One Piece just got a brand-new video game, but you may not have heard of it.
That’s because One Piece Grand Arena, which was released in early December, is only playable on Roblox. Formally licensed by Bandai Namco Entertainment, One Piece Grand Arena will allow Bandai to capitalize on Roblox’s massive platform of young people and bring the world of One Piece to a new generation of fans. There’s just one wrinkle: Grand Arena is not nearly as popular as all the unofficial One Piece games that have been gaining traction on Roblox for years.
An anime and manga series created by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece has long served as a cultural touchstone on Roblox because of the popularity of rip-offs and unlicensed games inspired by the show. One game inspired by One Piece, called Blox Fruits, set the record for the number of concurrent players in a single Roblox game. On Dec. 14, the Blox Fruits team released a new update. That same day, the game’s Roblox page logged more than 2.26 million concurrent players.
When you search “One Piece” on Roblox, the platform surfaces dozens of games with thumbnail designs that feature characters who look like series protagonist Monkey D. Luffy or contain direct screenshots of promotional materials from the Netflix live-action show and the anime.
Nearly unplayable clickbait-esque copies of One Piece like these are a dime a dozen on Roblox. These games might advertise using the popular series to lure people in, but end up borrowing very little from the series and amount to empty lobbies where few players hang out. However, the series has also served as the focal point for several of the most popular games on the platform.
Blox Fruits, which used to be called “Blox Piece” but has since been renamed likely due to intellectual property infringement concerns, built a massive audience using One Piece. The titular Blox Fruits in the game, for example, appear to be inspired by the Devil Fruits in One Piece due to their similarities in design and functionality. Blox Fruits also at one point contained characters from One Piece, and characters like Buggy the Star Clown were boss fights in the game.
Although the developers of Blox Fruits have since distanced themselves from the game’s One Piece roots, its massive audience remains. According to its game page on Roblox, it has garnered more than 43 billion total logins. At the time of publication, Blox Fruits had roughly 384,000 concurrent players, while One Piece Grand Arena had around 314 concurrent players.
Anime Vanguards, an action combat game that boasts more than 678 million lifetime visits, blatantly uses characters from classic series like One Piece and Dragon Ball, and even more recent hits, like Dan Da Dan. When you log in, the game immediately allows players to choose between three starter characters, including one named “Luffo” who looks exactly like One Piece’s Luffy, and its roster contains other characters, like “Sanjo,” who looks like a busted Lego version of Sanji, also from One Piece.
It’s one thing for kids to share cheesy knockoffs because they like One Piece. However, it’s entirely possible that games like Anime Vanguards can bring in millions of dollars in profits for the developers. People have shared videos online where they spend upward of $100,000 in the game just to unlock all the characters from series like One Piece and the Dragon Ball franchise.
Games like Anime Vanguards show that they have the potential to rake in loads of cash. So if stealing IP can pay big on Roblox, why don’t they get taken down?
Some arguments say that cases of potential IP infringement continue to exist on Roblox because it provides free advertising. Another argument posits that the Roblox platform is still obscure enough to avoid DMCA takedowns. However, I’d like to make a practical argument: It’s potentially too difficult for even large-scale companies to consistently moderate the platform due to the sheer number of games and cosmetics.
On Roblox, any creator can use its suite of tools to make and publish a game or cosmetic item. In 2021, Roblox reported that there were over 40 million games published on its platform. For many of its young creators, it might be the first time they have ever encountered the concept of IP law. Roblox shares guidelines to help its developers avoid copyright infringement, but similar to a platform like YouTube, it’s on companies to moderate the platform and flag cases of alleged infringement. When contacted, a spokesperson for Roblox affirmed the company’s commitment to protecting intellectual property rights, and Roblox has worked with several brands to monetize their IP on Roblox.
“As a platform powered by a community of creators, we are committed to protecting intellectual property rights — from independent creators and studios, to brands and large IP holders — and require all Roblox community members to abide by our Terms of Use and DMCA Guidelines,” a Roblox spokesperson told Polygon via email. “We do not tolerate copyright infringement and expeditiously respond to any valid DMCA request by removing any infringing content, as well as provide IP holders with tools to enforce their rights.”
Despite current actions and options, the platform continues to be flooded with rip-offs of all kinds. This story focuses on One Piece, but IP infringement is so common that it happens in thousands of different ways on Roblox.
It can be hard to estimate just how much Roblox content potentially infringes on IP — one analyst estimated a year ago that there were more than 10,000 games that do so. A brief search finds games that use content from major franchises like Marvel, Harry Potter, and Hello Kitty. Just last weekend, I found a game that — judging by the lack of an official source — ripped the full audio from a Sabrina Carpenter concert and dumped it into a game meant to simulate her Short n’ Sweet Tour. Infringement is so common that individuals have even asked if users can report potentially infringing content.
Potential IP infringement is just one example of Roblox’s ongoing struggle to moderate its platform. Previous reports have found that the company has failed to protect minors from potential predators and remove sexually explicit content. The jumble of IP on Roblox just highlights another weak point as the company figures out how to sell its vision in this new era of user-generated content.
Source：https://www.polygon.com/gaming/499820/one-piece-roblox-ip-infringement
