Minovate (Chinese: 迷你玩), officially known as Shenzhen Minovate Technology Co., Ltd., is a video game company based in China, established as Miniwan on June 10, 2015, in Shenzhen. The company's main product is Mini World.[1]
 | |
Native name | 迷你玩 |
|---|---|
| Company type | Civilian-run enterprise |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | June 10, 2015 |
| Founders | Gu Zhenxing Zhang Zexiang |
| Headquarters | Shenzhen, Guangdong, China |
| Products | Mini World |
History
editMinovate was established as Miniwan on June 10, 2016 in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. In the same year, they developed the sandbox game Mini World.[1] The first version of Mini World was launched in 2016 and was officially released in the mobile app stores in Mainland China in the same year.[1] In 2017, Mini World announced that it had over 100 million users across multiple platforms in Mainland China.[1][2] In 2018, Mini World announced that its monthly active users had exceeded 50 million, and the number of registered users had broken through 200 million.[1][3] In 2019, Mini Coding was launched.[1]
Controversies
editPlagiarism controversy
editIn 2017, the Chinese version of Minecraft, represented by NetEase, was launched, and subsequently, a crackdown was carried out on games in Mainland China "suspected of piracy/copying Minecraft" (including Mini World).[4]
On August 15, 2017, NetEase issued a letter of rights protection to Minovate, accusing it of copying Minecraft, and demanded that the game be removed from the shelves. After the letter was sent, the gaming community TapTap temporarily removed the game from its platform, and it was re-listed shortly after. However, due to the claimed "copyright issues", the game was not available for download.[5]
In 2018, NetEase sued the operator of Mini World for infringing the copyright of the artistic works of Minecraft and demanded the removal of the infringing works, as well as cessation of unfair competitive practices. In the first trial, Minovate and Huaduo Company raised jurisdictional objections, but the court rejected them; they appealed to the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court, and the jurisdictional objections were accepted by the court, transferring the case to the Shenzhen Intermediate Court for trial. On October 13, 2018, NetEase withdrew the lawsuit against Minovate.[6]
In December 2020, the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court determined that 267 basic core elements in Mini World were substantially similar to the content in Minecraft, resulting in the game's visuals being substantially similar, and thus ruled that Mini World constituted an overall infringement. The court ordered Minovate Company to immediately cease the infringing actions, remove the 267 core elements involved in the case, and compensated NetEase with 21.1324 million yuan.[7][8]
Plants vs. Zombies agency incident
editIn 2024, Minovate's subsidiary, Hainan Mengxing, announced the agency of Plants vs. Zombies 3,[9][10] which caused dissatisfaction among some players of Minecraft and Plants vs. Zombies. Some Plants vs. Zombies players commented on the Bilibili game page.
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f "迷你创想 Minovate". www.mini1.cn. Retrieved 2024-07-05.
- ^ "迷你创想 Minovate". www.mini1.cn. Retrieved 2024-07-05.
- ^ "年度黑马《迷你世界》MAU达5000万，专访迷你玩创始人古振兴". www.sohu.com. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ^ "网易又发维权函：《迷你世界》侵权 赶紧删除". games.ifeng.com. Archived from the original on 2018-07-04. Retrieved 2018-07-04.
- ^ "迷你世界 | TapTap发现好游戏". TapTap. Archived from the original on 2018-08-12. Retrieved 2018-08-12.
- ^ 广东省深圳市中级人民法院 (2018-08-13). (in Chinese). 广东省深圳市 – via Wikisource.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ cnBeta (2020-12-31). "《我的世界》侵权案一审胜诉 网易获赔4000余万元". finance.sina.com.cn. Archived from the original on 2021-06-24. Retrieved 2020-12-31.
- ^ 广东省深圳市中级人民法院 (2020-12-20). (in Chinese). 广东省深圳市 – via Wikisource.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) [scan
]
- ^ "迷你枪战精英-官方网站". www.minifire.cn. Retrieved 2024-07-09.
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- ^ "bilibili游戏中心". www.biligame.com. Retrieved 2024-07-09.
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