PUBG developers are suing fake games

In today’s game market, successful games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds will often have PUBG clones, mostly on the mobile platform, in the hope of “taking a bite” from the success of the original game. .

Developer PUBG Corp., will now have zero tolerance for these fake titles. The company, which is owned by South Korean publisher BlueHole, sued in a US court in the state of North Callifornia on April 2 against Chinese game publisher NetEase. NetEase has released two popular mobile titles called Rules of Survival and Knives out, both of which have extremely similar gameplay to PUBG. The lawsuit accuses NetEase of copyright and trademark infringement in these two games.

Rules of Survival and Knives Out are both in the battle royale genre, with battles on an island and players getting there by parachuting from an airplane. Quite surprisingly, the battles are almost exactly the same as in PUBG: from the circle, to the weapons and vehicles on the map.

The battle royale formula does not belong entirely to PUBG Corp – PUBG itself also takes ideas from previous games – but the company has succeeded. Thereby creating a trend for other developers to copy the PUBG model. PUBG Corp has openly criticized games like Fortnite in the past for copying their formula, but the company has never fought as strongly with another game as it is suing NetEase.

It is clear that PUBG Corp. opposes other developers to profit from their formulaic games, but this lawsuit is only possible because PUBG Corp has already released PUBG on mobile platforms, and is facing directly with NetEase. Often clones go unnoticed because they only launch on mobile platforms, where they don’t go head-to-head with the original game on PC or console.

In fact, PUBG Corp. started suing NetEase on January 24, when PUBG Corp filed a letter of protest with Apple because of the fake games available on the App Store. While it is not clear to us whether PUBG Corp requested these games to be removed, Apple sent this protest letter to NetEase and NetEase denied that its games infringed PUBG Corp’s copyright. Now, PUBG Corp. feel confident enough to take this case to court. This is not the first time NetEase has been involved in game imitations. The Chinese company announced FortCraft, which looks quite similar to Fortnite, but has yet to take any legal action against it.

The lawsuit is littered with comparison photos in PUBG, Rules of Survival, and Knives Out, pointing to similarities between the original game and the two clones. The lawsuit points to 25 “piracy” in PUBG, from players being forced to run into miniature circles on the map to having a waiting room that allows players to run and shoot.

Obviously Fortnite can also violate these points, but the game has many differences, and PUBG Corp. has been very careful to avoid criticism. This lawsuit seems to accuse NetEase of copyright infringement in its too many similarities “when combined with other elements” in the game description; “piracy of graphics, sound and/or other elements of Battlegrounds.” PUBG Corp. Allegedly, the two titles are generally too similar to PUBG and not just in one or two areas of the game.

In the lawsuit, there are many clear examples, including a “country area” appearing in case two games, the use of pans as weapons, armor and weapons are said to be “almost copied”. ”, and the words used in the game “winner winner chicken dinner,” – they were used to promote two NetEase titles. NetEase was also involved in another piracy lawsuit last year, but this time they and Blizzard are suing a Chinese clone of Overwatch. NetEase is the publisher of the Overwatch game in the Chinese market.

PUBG Corp. are seeking compensation from NetEase for their violations and want to shut down both Rules of Survival and Knives Out. This is not the first time PUBG has had problems in China – just a few months ago, more than a hundred PUBG hackers were arrested in the country by the police in cooperation with Tencent, the company responsible for the port of PUBG to mobile. and the Chinese market.

Source: Ars Technica