Kill of Three Kingdoms is a deck of cards. Different characters on the card have different skills, and the play is similar to the killing game. Some people regard it as a card version of the killing game. For the 6 million players in China, these don't need to be explained-according to the data provided by Youka, the production company of Three Kingdoms Kill, 6.5438+0 million sets of Three Kingdoms Kill were sold in two years, which is 6 million if there are 6 players in one set (each game can be used by 654.38+065.438+0 people at most).
Steal?
"The Three Kingdoms killed a thunderbolt! "Shanzhai version! "Someone in the" Three Kingdoms Kill "official website angrily revealed the bottom.
In 2006, when Kai Huang, a third-year student of Communication University of China, was distracted in class, he came up with a very "crossing" idea-for his favorite Italian card game Bang! Put on the familiar background of the Three Kingdoms and create a brand-new game. Huang Kai produced and released Kill of the Three Kingdoms within two years.
"Bang was born in 2002!" It is a very famous game. Huang Lei, a game designer, told Southern Weekend that "Three Kingdoms Kill" had an impact on Bang! "Many excellent improvements have been made, but in the eyes of the industry, it is still a' translated work'."
There are also netizens who support the "Three Kingdoms Kill" that the reference of the game mode cannot be called plagiarism or stealing. Netizen "Mysterious Extinction" said: "Have you ever played strong chess and monopoly?" The "Three Kingdoms Kill" only draws lessons from the game mode, if this is to "bang! If the original responsibility is investigated, I believe there will be more game rectification. "
The "cottage dispute" quickly went abroad. In June 2008, a player posted "Bang!" on the internationally famous board game website "Weird Board Games" In China ":As a board game, Youka released a game named" Kill of the Three Kingdoms "in China," Bang! "Is rapidly becoming popular in several big cities in China.
The post attracted "bang! Girba sorrentino, an employee of Leonardo da Vinci, the publisher of The Three Kingdoms, replied that he was annoyed: "Copyright is a controversial topic in board games, but The Kill of the Three Kingdoms copied Bang! "bang! "Only changing the background of the game and the name of the character constitutes a violation of" Bang! "Infringement of copyright."
"bang! Xia La, the designer of Three Kingdoms Kill, said in an email interview with Southern Weekend reporter that as early as two years ago, he began to pay attention to Three Kingdoms Kill and Bang! The development of games in China. "We think 80% are different. This is not a localization process. This is an original game. " Du Bin, CEO of Youka board game, told Southern Weekend reporter that Youka board game never denied that the game copied Bang! "Mechanism, but" Kill of the Three Kingdoms "shifted the focus of the mechanism to the military commanders and added many new mechanisms, which was highly recognized by players." This is actually very common in online games, such as the relationship between the eternal tower and World of Warcraft. They are also carved from the same mold, but it also has some original systems and plots. "
According to Kai Huang, the designer of Kill the Three Kingdoms, the so-called plagiarism is actually a matter of degree: "Bang!" It is not a completely original game, its guessing mechanism comes from the killing game, and the way of attacking with hand cards is not unique. This car has four wheels. I designed a two-wheeled car. Is this plagiarism? I will design another car without wheels. Is this original or plagiarism? If we just change the theme and do nothing, it must be plagiarism and shanzhai, but our situation is definitely not like that. "
"Whether it constitutes plagiarism is a lawyer's problem. We have an Italian proverb called "imitation is the best flattery". You can compare the two games and make your own judgment. " Xia La said he was more worried about Bang! China "pirated": "I personally know that at least two pirated games are directly copied from Bang! Translated into Chinese, even the name and box are exactly the same. "
Out of thin air?
Kai Huang is a fan of board games. In junior high school, he imitated the popular board game "Game King" with cardboard and drew more than 1000 game cards. He is also a fan of the "Three Kingdoms Game". He has played many games with the theme of the Three Kingdoms, such as "The History of the Three Kingdoms" and "True Three Kingdoms" ... His favorite is the arcade card game "The War of the Three Kingdoms".
After going to college, he learned more foreign classic games in the board game bar opened by foreign friends, one of which was Bang! 》。
This is a card game that has won many awards. With the shooting of the cowboy in the west as the background, there are four identities: sheriff, deputy sheriff, gangster and traitor. The core rule is that the gangsters get rid of the sheriff, the deputy sheriff helps the sheriff eliminate the gangsters and traitors, and the traitors strive to live to the end. The game has many characters such as sharpshooter, gambler and autopsy expert, as well as props such as guns, wild horses and beer.
Kai Huang was named "Bang! Fascinated: "the mechanism of this game is great, but the background and characters are a bit strange." All I could think of at that time was, can you make it a game close to China players? " He told Southern Weekend reporter.
He began to try to replace the role of the game with people around him, familiar friends, brothers in the same dormitory, and even teachers who are lecturing on the podium. He forced him to play the role of the game and tailored his unique skills for him. Soon, he thought of the "Three Kingdoms War"-it was better than "Bang! There are many people in the Three Kingdoms, all of whom he is familiar with. The story of the Three Kingdoms has a unique mass base in China and is an excellent adaptation theme. He immediately drew the first fictional character-Liu Bei.
