' works nor morally appropriate. If your own game's copyright is precious, you must thoroughly respect the copyrights of others. This is not a matter to be neglected just because you are busy before a launch.