Epic Games Sued by PUBG Corp Over "Fortnite" Battle Royale Mode

[btarunr]

Epic Games has been dragged to court by PUBG Corporation, developer of "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" (PUBG) over "copyright infringement" and "plagiarism" in its smash-hit online multiplayer game "Fortnite." PUBG dominated PC gaming in 2017, as its South Korea-based developers raked in hundreds of millions of Dollars in revenues, having sold over 45 million copies of the game. When it released in 2017, "Fotnite" wasn't anywhere near as popular as PUBG, since it only included a tower-defense mode dubbed "Save the World." The game's fortunes turned around when Epic Games introduced the "Battle Royale" mode, which is an open-world free-for-all (FFA). PUBG has a problem with that.

In its complaint, PUBG Corp alleges that "Fortnite" Battle Royale mode copies not just PUBG's gameplay, but also its USP of dropping players in arenas empty-handed, and making them scout out weapons and items so they could both survive and hunt down others. The complaint also includes allegations that the user-interface (UI) is heavily borrowed from that of PUBG. Interestingly, PUBG itself has been inspired by Japanese film "Batoru Rowaiaru," the title of which loosely transliterates to "Battle Royale." This is a fact the defense could bludgeon PUBG's lawyers with.



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[arbiter]

About only legit claim pubg corp has is the "but also its USP of dropping players in arenas empty-handed, " the rest well is and was done before pubg was released so they have no legit claim. As to add on to the end of 2nd paragraph they could use h1 as a defense as that predated pubg doing pretty much everything they claimed short using plane/bus to drop people in.

Bogus Lawsuit period. Bet part of reason they are doing this is cause user base of pubg has been shrinking, even big streamers don't play it as much.

 

[ixi]

Let the "flammenferwer" fight start on internet.

Bluehole have lost their minds... Sad, money hungry *****.

Funny that on youtube you can find video where "Unknown" tells that he wants to see PUBG popularity grow from other creators as well and here you have - sued.

 

[Arjai]

They're just Jealous!! They couldn't come up with the Boogie Grenade.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The pot calling the kettle black. PUBG wouldn't even exist without Epic's engine. Unless PUBG has registered patents, trademarks, and copyrights to stand on, then their argument has to stand on how Fortnite damaged PUBG which...good luck with that. You can't own a genre.

 

[StrayKAT]

As cool as South Korea is, petty suing seems to be one of the lamer influences they picked up from my country.

 

[noel_fs]

As far as I know Epic gathered info from PUBG through their engine so it's kinda fair

 

[Capitan Harlock]

Neither of them invented anything new , we are talking about a death match free for all with vehicles in a big large map = one of the mode selectable in Unreal Tournament 2004 and the latter 3 .
But because the maps and the charcters are normal humans and if you die you are done is called battle royale.
Is like Valve suing Bethesda because the last Prey have an environment similar to Half Life .

 

[TheGuruStud]

Neither of them invented anything new , we are talking about a death match free for all with vehicles in a big large map = one of the mode selectable in Unreal Tournament 2004 and the latter 3 .
But because the maps and the charcters are normal humans and if you die you are done is called battle royale.
Is like Valve suing Bethesda because the last Prey have an environment similar to Half Life .

I'm gonna sue them, b/c Prey was closer to Bioshock! Gimme my money!

 

[Vayra86]

PUBG basically sealed its own doom with this

Nice

 

[StrayKAT]

PUBG basically sealed its own doom with this

Nice

Sad though, as I hate to see relative newcomers make a lousy step.

 

[Vayra86]

Sad though, as I hate to see relative newcomers make a lousy step.

Nah, not this one. The greed was apparent from day one by releasing it in the state it was in, followed shortly by adding in-game ads and then by the lack of action in development and anti-cheat practices. It has been a poor product from the get-go, with the promise of being something cool.

It peaked too early and Bluehole was more eager to cash in on that, than to develop something that's here to stay.

 

[StrayKAT]

Nah, not this one. The greed was apparent from day one by releasing it in the state it was in, followed shortly by adding in-game ads and then by the lack of action in development and anti-cheat practices. It has been a poor product from the get-go, with the promise of being something cool.

It peaked too early and Bluehole was more eager to cash in on that, than to develop something that's here to stay.

Ah.. I actually don't play, so you know more than I do. Sounds like a lot of lousiness then.

