Chinese court decides unfair competition covers game hacking

China's has seen a first Unfair Competition Case involving cheat-assisted game boosting Services.

Shanghai based gaming company MiHoYo took action against an e-commerce platform store called Yumo Power Leveling Studio alleging they illegally used cheats to provide power leveling services for the game Genshin Impact to increase efficiency. This generated illegal profits. The company sold over 7.6 million orders and generated over 7 million yuan in revenue apparently. MiHoYo filed an unfair competition lawsuit, demanding the studio cease the infringement and compensate them for their losses.

The Shangning District People's Court of Shanghai held that the defendant studio's use of cheats disrupted the normal operation of the game, affected the security and stability of the game servers, and damaged the gaming ecosystem. These practices were clearly unfair and constituted unfair competition. The court ultimately ordered the defendant to compensate MiHoYo for economic losses and reasonable expenses of 3 million yuan (USD420,000) and to publish an apology in the China Intellectual Property News.  

Game hacking is a complex area, sometimes Copyright Technical Protection Measures can apply, but this depends on the facts. Its interesting to see China’s courts once again expanding Unfair Competition to cover some of the more complex areas of IP violation.