Honor of Kings vs Onmyoji Trade Plagiarism Accusations Over Skins — Players Expose It as a Mutual PR Stunt: 'These Two Are Just Clout-Chasing Together'

Two of China's biggest mobile games — Honor of Kings (王者荣耀, Tencent's flagship MOBA) and Onmyoji (阴阳师, NetEase's beloved yokai RPG) — just went to war. Not in-game, mind you, but via official statements accusing each other of ripping off character skins. Players from both sides immediately started throwing hands in comment sections across every major forum.

An NGA poster laid it all out with a news screenshot and a simple caption: 'Selling popcorn in the front row.' The subtext was crystal clear — grab a seat, this is a show.

But veteran forum-goers saw through the charade almost immediately. The top-voted take wasn't about picking sides — it was about calling out the whole thing as a coordinated publicity stunt.

One player who's deep into both games sighed: 'I feel like I'm just a prop in their little play. Why do both sides have white knights (护官宝, blind loyalists who defend companies no matter what) rallying for their respective corpos? Is any of this even genuine?'

One particularly sharp commenter broke it down with cold logic: 'Look at the skins they're claiming are plagiarized — similar designs pop up across the industry every few days. It took FIVE YEARS to sue Mini World for literally copy-pasting source code. There's zero chance these skin similarity claims would ever hold up in court. This is almost certainly a marketing play. If they were actually going to war in court, they wouldn't be posting announcements that read like children throwing shade.'

Another blunt take: 'I've learned to wait 24 hours on every gaming news story now. These two are absolutely clout-chasing together.' Others dove into the corporate drama rabbit hole: 'How much did Zen (NetEase's Onmyoji team) pay Xiao Wang (Honor of Kings)? Jenny (another NetEase character/title) will double it! The Crown Prince of NetEase can't get Xiao Wang's attention but Onmyoji can — how tragic.' The whole thing was being reframed as a messy love triangle between gaming giants.

Some users dug up classic screenshots of past 'mutual plagiarism callouts' between the two, suggesting this kind of 'you copied me / no YOU copied me' drama is practically a seasonal event in the Chinese gaming scene — just another round of the engagement-farming playbook.

As of the time of posting, neither company has escalated further. The community consensus is pretty much unanimous: until someone actually files a lawsuit, this 'plagiarism war' is most likely a meticulously orchestrated marketing campaign. After all, in the age of engagement metrics, even negative attention is still attention — and a good old-fashioned public feud drives way more eyeballs than a boring ad buy.