The new adults only MMORPG by Korean developer LivePlex is called Queens Blade, sans apostrophe. That's how it's printed in the upper left hand corner of the game's homepage, which reads "The Queens Blade is registered trademark of LivePlex." The game has nothing to do with the Queen's Blade you may know, but it's going to make some people very rich all the same.
The first closed beta test (CBT) of the MMORPG from February this year had 20,000 people test the game, which is still less than half of the 57,000 people who applied. The second CBT will run from April 16 to April 22, and LivePlex will select a total of 30,000 people to test this time. Everyone from the first testing phase must reapply if they want to play in the second test.
The game features scantily clad women in two factions fighting each other in a war to determine the fate of the land. You can only play as a female character. LivePlex seems to have foreseen the grumbling of the minority of male gamers who have a problem with playing as women in games and added a gameplay mechanic, where you can turn into a giant mecha temporarily once you hit a certain level. All bases are covered except for the name.
Queen's Blade with the apostrophe is a series of "game books" by Hobby Japan featuring scantily clad women fighting each other in a tournament to become the queen, the most beautiful and most powerful person in the land. There was an anime, manga, light novel, and a couple video games. There were a ton of figures, and there was enough money to go around for a second season of the anime in 2009, and then a six episode OVA which ran from late 2010 to early 2011.
Okay, so I would hazard a guess and say that the title of this MMORPG drew in quite a few unsuspecting people into the first CBT. Of course, in order to test the game, you have to register at the main website, and the pictures they use clearly show an aesthetic very different from apostrophe Queen's Blade, so there is no trickery here. I would say that even if some of these testers knew the game had no relation to do with the original Queen's Blade, they were still drawn to the game because of curiosity.
To demonstrate, the same naming tactics work in movies. After I watched the megahit romantic comedy My Sassy Girl, I noticed that I was curious about the synopsis of romantic comedies whenever that movie emulated My Sassy Girl's English title, using "My [Adjective] Girl," including My Scary Girl (2006, Korea), My Best Friend's Girl (2008, USA), My Amnesia Girl (2010, Phillipines), not to mention all of the movies that out right ripped off the original movie's story. I never watched those movies despite curiosity, but they must have done good business because in 2010, China saw the release of My Sassy Girl 2. Before you say anything, while that movie had different characters and setting, I understand that it was not only written by the same writers as the original Korean movie, but it also bombed horribly with critics.
One more example. I was browsing the internet for news about Korean dramas a few weeks back, and all of a sudden, I found this link to a new show called God of War, which is a historical action epic. The Korean title is Moo-sin, which means "military god," so I thought that these guys had a valid excuse to use that English title. Then, upon reading the article, I found that viewers were shocked by the graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. The show has nothing in common with the game, but the English title gave me pause, and in the back of my mind, I wanted to check it out. Furthermore, I was reminded of Dante's Inferno, the game. People on forums were indignant. 'Have these people no shame?' There were laments about the lack of creativity in the game industry. But then other people bought and played that game.
Queen's Blade fans, would you want to try this MMORPG if/when it is localized? Check out the somewhat NSFW link below for more information.
[Edit: It seems there are some people confused about this game. To clarify, this MMORPG has nothing to do with the anime.]
Information regarding second CBT for Queens Blade [Queens Blade]