Korean game developer PUBG Corp., a subsidiary of Bluehole, has sued Epic Games’ Fortnite game for copyright infringement. They asked the court to determine if Fortnite copied Bluehole’s PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds game.
The official PUBG representative said last Friday that the company had filed a ban, alleging copyright infringement, with the Seoul district court with Epic Games Korea.
“We have been in court to protect the game’s copyright since January,” the representative said.
Launched last July, Fortnite, the Battle Royale title that has become the most popular game today, threatened PUBG when the game was still a global phenomenon last year. When Fortnite first launched, the game only had a “Save the World” mode: players built a castle to defend. But in September, the company added a free Battle Royale mode to the game, denying plagiarism and the game copying PUBG’s items and its interface.
When the controversy broke out in September, Bluehole announced in writing that it was mulling over how to respond to Fortnite Battle Royale’s key gameplay and interface similarities to PUBG. The Korean company said it felt quite regretful because Epic Games, once a partner of Bluehole, now released a game similar to them.
PUBG is a Battle Royale game inspired by the Japanese movie “Battle Royale” (2000). The game was launched in March last year on Steam – the largest online game store in the world.
Since PUBG launched, more than 40 million copies of the game have been sold on Steam as of April 2018. Over 4 million console copies have been sold – this version was released in December. PUBG received numerous awards at home and abroad, and the mobile version of the game released on May 16 continues to collect attract players. Epic Games has also enjoyed great success with Fortnite, which attracts more than 40 million global players.
Epic Games is currently preparing to enter the Korean market with Neowiz Games. The two sides signed a contract in January to launch Fortnite this second quarter.
By: The Korea Times
Source link: PUBG sues Fortnite in Korean court
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