The makers of PUBG are suing the makers of Fortnite
By Nick Tylwalk
The battle of battle royale heavyweights could soon be fought on a new “map,” meaning the courtroom.
Is it possible to copyright an entire genre of video games? That could soon essentially be the question a court is forced to answer as the makers of PUBG are suing Epic Games, the creators of Fortnite. That’s according to a new report in The Korea Times, which says that Bluenote, the parent company of the PUBG studio that developed the game of the same name, filed an injunction against Epic Games Korea in Seoul Central District Court, accusing it of copyright infringement.
The legal action comes as Epic Games is looking to expand Fortnite into Korea. There’s no question there’s been a fierce battle between the two most popular battle royale games here in the U.S., with Fortnite currently claiming the greater share of media attention and players, though both games have been wildly successful.
There’s also no arguing that PUBG, which stands for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, came first. It’s been playable in some form since March of last year, whereas Epic Games, which had originally planned to make the Save the World mode the centerpiece of Fortnite, only pivoted to put more emphasis on its Battle Royale mode last fall.
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Despite stylistic differences and the addition of harvesting building materials to create structures in Fortnite, the two games are very similar in terms of their main objective, which is to be the last player or team standing after 100 players are dropped onto a map and forced to scavenge weapons and supplies in an area that periodically shrinks as each match goes on. The UIs and controls for the games aren’t identical, but they’re close enough that it’s not hard to figure out how to play one if you have some experience in the other.
Whether a Korean court will feel like Fortnite owes enough of its existence to elements that were copyrighted for PUBG remains to be seen, but this legal action makes one wonder if it could spill over to the U.S. as well. With more games introducing their own battle royale components in the next 18 months or so — expect that to be one of the hot trends of E3 next month — this particular rivalry may only continue to get more contentious.