The ownership of the classic Legend IP has finally been officially transferred to Shengqu and Kaiying.

China's gaming circle has ushered in its own "legendary new era".

On the evening of September 11, Kaiying Network released an announcement stating that the company plans to acquire 49% equity of Neosphere Co., Limited through its wholly-owned Hong Kong subsidiary Cypress Technology HK Limited. NeoPulse, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Neosphere, is exactly the entity that previously announced the planned acquisition of 39.33% shares of South Korea's Wemade to become its new largest shareholder.

This means that Kaiying Network will form a capital-level bond with Wemade, the original rights holder of the Legend IP, through indirect equity participation. As early as February 2026, Shanghai Kaiying, a subsidiary of Kaiying Network, had signed a "Settlement Agreement" with Legend IP Co., Ltd., under Wemade, paying a one-time settlement of 199 million yuan to resolve the cross-border arbitration dispute that lasted for several years.

South Korea's well-known game IP, after more than 20 years of division and tug-of-war, is finally going to be fully controlled by Chinese domestic manufacturers.

01 Capital Exit and Takeover

In 1998, South Korean programmer Park Kwan-ho led the development of a game called "Legend of Mir" at Actoz Soft. Two years later, he left with the core team and founded Wemade. This seemingly ordinary entrepreneurial story later evolved into the longest copyright tug-of-war in China's game industry over the next two decades.

In 2001, Tianqiao Chen introduced "The Legend of Mir 2" to China, which pushed Shanda Network to Nasdaq in one fell swoop and made him the richest man in China at the age of 31.

However, the wealth brought by this game was accompanied by a hidden danger from the very beginning: Wemade and Actoz Soft share the copyright, and the ownership of copyright has always been an unresolved problem.

The cost of this problem is huge. In 2016, Zhejiang Huanyou, a subsidiary of Kaiying Network, obtained the authorization of the mobile and web versions of Legend from Wemade for 50 billion won. However, Zhejiang Huanyou did not pay the deposit as agreed, on the grounds that the dispute between Wemade and Actoz Soft was not yet clear, and it was worried about infringing on the rights and interests of third parties. This judgment may be reasonable in business, but it cost Kaiying a price legally.

In 2019, the Arbitration Tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce ruled that Zhejiang Huanyou lost the case and compensated about 490 million yuan. Subsequently, Legend IP filed a lawsuit with the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court, requesting that Shanghai Kaiying be held jointly and severally liable for repayment. The court once frozen 431 million yuan of bank deposits of Shanghai Kaiying. The ten-year game between Kaiying Network and Wemade has entered its most passive stage.

The turning point came at the end of 2021. The Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court rejected all the claims of Legend IP. The court recognized Zhejiang Huanyou's claim that it independently assumes responsibility for the debt with all its assets, which laid the foundation for Kaiying to resolve the dispute through settlement later.

The real breakthrough came in August 2023. Actoz Soft, a subsidiary of Century Huateng, signed a cooperation agreement with Wemade, obtaining the exclusive authorization of "Legend of Mir 2" and "Legend of Mir 3" in mainland China at a cost of 100 billion won per year, totaling about 2.74 billion yuan for five years.

The wording of Century Huateng in the announcement is noteworthy. The company "can independently and fully exercise the copyright of the "Legend" series of games externally". This means that Shengqu has finally obtained the unified control of the Legend IP in mainland China.

After obtaining the exclusive IP authorization in 2023, Shengqu Games launched the "New Hundred Districts" for the PC game "The Legend of Mir". In 2024, the active users of the series of PC games increased by 82% year-on-year in two months, and the revenue soared by 108%. In the first half of 2025, Century Huateng's revenue reached 17.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 85.5%, and the net profit attributable to shareholders was 2.656 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 129.33%.

Shengqu pays about 548 million yuan per year in exchange for the exclusive right of IP. The company can independently authorize externally, collect authorization fees and revenue sharing from all Legend game manufacturers, with an annual revenue of several billion yuan, which forms a structural price difference.

Kaiying Network also reached a settlement with Legend IP for 199 million yuan in February 2026, drawing an end to this ten-year arbitration dispute.

The biggest change took place on June 30, 2026. Park Kwan-ho, founder of Wemade, transferred all his 39.33% shares to NeoPulse for 920 billion won (about 4 billion yuan). The transfer price per share is 3.6 times the closing price on that day, including a "quite high level of control premium".

