Battle Royale video game titles, in a certain way, seem to have benefited from the PlayerUnknown’s was put on the radar by Battlegrounds (PUBG).
And after that premiere, a great wave of games emerged that shared the attractive Battle Royale mechanics, such as free fire. The creators of PUBG, however, they believe that this game has so much similarity that it infringes copyright, for which they have just sued its developers for Apple and Google.
That’s how it is, krafton interposed the past January 10 a lawsuit against Garena, Apple, Google And till Youtube that involves free fire, the popular free to play title from Garena.
Apparently according to krafton, Garena is being sued because they consider that the free fire original (called Free Fire Battlegrounds), as well as the most updated version, Free Fire MAX, They’re a “rampant and willful copyright infringement”.
The company, in said lawsuit, refers to the games of Garena What “barely disguised unauthorized versions of PUBG”, since it copies several elements of PUBG since its release in 2017, such as its opening sequence, structure, gameplay, weapons, armor, textures, items, color schemes, and more.
What you could ask yourself is, what does this demand have to do with Google and Apple? krafton also sued Apple and Google because in their stores (Google Play Store and App Store, respectively) versions of free fire, which have generated “hundreds of millions of dollars” in sales, so both companies have also benefited from their store fees.
Then, krafton requested to Apple and Google stop selling the games last month, but they refused to remove them from their platforms and even got into the lawsuit also Youtube, since the company claims that the video platform of Google would also be infringing the copyright of krafton when hosting videos of free fire, so it was also included in the lawsuit.
Apparently, krafton had already taken action on the matter around the similarity of free fire with respect to PUBG, only that an agreement was reached in the original lawsuit, but Krafton states that it was not a licensing agreement with Garena.
As you may know, last year, in the month of September, Garena released Free Fire MAX and in November 2021 krafton He launched PUBG: New State. This latest game includes some new features and in the lawsuit Krafton said he was concerned that it would be copied again if the case is not addressed.
And now that this topic has captured the attention of the media, Tech Crunch contacted Krafton and Garena to get an answer. Apparently, only Garena answered the call and mentioned that “Krafton’s claims are unfounded”, without offering a detailed explanation.
We will refresh your memory by reminding you that this is not the first time that Krafton has entered legal ground against other games, since in 2018 Krafton sued Epic Games for alleged copyright violation by Fortnite and in 2019 the PUBG company sued NetEase also for copyright infringement with Rules of Survival (ROS) and Knives Out.
Or the most recent case, where the creators of PUBG, asked for the intervention of the Court to fix a problem they had with the hackers of the game, which they won and said hackers had to pay for all the damages.