In September of 2017, Playerunknown Battlegrounds developer PUBG Corp, a subsidiary of Korean game company Bluehole, claimed that they were considering taking Fortnite dev Epic Games to court. PUBG Corp claims that Fortnite's Battle Royale mode copied too much from PUBG's own mode, ranging from the gameplay to the UI. They also state that PUBG Corp had been talking to Epic Games throughout PUBG's development, as it uses Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4, and that the company had taken their idea, and added it onto their already existing Fortnite game. Recently, a copyright claim was supposedly filed in Korea by Bluehole, and will go to the courts in Seoul.

This isn't the first time we've seen Bluehole go to court, either. In the Northern California district courts, PUBG Corp took NetEase to court over copyright concerns with a 155-page document describing how NetEase's mobile titles Rules of Survival and Knives Out battle royale games stole the concept from Playerunknown Battlegrounds. Bluehole also tried to claim they had the sole ability to use frying pans as weapons in video games. Fortnite is set to officially become available in Korea soon (published by NeoWiz) but this lawsuit might delay things.

The last time Epic Games was sued, it was by Silicon Knights, for the game Too Human; as Epic allegedly breaching their contract. The suit was dismissed, and Epic counter-sued Silicon Knights, forcing the company to permanently recall their game from sale and pay 4.45 million to Epic Games.

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[tech3475]

Id just love it if PUBG’s lawyers walked into the court room to find Epic bought in everyone who previously made an FPS.

 

[Flora Cherry]

funny history the dev of pubg use the soft of epic for creat pubg epic take a % of money of pubg

 

[YugamiSekai]

I hope somehow they both lose all of their assets.

 

[Eddypikachu]

Princess toadstool used a frying pan as a weapon in Super Mario RPG since 1996...

 

[AxlSt00pid]

PUBG devs getting another rival company to court because of "copyright similarities"?
Wow who could have guessed it... for like the 5th time
Yeah, I know fortnite is very similar to pubg, but c'mon, how many times pubg devs tried to do that and failed.
Remember that sue because Rules of Survival had an "extremely similar map" because it had a factory on it? Or that case where pubg devs tried to trademark the use of frying pans(tm) as a melee weapon?

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Interesting of note is that it will likely depend on where this suit is going to be held.

It would probably be in the best interest of Bluehole/PUBG Corp to hold the lawsuit in South Korea. There is a clear precedent in the US that you cant copyright game mechanics, but I'm not familiar with South Korean law.

Personal take: I hate battle royale, but when it comes to making yourself look good, Epic Games is the clear winner. Also its kinda biting the hand that feeds you, since EG made UE4, which PUBG is build on.

 

[linuxares]

Last time I checked, this auther is pretty much the maker of the "Battle Royale" genre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Royale_(novel)

 

[kuwanger]

Lord of Flies (and Grave of the Fireflies) called. Oh, and Earthbound. Meanwhile, as someone who doesn't play either, can I wish that both sort of implode as a consequence of this?

 

[dimmidice]

Wow they're salty AF.

 

[linuxares]

Btw haven't FPS games had "Lastman standing" in them since like Quake?

 

[FAST6191]

There have been sort of similar cases in the past
https://gbatemp.net/threads/electronic-arts-sues-zynga-for-copyright-infringment.331971/

Alas it was eventually sorted out of court (possibly in a we'll drop ours if you drop yours fashion)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ttle-competing-lawsuits-idUSBRE91E0YG20130215

I saw Tetris mentioned earlier but they are a rather litigious lot, and even go after homebrew games and places hosting them (even GBAtemp has had notices at points) so might not be the best example. Or if you prefer https://news.slashdot.org/story/08/02/26/1859249/tetris-creator-claims-foss-destroys-the-market

That said I think software patents are disgusting and the idea that you could go one further and do game mechanics would be worse. Fortunately most courts, certainly all that matter, seemingly still have some sanity here. I can work around software patents but any "useful" test for mechanics akin to anything else we see in IP law (other copyright, patent, trademark and such tests of similarity, or indeed differences) would be so stifling that I can't even imagine it.

While many are trying to think of what might be the first battle royale style game I would go one further -- does not a basic king of the hill, possibly with moving hill, serve to draw players/teams closer and closer to a point as the game progresses?

On frying pans then http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FryingPanOfDoom

 

[Lazyboss]

All those kind of games are copying from each other anyway.
It will be silly if the law prevent us from copying ideas, even the law is a copy from other law.
So?