The premium level of this transaction reveals an easily overlooked fact: in the eyes of the capital market, the control of Legend IP is far more valuable than the daily operation of Wemade. Wemade's total revenue in 2025 was about 614 billion won, of which the revenue from Legend IP authorization reached 107.1 billion won. The IP authorization alone is close to one-ninth of the total transaction amount.

02 From Rights Defender to Shareholder

If the story stops at Wemade's founder cashing out and exiting, it is at most an industry anecdote. The clue with real industrial analysis value appeared three months later.

After the completion of this transaction, Kaiying Network will indirectly hold part of the equity of Wemade, changing from the authorized party of Legend IP to the indirect shareholder of the original IP rights holder.

The span of this step cannot be underestimated. Previously, Kaiying's role in the Legend IP industry chain was the "authorized party". It spent 50 billion won on authorization in 2016 and 199 million yuan on settlement in 2026. Now it is trying to complete the role transition at the capital level, changing the relationship with Wemade from "authorization game" to "equity bond".

The background of this strategic adjustment is the continuous strong fundamentals of the Legend IP market. According to Gamma Data, the scale of the Legend IP market reached 35.55 billion yuan in 2025, and the cumulative created value exceeded 370 billion yuan. Institutions predict that the market scale is expected to exceed 40 billion yuan in 2026, and the future growth potential will exceed 100 billion yuan.

What is more noteworthy is the acceleration of the genuine process. With the gradual clarification of IP ownership, the genuine scale in the Legend IP market has accounted for nearly 70% in 2025, and the "IP authorization - R&D - distribution" chain with Shengqu Games and Kaiying Network as the core has become increasingly stable. The convergence of copyright chaos is a structural benefit for the value release of leading enterprises.

In the first half of 2026, the company's revenue reached 4.797 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 86.06%. Among them, the revenue of mobile game business was 4.164 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 96.77%. The core increment came from the new Legend product "Flame Awakening", which realized revenue of about 2.3 billion yuan in the first half of the year.

What is of more strategic significance is the user platform business "996 Legend Box". Over the past 20 years, the Legend game market has long had a pattern of "genuine products and private servers coexisting". The proportion of genuine products in 2025 is close to 70%, which means there is still about one-third of the gray space.

After obtaining exclusive authorization, 996 Legend Box integrates game distribution, community, live broadcast and trading into a unified platform. Leading manufacturers such as 39 Mutual Entertainment, Tanwan Games and Zhangwan Games have settled in the brand zone one after another. The platform's revenue in the first half of 2026 was 609 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44.17%. The platform aggregates more than 1000 games, with daily active users close to 500,000.

The confirmation of the copyright of Legend IP has cleared the biggest compliance risk for this kind of platform business.

Century Huateng has also benefited a lot. In 2025, the total annual revenue was 37.898 billion yuan, the net profit attributable to shareholders was 5.605 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 362%, and the operating cash flow reached 8.564 billion yuan. As its core game business segment, Shengqu Games' overall performance increased by about 30% in 2025, and "New Legend District - Mengzhong Divine Weapon" entered the top 10 of the iOS free list on the first day of launch.

However, it needs to be cautious that the transaction for Kaiying to participate in Wemade's equity still faces uncertainties. Cross-border capital operations involve South Korean regulatory approval. The background of the actual controller of NeoPulse has previously aroused the attention of the South Korean industry to Chinese capital's acquisition of the management rights of South Korean game companies.

In addition, Wemade still has the historical burden of the blockchain business WEMIX, which was once in turmoil in 2024 due to the delisting of virtual assets and the investigation of false disclosure.

The end of copyright disputes does not mean the end of commercial competition. Shengqu controls IP authorization, Kaiying operates the user platform, and enterprises such as Century Huateng, Tianqiao Interactive and Tanwan Games participate in depth. In the short term, the bargaining power of these game companies will be improved, but the long-term effect depends on whether the genuine process can really improve user experience and game quality.

In 2001, Tianqiao Chen opened this door with 300,000 US dollars. Twenty-five years later, the property right structure inside the door has finally been completely clarified. The story of Legend is far from over, but its next chapter will be written by Chinese people.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Foci", author: Fang Wensan, published with authorization from 36Kr.