The creators of one of the biggest hits of recent years are releasing new weapons to fight leaks. Users in the United States, Spain and Russia are now also under attack.
Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse (formerly MiHoYo) is again taking legal action against leaks of upcoming game updates. The company is targeting specific individuals.
At the request of Cognosphere, the publisher of Genshin Impact, The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a subpoena for any information in Twitter’s possession sufficient to identify three users in court: Merlin’s Impact, genshin world there X-widths.
All of the aforementioned accounts have shared content for upcoming game updates, including character animations, skins, and zone maps that have yet to be added to the game.
According information Hit by Axios in early February 2023, Cognosphere asked Twitter to remove numerous tweets from each of these users, to no avail. Currently, only the Merlin Impact account remains accessible.
It’s worth noting that the lawsuit wasn’t just about English accounts: Genshin World posted in Spanish and Xwides in Russian. This may mean that the creators of Genshin Impact are increasingly aware of the leak problem and intend to fight it outside of China as well.
A recurrent issue
This is another attempt by the studio to combat leaks. In 2021, the first major leak happened– A developer version of the 1.5 update has hit the web and HoYoverse has pledged to step up its efforts in the legal fight against this practice.
a few months later HoYoverse sued Chino Bilibili website (the local equivalent of Youtube), demanding the data to identify 11 people distributing leaked versions of future versions of the game. Access to its published content was immediately restricted.
That same year, the studio went on the warpath with the website Honey Impact, a comprehensive database that also publishes leaked data. despite a legal dispute The administrator of Honey Impact shirks his responsibilities. The website has not suspended operations and is still active.
Source: HoYover
The issue eased somewhat in 2022, although information about the next patch continued to emerge. The bomb exploded in early January 2023, when most of the data so far about the Genshin update leaked to the web about six months before its release. The internet has seen unrevealed character graphics from the new region, Fontaine, and story information. Turns out it was the result of a dispute between the runaways that got out of hand.
fight the windmills
Most Fontaine threads on Reddit have been deleted by admins, which does not discourage the community interested in leaks.
Despite reports of layoffs at HoYoverse and the studio winning lawsuits in the country, some of the leakers are still active. Most of the leaks come from HoYoverse employees in China who violate NDAs, which are then translated and reposted on numerous Twitter and YouTube accounts. The subreddit dedicated to Genshin Impact leaks has developed a system for judging its credibility, and every new piece of information is hotly debated. Although some gamers are against leaks and convict them for breaking the lawa vocal part of the community regards them as a necessary evil and claims that keep the game alive and replace an official roadmap.
However, it seems that three lawsuits are too few to solve not only the issue of copyright infringement, but also the fan division.
- Genshin Impact – official website
- HoYoVerse – official website