14 DAY TRIAL // Video game and magazine publisher, Soft-World International, is the largest software distributor in the Chinese market, and currently handling Chinese language versions of popular MMOs RF Online, World of Warcraft and Ragnarok Online, amongst others. Square-Enix is a very powerful publishing house, originally coming from Japan and highly regarded on the market for their innovative titles, including the famous Final Fantasy franchise. Unfortunately, not even an army of lawyers and public relations experts were able to prevent the problems that recently ensued between the two giants.
Soft World International sued Square-Enix for nothing short of $3.78 million. Square-Enix allegedly failed to supply the company with relevant source code, making game distribution problematic. According to a Digitimes report, Soft-World states that Square-Enix has broken the contract signed in 2004 that covered distribution for one of the Japanese company's MMORPGs in Taiwan, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Soft-World claims that the Japanese online game developer has failed to provide the company with the source code, making it difficult to launch the game as scheduled, thus trying to solve the dispute by getting back its royalty payment. It is still unknown why a contract that entered in effect during early 2005, delivers this controversial lawsuit at such a later date. Square-Enix has yet to comment on the situation.