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En Masse comments on NCsoft TERA lawsuit

by Jef Reahard on Jan 27th 2012 9:30AM

Fantasy, MMO Industry, New Titles, News Items, Legal, TERA

En Masse Entertainment has commented on a pending lawsuit by NCsoft that seeks to prevent the North American launch of TERA. As you would expect, there is virtually no detail on the proceedings, but En Masse publishing vice president Chris Lee does come out swinging, saying that the firm "outright rejects" NCsoft's position and will fight it to the last.

NCsoft has alleged that former employees stole Lineage 3 code and art assets that were used to make TERA, and the firm has already scored a legal victory in Korea that resulted in jail time for some of the ex-staffers.

How all of this affects TERA's U.S. release is unclear, though Lee says it's business as usual for En Masse and its fans. "This situation has no impact on our continuing efforts to realize the vision we have for our game. We are committed to making TERA awesome and delivering the game to you on time on May 1st," he writes.

Source: TERA forums
More coverage: Official site

Tags: bluehole, bluehole-studio, chris-lee, en-masse, en-masse-entertainment, fantasy, lawsuit, ncsoft, ncsoft-lawsuit, ncsoft-tera-lawsuit, tera, tera-lawsuit, tera-release-date

Reader Comments (64)

It's kind of funny that NCSoft decided to file a lawsuit after TERA's launch was announced and everything. Wonder if they'll try to just yoink the nearly finished game from En Masse so they can use it themselves or whatnot.

@Sorithal I think that they legally had to wait for the launch to be announced because you can't ask for a delay in the planned release date when there is no release date to begin with.

@Sorithal maybe because having a release date gave ncsoft legal standing to file in the U.S. Since the U.S courts are more strict on enforcing copyright than then korean courts.

@silver001 Nope. You can enjoin a product before it actually has a release date, especially if you believe it is using stolen assets.

@darzin that would be true if the crime happen in the U.S.A, but it happen elsewhere so the courts here will need to know if the was an intent to release in the U.S.

@plegnic

Really? Because Bethesda filed lawsuit after lawsuit against the Fallout Online developers when they were still working on it, and no release date was mentioned.

Though I guess that could be different than what NCsoft's filing a lawsuit for.

@Sorithal That because it happen in the U.S, so its a U.S copyright thing. Ncsoft had no jurisdiction to file here until En Masse, announced a release date so now the U.S became a jurisdiction.

To sum it up, without a release date the U.S court would be blind since there is no intent to release in the U.S jurisdiction.

it's funny how En Masse is made of former Ncsoft west employees. Just like bluehole studios in korea.

@silver001 Well, it's also Blizzard employees, Patrick Wyatt and other veterans.

@Braiks I know that but all the higher ups like chris lee was the president of Ncwest a few ago.

@silver001 En Masse was setup by BHS, they are a wholly owned subsidiary not a separate company.

So it isn't surprising that they are both formed of people from the same company.

@silver001 um... that's technically the crux of this whole lawsuit thing. If En Masse didn't employ a couple of disgruntled NCSoft ex-employees then there would be no lawsuit.

@(Unverified)

No En Masse IS Blue Hole Studios, they are the same company.

@(Unverified)

Not exactly. even if EME had no actual former NcSoft employees, the lawsuit would still be valid as the manner of how the game itself came to be is still questionable. The inclusion of former NcSoft employees at EME just gives NcSoft that much ammunition to use in their case.

@bobfish Ahhh... well I was wondering about that, thanks for the revelation!

Well, hopefully it all gets worked out. And let's also hope that we can get the game on time.

I'm in need of an action mmo.

@Grumms

Same here. this is a hopeful sign, though.

@Grumms Ramen to that!

You! /looks at NCSoft

You! /looks at Blue Hole Studios

Settle this in an amiable way so we gamers can get on with the aim casting and dynamic edged-weapon juggling!!

If BH and EME have any common sense at all, they would have coded around anything that NCsoft could even potentially claim as theirs. Though... that would explain all the silence and delays...

@(Unverified) I think it is more to do with concept and design than raw code.

It is unclear exactly what in TERA came from L3, but we do know that they used L3 demo code to present to potential investors in Japan when they were setting up BHS, rather than a demo of TERA itself.

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En Masse comments on NCsoft TERA lawsuit

Reader Comments (64)

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 9:36AM Sorithal said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 9:57AM plegnic said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 9:57AM silver001 said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 10:00AM darzin said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 10:06AM silver001 said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 11:00AM Sorithal said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 11:15AM silver001 said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 9:40AM silver001 said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 9:56AM Braiks said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 9:58AM silver001 said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 12:44PM bobfish said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 1:10PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 1:16PM bobfish said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 2:33PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 28th 2012 6:47AM Cyroselle said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 9:49AM Grumms said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 1:28PM NeverDeath said

Posted: Jan 28th 2012 6:51AM Cyroselle said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 9:50AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 27th 2012 12:47PM bobfish said

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