"Your Honor, based on multiple pieces of evidence, we believe that GameStar Entertainment has infringed upon our image character. The dragon image in their game Dragon Quest, which is under their banner, is a character that our company has long been known for. However, it has been misused by them without our knowledge. Therefore, we believe that GameStar Entertainment should immediately cease the sale of Dragon Quest and compensate us for all the sales revenue that rightfully belongs to our company. Furthermore, they must stop the infringement and ensure that they no longer use any dragon image as a character in their games."
"Hmm, that sounds reasonable."
"Your Honor, I object. Firstly, the dragon image owned by the opposing company is different from ours."
"Please, GameStar Entertainment, refrain from making baseless claims. Your dragon image is identical to ours, with a pair of wings that are not particularly large and a large, sturdy lower body. In fact, besides Dragon Quest infringing upon our dragon image, your Pokémon's Charizard, which evolves from Charmander, has also infringed upon our image!"
The lawyers on both sides argued with each other, and this lawsuit continued for over half a month without any results.
One side claimed to have the dragon image because they had produced a movie about legendary dragons in the past.
Normally, this claim wouldn't hold water, but now they were all banding together to attack. Anything that could cause trouble for GameStar Entertainment, they would eagerly bring to court.
However, for the elite lawyer team on GameStar Entertainment's side, winning was only a matter of time.
And today, GameStar Entertainment's lawyers had found decisive evidence.
"Your Honor, after various covert investigations by our company, we finally obtained the most shocking news, which is that this film company claiming to own the dragon image only has the right to film the movie. They cannot prevent anyone else from using the same image!"
As the lawyer spoke, he produced a document from over a decade ago.
The document detailed the open copyright license for the dragon image.
Apparently, when this film company planned to produce a movie featuring dragons, they applied for the dragon image's copyright to be made public in order to avoid potential lawsuits at the time. In other words, anyone could use this image for anything, without any restrictions.
This way, when this company filmed their dragon movie, they could naturally stand on unassailable ground.
However, they probably didn't expect that over a decade later, they would be hoisted by their own petard, caught by another group of lawyers.
There was no reason to accuse anyone of copyright infringement for an image with an open copyright.
So when this decisive evidence was presented in black and white, the lawsuit came to an end.
Immediately after, the second lawsuit began.
It was a monopoly lawsuit filed by another film and special effects company.
They believed that GameStar Entertainment's Unreal Engine had monopolistic tendencies. If not restrained, it would likely have a significant impact on the United States, so the best solution would be to open-source the Unreal Engine's source code. This would allow anyone to develop their own film special effects software using the Unreal Engine's source code.
This behavior was undoubtedly a roadblock for GameStar Entertainment's engine. If this lawsuit was won by the other party, it would definitely affect GameStar Entertainment's future development.
However, the lawyers hired by Takayuki were not to be underestimated. They argued logically, from the technical difficulty and cost of development to the relationship between Japan and the United States at the national level. They persuaded the jury and the judge, allowing this lawsuit to also achieve victory without much difficulty.
Then several similar lawsuits followed, all prepared by a group of people who wanted to deliberately target GameStar Entertainment.
Even if they couldn't really win in court, they also wanted to make GameStar Entertainment uncomfortable, affect his mood, make him less serious in game development, and thereby damage the reputation of his company.
But their wishful thinking ultimately failed.
Even if Takayuki's mood was affected, he could simply replicate high-quality games from his previous life. Just replicating them wouldn't be affected by mood swings.
On the contrary, GameStar Entertainment was quite productive during this time. Every month, they would release at least five first-party games, as well as several games from third-party and first-party collaboration studios.
Players could buy at least thirty high-quality games every month, and there were also over fifty ordinary, but decent, games available for players to choose from each month.
GameStar Entertainment intended to use facts to prove their worth and show those who wanted to see them embarrassed that no matter what they did, they couldn't affect their development.
Firstly, games produced under Takayuki's supervision often sold over half a million copies at launch, and they also made a lot of money from platform shares from other companies.
In this way, along with the continuous income from many old games and the sales of game consoles, GameStar Entertainment's pure profit for one month would approach four to five hundred million US dollars.
Then Takayuki would proudly announce how much money he was investing in litigation each time, flaunting an air of wealth. "I'm not short of money. I can afford a team of lawyers. Can you?"
This kind of rich demeanor made many opponents feel like spitting blood.
Litigation wasn't without its costs for them either. They also had to at least share thirty to forty percent of their energy and costs for litigation.
But over a month passed, and GameStar Entertainment continued to thrive, making money as usual, completely unstoppable.
This also shocked the industry once again. They were amazed by GameStar Entertainment's money-making ability and Takayuki's generosity.
He spared no expense in legal matters.
And this also forged GameStar Entertainment's stable state, seemingly invincible.
As the head of GameStar Entertainment's main force, Matsubashi also accepted interviews from several American media outlets. During the interviews, she occasionally sarcastically ridiculed those opponents who always liked to use conspiracy tactics instead of confronting them head-on.
Then Matsubashi assured the audience in front of the television that no matter what happened, GameStar Entertainment would provide the highest quality game experience to every player and user.
On my business card, I'm a game president. In my mind, I'm a game developer. But in my heart, I'm a gamer.
Everything is for serving the players. This is the purpose of GameStar Entertainment. This attitude also greatly increased the goodwill towards GameStar Entertainment, and the confidence in GameStar Entertainment also grew.