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In South Korea, Dark Souls has a following and fans. You'd think the makers of popular mobile game Blade would know they couldn't get away with ripping it off. You'd think!


As tipster Sang points out, recently released action RPG Blade has hit number one on Google Play's Top Grossing chart in South Korea. Developed by South Korean studio 4:33 Creative Lab, Blade was also released on iOS. The game's ad has been accused of knocking off Dark Souls promotional art.

Courtesy of Game Donga (via Sang), here is Dark Souls.


And here is the Blade advert, which appeared on Korean commuter trains.

Korean Dark Souls fans were quick to note that Blade's advertisement seems to look familiar. But the similarities don't stop there. On Korean bulletin board Today's Humor, stills from Blade trailer were compared with stills from the Dark Souls II trailer.

Below, you can see sets of images from both trailers (the Dark Souls II images are on the top of each set, with the Blade images underneath for comparison). Note that the Dark Souls II trailer is from 2012, and the Blade trailer is from this past spring.





This is rather blatant! Gamemeca reports that 4:33 has taken down the Blade ad from Korean trains.

"We generally do not use an ad agency but in these two cases we did," 4:33 told Gamemeca (via Sang). "We've worked with an outside ad agency to create and run these promotions. There is a clause in our contract with them saying the agency will fully be responsible if there is any third party copyright violation. We've sent the agency a legal note saying they've damaged our image."


블레이드, 광고표절논란으로 화들짝. 큰손해 감수하고 즉각 대응 [Game Donga Thanks, Sang!]

To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft .

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