Singaporean board game creator Origame alleged that it was plagiarised by an SG60 carnival game.

In a recent social media post, Singaporean card game creator Origame has alleged that a carnival game booth stole artwork from one of its games, Kopi King. The carnival game was spotted at an SG60 pop-up in City Square Mall, aimed to celebrate Singapore's 60th year of independence. 

Origame took to Facebook to highlight the carnival game’s artwork, which it stated had been “lifted wholesale” from its card game Kopi King.

Kopi King creator alleges SG60 carnival game of plagiarism

Origame, the creator of Singaporean board games and card games like Kopi King, Huat’s Up, and Chope! have accused an SG60 carnival game booth of plagiarism. In a Facebook post, the company stated that the “artwork and brand identity” of its card game Kopi King had been “lifted wholesale for a carnival game.”

The carnival game booth was found at the shopping mall City Square Mall, and had been put up as part of the ongoing SG60 event in Singapore, which revolve around the country celebrating its 60th year of independence since 1965. According to Origame, the carnival game had been designed by another Singaporean game company, named The Arcade People. 

A quick look at The Arcade People’s Facebook page shows that it specialises at providing customised game machines for various events. Origame noted that it also spotted “our tissue packet in their Chope game.” This is in reference to Origame’s other card game, Chope!, which features six Tissue player cards. 

The same artwork that was used for these cards was spotted in The Arcade People’s “Chope! The Table” game, which could once be seen in social media posts that have now been taken down.

Here are the Chope! Tissue player cards for comparison:

The cover of Origame's Chope! card game

Origame noted that The Arcade People “could have just asked nicely–Origame is always open for collaborations, we're just a DM away.” Kopi King has proven to be a bestseller with over 30,000 copies sold in Singapore, and a fifth year edition soon to be released. The company noted that its popularity likely allowed for the alleged stolen artwork to be quickly discovered. 

Despite the alleged plagiarism, Origame remained undeterred in its creative work, saying that “Creativity is the engine that drives us, and we will never stop designing and creating original games that tell stories about Singapore, and bringing them all over the world.”

The Arcade People has yet to release a statement on the matter. 

Update (30/7/2025): The Arcade People has posted a statement on its Facebook page to apologise for including artwork from Origame's Chope! and Kopi King games, acknowledging that “These elements were wrongly used without permission and were taken from Origame's website.”

The company continued:

“This was not just an oversight–it was a lapse in due diligence on our part. The use of Origame's artwork and the imitation of their design elements happened because proper checks and approvals were not in place. We take full and unequivocal responsibility for this failure."

The Arcade people apologised to Origame for the usage of stolen artwork, and noted that it has already reached out to express its “sincere apologies” to the latter company directly. Moving forward, The Arcade People intends to implement “stronger internal processes” to ensure that its visual assets are “properly sourced, licensed, and credited.”