 

[Space Lynx]

Nah, not this one. The greed was apparent from day one by releasing it in the state it was in, followed shortly by adding in-game ads and then by the lack of action in development and anti-cheat practices. It has been a poor product from the get-go, with the promise of being something cool.

It peaked too early and Bluehole was more eager to cash in on that, than to develop something that's here to stay.

yeah. pubg is super buggy still, and terrible server quality... i can't believe the mass following it gathered, worst $21 ever spent, wish i had refunded it, oh well.

 

[Ubersonic]

What nonsense, last man standing modes and games have been around since the nineties, PUBG brought nothing new whatsoever to the table/genre it just combined features of existing games. Hell the Battle Royale books and movies have been around for decades so it's not like they invented the name lol.

 

[cyneater]

Can't wait till the sue the doom devs for death match.

Battle royal is just last man standing with a big blue circle its been done in other games....

 

[Imsochobo]

Can't wait till the sue the doom devs for death match.

Battle royal is just last man standing with a big blue circle its been done in other games....

Pubg wasn't the first!
King of the kill started in 2016 too so shouldn't they also be sued?

ohh well, they're just idiots and money hungry and think they deserve more with shoddy work >_<

 

[arbiter]

Nah, not this one. The greed was apparent from day one by releasing it in the state it was in, followed shortly by adding in-game ads and then by the lack of action in development and anti-cheat practices. It has been a poor product from the get-go, with the promise of being something cool.

It peaked too early and Bluehole was more eager to cash in on that, than to develop something that's here to stay.

at the start they were good about updates every 1-2 weeks but when they decided to push it to xbox is when everything went to trash from lack of updates and not addressing cheating (even though they claimed to have banned a ton of people)

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Nah, not this one. The greed was apparent from day one by releasing it in the state it was in, followed shortly by adding in-game ads and then by the lack of action in development and anti-cheat practices. It has been a poor product from the get-go, with the promise of being something cool.

It peaked too early and Bluehole was more eager to cash in on that, than to develop something that's here to stay.

Reminds me of Minecraft. Once it started gaining market traction, they focused less on making an awesome product and more on getting as many eye balls on it as possible (by way of ports, then selling to Microsoft). In the years since Minecraft has made it big, remarkably little has changed with the original Java version.

Instead of selling out like Mojang did, looks like PUBGs want to sick lawyers on everyone.

 

[StrayKAT]

Reminds me of Minecraft. Once it started gaining market traction, they focused less on making an awesome product and more on getting as many eye balls on it as possible (by way of ports, then selling to Microsoft). In the years since Minecraft has made it big, remarkably little has changed with the original Java version.

Instead of selling out like Mojang did, looks like PUBGs want to sick lawyers on everyone.

It was over $2 billion though. I don't even know if "selling out" is the right word for that.. and I can't blame them for it.

Besides, out of all publishers, I think MS is actually one of the better ones. People may complain when working with them, but when they leave, it's funny to see some come back and realize it was better than Activision or EA or whatever. Like former Bungie employees and some Mass Effect people, for example.

 

[LiveOrDie]

Thats just funny Pubg Corp/Bluehole don't own the game mode also they ripped the idea of movies like hunger games, really there not much difference from BR to last man standing apart from the dome ( Hunger Games ) and having to find weapons ( Hanger Games ), so if the creators of the hunger games wanted to make a game based on there movie it would be Pubg but with melee, so Pubg is dreaming i hope epic blacklists them from using unreal engine.

 

[punani]

...they ripped the idea of movies like hunger games...

dunno if you already knew this but Battle Royale stems from a popular asian movie with the same name, which in turn is based on a book with same name.

 

[NicklasAPJ]

Pubg wasn't the first!
King of the kill started in 2016 too so shouldn't they also be sued?

ohh well, they're just idiots and money hungry and think they deserve more with shoddy work >_<

King of The Hill and pugb is made from The same guy, he left King of The hill, because your are limit In What you Can Do so Long The game is a mod.

 

[StrayKAT]

He deserves props for coming out with something (at least as far as praises go), but the idea of copyrighting a whole genre is absurd. And unprecedented, afaik (I might be very wrong about this).

 

[Dammeron]

Pubg wasn't the first!
King of the kill started in 2016 too so shouldn't they also be sued?

Ummm... DayZ for Arma 2 and Arma 3 Battle Royale mode? Way before H1Z1 and PUBG...