"Liu Bei in my imagination is a man who doesn't like to talk much, but he is very powerful. He's kind of cool, with long hair and a moustache, "Kai Huang said. "At first, I wanted to paint a modern version or the feeling of an overhead world, and give everyone in the Three Kingdoms a brand-new design. Some people wear suits, some people wear T-shirts, and at first glance they know that they are from the Three Kingdoms. "
This creative method is very painful, and he soon gave up the modern version of the plan, and the selected military commander was directly matched with the illustration of the Japanese game "The True Three Kingdoms are Unique".
Three weeks later, Kai Huang completed the first molding version of the game-unparalleled version. He combined the killing game that was booming at that time and named the game "Three Kingdoms Kill".
This version is similar to Bang! Very similar, the player's four identities become master, loyal minister, anti-thief and traitor. The role of the game has also been replaced by Zhang Fei and Guan Yu. Kai Huang refers to "Bang!" Set a unique skill for each character, such as "Bang!" Billy the kid is here, and he can play "Bang!" Infinite in a round of games. And Zhang Fei in "Three Kingdoms Kill" can kill indefinitely.
Bang! Billy the kid (left) can play "Bang!" Countless times in a game. ; Accordingly, Zhang Fei (right) in Kill of Three Kingdoms can kill an infinite number of people.
At the end of 2006, Killing the Three Kingdoms began to spread in Tsinghua, Peking University and other universities. At that time, Du Bin, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science in Tsinghua, took the initiative to find Kai Huang, and they joined hands with the playing studio to improve the game.
The main direction of improvement is to get rid of Bang! The core of the game structure is the strategy of playing cards. They borrowed game elements such as World of Warcraft and killing games, and shifted the focus of the game to the role of military commanders.
They reduced the number of military commanders in the unparalleled edition from 40 to 25, found Yi Zhongtian's "Pinsan Kingdom" series and other versions of the story of the Three Kingdoms, repeatedly studied the life experience or personality characteristics of each military commander, and combined with the game mechanism to improve the skills of military commanders. They gave a very vivid name to Zhang Fei's continuous killing-roaring; Sun Shangxiang's unique skill is called "marriage", and the use of this skill also implies marriage-she can designate an injured male character by discarding two cards, and each card will regain a little strength.
The first principle of skill design is "easy to remember", and Liu Bei's skill is finally designed as "benevolence"-dealing cards to other players. "Being good at using small favors to win people's hearts is the most widely known aspect of Liu Bei's character. The characters in the Three Kingdoms are very complicated, and Guan Yu also has a proud side, but I can't give up his most representative courage because of this. " Guan Yu's skill was finally designed as a "warrior saint"-any red card will be killed.
Two function cards have been added to offset the effect-"impeccable" and "blocked". At the same time, in the "bang! Weapon cards that only undertake the function of distance calculation also have unique functions.
"The promotion of military commanders, skills and weapons, coupled with the closeness to the background of the Three Kingdoms, makes the playability of the Three Kingdoms Kill surpass Bang! ".Player Sol told Southern Weekend reporter.
Compared to Bang! Simple characters and the painting style of Three Kingdoms Killing are also widely praised. Sol thinks that the illustrations of Kill of the Three Kingdoms have a strong Japanese comic style, such as Sun Shangxiang's amazing breasts, while Zhang Fei reminds many players of the guy who will suck blood in Kill of the Three Kingdoms-arcade game Swallows Heaven and Earth, Japan.
June 5438+October 2008 10, the "Promotion Edition" of Kill of the Three Kingdoms was officially listed, with the first print of 5,000 sets, and the retail price of each set was 64 yuan. The first batch of 1000 sets of numbered limited edition were sold out quickly, and the rest were sold out in less than half a year. Du Bin and Huang Kai formally established a company, one as the CEO and the other as the chief designer.
Liu Xiaochun, an intellectual property expert and lecturer at China Youth University for Politics, told Southern Weekend that he added China local culture on the basis of some foreign table game rules and made new creations in characters, plots, props and many other aspects. In this case, whether it constitutes an infringement of the original right of the game is a complicated problem.
Desktop game is a combination of a series of creative elements, including game rules, card patterns, role names and so on. Some elements, such as original card design, game trademark and game description, can be protected by copyright law and trademark law, but whether other elements can be protected by the existing intellectual property system is still in doubt. For example, although the game rules themselves may condense a lot of intellectual creation of game developers, if they are not embodied in tangible forms such as words, or imitators do not copy the rules directly, but describe them in completely different ways, then they cannot constitute infringement in the sense of copyright.
"In short, if you don't directly copy the rules of the game, it is difficult to determine that it constitutes infringement in the sense of copyright." Liu Xiaochun said.
Games like Feng, if they only use the names of the characters in the works without using specific plots and scenes, are generally not considered infringement. This involves the "commercialization right" of the role of the work. This right has been recognized to a certain extent in the judicial practice of Japan, the United States and many other countries, but there is no such explicit right in China. So far, it cannot be protected by copyright law and trademark law.
At present, "bang! A brand-new expansion will be launched soon, including some interesting characters with 9 drops of blood. Xia La told Southern Weekend reporter happily that Neuschwanstein Castle Company from Taiwan Province Province is currently in contact with Bang! China official version ",China players will soon be able to play the original" Bang! 》。
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