Blizzard sues makers of Chinese Hearthstone knock-off game Sleeping Dragon

Blizzard’s Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft hasn’t quite hit open beta in China yet, but that hasn’t stopped it from being so popular that someone has already cloned it. China’s Unico Interactive created this game, called Sleeping Dragon: Heroes of the Three Kingdoms for iOS and Android and, to put it mildly, it looks pretty similar to Hearthstone.

Sleeping Dragon on top, Hearthstone on the bottom. Notice any similarities?

The similarities are even more damning when you compare Sleeping Dragon to the Chinese version of Hearthstone:

Now Blizzard is suing Unico for copyright violation, and has asked for 10 million RMB (about $1.6 million) in damages. What China’s courts will find is anyone’s guess, of course, but Blizzard is bringing the suit in cooperation with Netease, its domestic partner, which presumably has better connections (and lawyers) than the smaller company Unico.

Sleeping Dragon has supposedly been licensed by Chinese publisher The9, but I haven’t found any evidence of that on the game’s official site and The9 wasn’t named in Blizzard and Netease’s lawsuit. However, it’s possible the company will be named in a subsequent claim.

Anyway, just how much of a clone is Sleeping Dragon? Stay tuned as our man Iain will have a hands-on post about the game coming later today.