 

[netovsk]

The whole pubg vs fortnite thing kind of has that halo vs cod vibe from last generation.Fortnite has that cancerous community like cod has too.

Why are shooters the most cancerous games on earth?

I don't think it's the shooters community, man. I've played shooters for years and it's fine, even funny at times.

From my experience I'd say the most toxic communities are

1 - MOBA ones, who take the games way too seriously and put so much drama into it.

2 - Sony fanboys who like to impose their taste in games onto everyone else, review bombing and flaming of anything that somehow threatens Sony in their eyes.

--

This case reminds me of Apple x Samsung, where the latter had the technology and the patents but got sued for design aspects of their product.

Apple ultimately won in court, but not so sure this applies to game design as newer games look more and more like amalgamations of others.

 

[Minox]

I hope Epic Games loses. I played both and it is too obvious that too much was copied.

Going by this logic Blizzard should get sued for copying too much of Team Fortress 2's gameplay mechanics and ideas in Overwatch. Alas, such lawsuits would be incredibly stupid and would only prevent new fun games from being created so unless intellectual property or a trademark belonging to someone else is being used I believe everyone should be able to make clone games.

I saw Tetris mentioned earlier but they are a rather litigious lot, and even go after homebrew games and places hosting them (even GBAtemp has had notices at points) so might not be the best example. Or if you prefer https://news.slashdot.org/story/08/02/26/1859249/tetris-creator-claims-foss-destroys-the-market

The Tetris Company doesn't really seem to care about gameplay mechanics being similar, they mostly seem concerned with the Tetris trademark being used by other people than themselves or people they license it to.

 

[FAST6191]

The Tetris Company doesn't really seem to care about gameplay mechanics being similar, they mostly seem concerned with the Tetris trademark being used by other people than themselves or people they license it to.

While that is no small avenue for them I am going to have to beg to differ here and point at the homebrew world, and also things like https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-jersey/njdce/3:2009cv06115/235418/61/

 

[supergamer368]

I just can’t wait for when battle royale games die out. They aren’t fun, they’re the only thing people talk about (making it hard to talk about ANYTHING to ANYONE, at least in my school) and all they’re gonna do is copy each other, sue each other, and try to 1-up each other until they milk the games for all the money they’re worth. I’m sick and tired of hearing Fortnite this, PUBG that. And the stupid dances that you see 5-year-olds doing in the middle of Walmart. I hope that stops too.

 

[Deleted User]

Bluehole also tried to claim they had the sole ability to use frying pans as weapons in video games.

 

[DavidKang]

I like PUBG better because it has more suspense. There is no point fighting what is better and who copied what. Let's just see how the results come out.

 

[Joom]

I just can’t wait for when battle royale games die out. They aren’t fun, they’re the only thing people talk about (making it hard to talk about ANYTHING to ANYONE, at least in my school) and all they’re gonna do is copy each other, sue each other, and try to 1-up each other until they milk the games for all the money they’re worth. I’m sick and tired of hearing Fortnite this, PUBG that. And the stupid dances that you see 5-year-olds doing in the middle of Walmart. I hope that stops too.

"I hate things that are popular because they're popular." Why is GBATemp this disconnected from having fun? You think the constant barrage of Pokémon and the like didn't get annoying for the previous generation? More importantly, why can Nintendo fans not escape their bubble? They ain't so good anymore. Sorry.

 

[supergamer368]

"I hate things that are popular because they're popular." Why is GBATemp this disconnected from having fun? You think the constant barrage of Pokémon and the like didn't get annoying for the previous generation? More importantly, why can Nintendo fans not escape their bubble? They ain't so good anymore. Sorry.

Not hating because it’s popular. Hating it because nobody can shut up about it in my school for more than 5 seconds. Also, THE GAMES ARE BORING TO ME. Also, Pokemon is actually enjoyable to me and, I’m basically the only person in my school who plays it. I’m ok with hearing about it online, but hearing it all the time and then online can really set me off and cause me to - oh, no - give a personal opinion. Sorry I don’t like battle royale games, and I’m not just a “Nintendo fan in a bubble.” I’ve played plenty of PC games as well. Additionally, are you referring to Nintendo or the fans when you said they’re not so good anymore? Because there doesn’t seem to be a problem with either of them to me and if anything, Nintendo is actually improving. Sorry if this was long-winded, but this pretty much the only time I can give my opinion on the subject.