Like a mean cousin, Upper Deck steals Konami's Yu-Gi-Oh! cards

by Justin McElroy on Feb 4th 2010 8:30PM

Konami announced yesterday that Upper Deck had been forced to settle with the company after allegedly printing hundreds of thousands of faked Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in China and bringing them stateside. On any other day, this news would just be kind of funny, but it's elevated by attorney for Upper Deck Richard Howell who said "At this point, Upper Deck doesn't have a lot of Life Points. We're talking about behavior that, from a defense attorney's standpoint, I can't defend and I am not going to defend. I'm here defending a counterfeiter. And now I have to deal with that issue."

That's right: Life Points. Dude learned enough about Yu-Gi-Oh! to drop Yu-Gi-Oh! references. Man, that's the kind of lawyer you want to have. ... Unless, we guess, you're Upper Deck, in which case, it seems like you probably could have chosen a guy that didn't tell people how guilty you were.

Source

Tags: konami, lawsuit, legal, upper-deck, yu-gi-oh

Reader Comments (59)

"...allegedly printing hundreds of thousands of faked Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in China and bringing them stateside."

That's against the rules, isn't it?

Screw the rules, I have money!

Screw the rules, UD wants money!

Rules? Rules?!?! Ha...ha ha ha...hahahaha.

@Sonos
China sucks? Dude that order most probably came from an American executive here in the states.

Screw the money, I have rules! - Oh wait, that's not right...

Yu-gi-oh Abridged :)

Screw the rules, I have green hair, no wait.....

Looks like the rules... *sunglasses* just got screwed.

I don't think China's flag is so bad. It's not spectacular, but it gets the job done. I'm gonna get shit on for this, but I don't think the U.S. flag is exactly award winning either.

This would never happen...In America!

Let's settle this by playing a children's card game!

...I used to be so into that game.

Oh the memories...

Violence, acquiring the God Cards, watching the TV show, reading the comics...good times. Still have all my cards.
Also, Upper Deck always sucked compared to Topps.

so did I,
I also still have my deck, lost many times but it was my own

Yu-Gi-Oh was after my time (Pokemon was where its at when I was in elementary school), but I used to collect upper deck baseball cards like they were going out of style. Sure Topps (among other companies) were always superior, but if you had told me that Upper Deck would resort to counterfeiting (so blatantly that their LAWYER admits it for Gods sake) I'd have said you were nuts.

It's just baffling. How do you go into that sort of venture as a legitimate company and think that you aren't going to get caught? I'm guessing the "why" is because they were in dire financial straits, but bankruptcy is surely more agreeable than hilarious scandal.

IT'S TIME TO DU-DU-DU---DU DU DU DU DUEL!!!

Yu-Gi-Oh sucks.

Pokemon is better.

Digimon trumps them all.

only the first season of digimon

Digimon, Digimonters, gigigigigigigig *blue screen of death*

As far as the card games go they're both just watered down rip offs of MTG.

That lawyer is totally awesome.

I'd hate him if I were UD, but they deserve it.

Best lawyer ever.

Yu-Gi-Oh! is a poor man's Pokemon!

Or, is it a rich man's Bakugan...

Bakugan is the red headed step child of the card game family. My little brother is into it, and I just don't get it.

Making Pokemon kind of akin to Disgaea or an SRPG like that?

I agree.

I don't know what game you guys are talking about, but Yu-Gi-Oh was one of the most expensive card games I've ever played. I was a National competitor and quit just because the prices of tournament quality cards begun to get out of hand.

$350 for a 3 card set of Dark Armed Dragon was freaking dumb. If you didn't have these cards, you were most likely going to lose. Everyone was playing almost the exact same 40 card deck (Maybe 1 or 2 card differences). Not to mention a $1500 card that was tourny legal (Gold Sarcophagus). or the $1000 Deck Destruction Virus card. :/

Upper Deck needs to use a magic card to increase their defense points or lay a trap card. Otherwise, Konami's attack points will tear right through Upper Deck's special effect.

Are you kidding? Upper Deck better have a bloody Millennium Item for this one!

Or they could summon three blue eyes white dragons in a single turn.

Didn't Kaiba try that in the movie, but it backfired?

No, no, gents, Kiba summoned three Blues-Eyes-White Dragons and then fused them together, creating a three-headed behemoth.

Right, that's Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon.

Also, Yugi beat that with Exodia...

Is the movie even canon?

No, he just summoned a bunch of mosters in one turn!!

They were just trying to import the heart of the cards.

I bet the reason why Upper deck lost was because they couldn't duel with them only having fake cards....

Some duels allow proxies... it gives poorer kids a fair chance at winning.

IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!...

...wait...

That's pretty damn funny!

I'm Canadian, In America!

Sounds like UD is in some trouble, they're also getting sued by Major League Baseball for continuing to use MLB logos and trademarks after their contract with the league expired:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-upperdeck4-2010feb04,0,7193997.story

CW 4 Kids is re-airing all the old episodes....I have been watching them every Saturday....a LOT better than that GX

They are?

Oh thanks, guess I will be waking up this Sat morning for some Nostalgia

They've put the whole first season on YouTube last I checked.

Youtube!?!?

I need to see if I can find of torrent of the entire series!!

Even Better.

http://miniurl.com/28792

Just found all episodes online
http://www.4kidstv.com/yu-gi-oh

I didn't even think to check the website for those....NIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE!!!

thats a LOT better than a 33GB Torrent....I have an OK connection speed but it took me 2 weeks to download a 27GB DBZ torrent 3 years ago

What makes this story so funny is that Upper Deck had the ACTUAL distribution rights to Yu-Gi-Oh! and were STILL making counterfeit cards, causing them to be sued.

That was what never made any sense to me. They were the official publisher of Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG for outside of Japan... and yet they were making counterfeits...
But if they had the license, wouldn't Upper Deck's counterfeits be as good as Upper Deck's official cards? I've found this kinda confusing, with no real answer why these are conterfeit cards that Upper Deck made.

I'd assume they were purposely made with cheaper materials and they were trying to sell them for the same price as the higher quality "official" cards. That's the only thing I can think of. That, or their license with Konami dictated how many cards they could print, and these cards were made to get around that.

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Like a mean cousin, Upper Deck steals Konami's Yu-Gi-Oh! cards

Reader Comments (59)

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