PUBG Corp Drops Copyright Lawsuit Against Epic Games
Ron Perillo / 6 years ago
The End of the PUBG vs Fortnite Fight?
The two biggest games in the world, PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds and Fortnite were in a legal battle earlier this year. However, PUBG Corp, the company behind PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds have now dropped the lawsuit against Fortnite. PUBG Corp’s layers sent a letter of withdrawal on Monday to Epic Games Inc, the developers of Fortnite. After which, the South Korean case is now officially closed according to the local court system website (via Bloomberg).
The two games have been vying for the top battle royale crown for some time now. PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds once the biggest game in the world, is eventually eclipsed by Fortnite’s Battle Royale. Largely in part due to the game being free vs PUBG’s £26 base price.
Furthermore, Fortnite has cross-platform support between PCs, consoles and mobile. With the exception of Sony’s PlayStation 4 platform, which of course, resulted in angry fans lashing out at Sony. In turn, Sony has now declared that they are “looking at a lot of possibilities” in making cross-play happen on their platform.
What Was the Lawsuit About Anyway?
PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds has always contended that Epic’s Fortnite copied the battle royale format directly from them. However, the company has recently become fiercely overprotective of the battle royale idea once Fortnite’s numbers started to eclipse them. Eventually suing China’s Netease Inc for allegedly coping them with Rules of Survival and Knives Out, as well as Epic Games with Fortnite. Considering the amount of battle royale games now available out there, it would seem PUBG Corp’s legal time would be working overtime if they have to file a lawsuit for each one.
Complicating the matter further is PUBG’s use of the Unreal Engine which Epic Games owns. Plus, both Epic Games and Bluehole Inc. (parent company of PUBG) are part-owned by China’s Tencent Holdings.
Fortnite now has 125 million players only a year after launch and has made over $318 million in May, although growth is slowing down.