PUBG Corp has backtracked on comments about supporting competition and has filed a lawsuit against Epic Games for copyright infringement in South Korea. The case surrounds the use of elements of the Battle Royale genre; where PUBG claims that Epic Games’ Fortnite stole the UI and items.
The situation is somewhat difficult to assess, seeing as neither of these games can lay claim to having invented the genre. It was first seen in a H1Z1 game mode. Although that doesn’t appear to have deterred PUBG from claiming copyrights in many elements common to both games.
Both Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite Battle Royale operate on the same premise. About 100 players drop onto a map and battle until only one is left. Both games also include a shrinking “safe zone” to ensure that players are continually moving towards each other and maintain a sense of urgency.
Aside from that, there is little in common between the two. PUBG takes a more straightforward approach, being distilled purely into the combat aspect. It’s also a lot more realistic, with cover and camouflage being extremely important in surviving.
Fortnite, on the other hand, take a more cartoonish approach to everything. Throwing in building aspects, jump pads to launch players into the air, and even introducing a timed event where an meteorite destroyed part of the map.
The lawsuit also gets a little awkward due to the fact that PUBG runs on the Unreal Engine. Which happens to be owned by Epic Games. It’s not common to see technical partners come to disagreements like this.
Fortnite has miraculously managed to break PUBG’s hold on the Battle Royale genre, surpassing the 3.4 million concurrent player mark in February. PUBG had peaked at 3.3 million players just before that.
[Source: Korea Times]
