PUBG Corporation had threatened last year that they would be suing other companies for making Battle Royale clones. The developers had consistently made it known that they didn’t like copycats in the industry, and would be suing. Well, it appears that they weren’t just talking hot air, but are following through with the lawsuit against Epic Games for Fortnite.
According to the Korea Times, PUBG Corporation has filed a lawsuit against Epic Games Korea for copyright infringement.
A spokesperson for PUBG Corp., told the Korea Times that the lawsuit had originally been filed in January. It targets Epic Games for their development of Fortnite (which was actually made via their U.S., division), for copyright infringement and for allegedly plagiarizing the concept of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
It’s a strange lawsuit given that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds isn’t even the first Battle Royale game out there, and there have been many games in the past under the Last Man Standing sub-genre that have utilized the concept before, such as the game Last Man Standing from Free Reign Entertainment, which preceded the launch of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. In fact,Last Man Standingcame out back in December of 2016.
There was also Xaviant Games’ The Culling, which came out back in 2016, and it was another Battle Royale-inspired survival game. You can check out the video below from PartiallyRoyal that shows you some of the similarities to PUBG’s title.
Technically, if PUBG Corporation is suing Epic Games for Fortnite copying PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, couldn’t Xaviant Games sue PUBG Corporation for copying The Culling?
That’s not to mention that Fortnite had been in development since 2011, years before PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds ever released to the public, and the only thing that it derived from PUBG Corp’s title was the Battle Royale mode. But if PUBG Corp., is suing Epic for adding a game mode to Fortnite, does that mean they’re also going to sue Activision and Treyarch for adding the Battle Royale mode called Blackout to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4?
It will be interesting to see what the courts think of this lawsuit, because if they side with PUBG Corporation then it could completely disrupt the Battle Royale landscape in gaming.
(Main image courtesy of Lara Croft)
