PUBG Corp., the Korean Subsidiary of Bluehole Studios (the developer of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds), has dropped its lawsuit against Fortnite developer Epic Games Inc. PUBG had filed a copyright infringement claim against Epic in South Korea back in January. According to reports, PUBG alleged that Epic had copied PlayerUnknown's assets and user interface. You can read our coverage here. However, on Monday, PUBG sent a letter of withdrawal to Epic's lawyers and the South Korean case was closed. Neither side has stated a reason for the withdrawal. PUBG's lawsuit against Netease Inc. is still ongoing, and we will continue to provide updates when available.

It is worth noting that Tencent Holdings Ltd., a Chinese social media/gaming company, is a part-owner in both Bluehole Studios and Epic - each to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars - and might not want its investments suing each other. Also, PlayerUnknown's currently runs on Epic's Unreal Engine 4, which could also play a part in the settlement. We may never known the exact reason PUBG withdrew, but the cross-over between the two sides could have been a significant factor. As of right now, this appears to be the end of the legal conflict between PUBG and Epic.

So why sue in South Korea? Likely answer: sue where you think you can win. PUBG is a subsidiary of Bluehole, a South Korean game developer. Choosing South Korea as the forum gives Bluehole and PUBG home-court advantage. Also, the legal standard for copyright infringement might be different in South Korea than in America. The differences in the legal standards might give PUBG an edge depending on the claims asserted.

As of this writing, the specific claims PUBG is asserting against Epic Games are unknown. According to a Korea Times article, Bluehole had previously stated its belief that Epic Games copied core elements and the user interface of PlayerUnknown's. Earlier this year, PUBG filed a similar lawsuit against NetEase for copyright infringement in the US. PUBG filed that lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In the US claim, PUBG listed a series of elements which individually may or may not be copyrightable, but which together they allege have copyright protection. Essentially, the claim argues that NetEase copied the total look and feel of PlayerUnknown's by including all of the similar elements listed. Check out our previous post for more on the NetEase case. Both lawsuits are in the very early stages of litigation, so there has not been any significant ruling yet.

PlayerUnknown's currently runs on the Unreal Engine 4, which is an Epic Game property. It will be interesting to see if there will be any fallout as a result of PUBG instigating litigation. As it stands now, this case is a big deal, but if this lawsuit grows beyond South Korea's borders, it could get UNREAL! (get it? Unreal, like the game engine? Sorry Canon, had to go there...).

On April 2, 2018, PUBG Corporation and PUBG Santa Monica, Inc. (“PUBG”) sued NetEase, Inc. and NetEase Information Technology Corp. (“NetEase”) over alleged copyright infringement, trade dress infringement, and unfair competition.  The complaint alleges, in short, that NetEast’s titles Rules of Survival and Knives Out are knockoffs of PUBG’s massively popular Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds.


PUBG’s lengthy (155 page!) complaint provides a listing of all instances in which Rules of Survival and/or Knives Out allegedly copied Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds.  Some examples, as alleged by PUBG:

• “Pre-Play Area” – Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, Rules of Survival, and Knives Out feature a pre-play area “where players can meet each other and try out weapons while waiting for other players to join.”
• Play Map – The layout of the maps in all three games are “strikingly similar.”
• “Scenes and Locations” – Both Rules of Survival and Knives Out feature, like Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, locations such as a shooting range, a rural aqueduct, a port with shipping containers, a farm area, two-story hexagonal towers, and the like.
• Air Jump – In Rules of Survival and Knives Out, as in Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, players jump at any point from an airplane onto various portions of a map.  Players may then descend in freefall and release a parachute. 
• Weapons – For example, where Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds features a M416, Rules of Survival features an MA14.  Both games also feature, for example, red dot sights, vertical foregrips, bullet loops, and other similar accessories.
• Frying Pans – Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, Rules of Survival, and Knives Out feature frying pan weapons. 
• “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner” – Both Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and Rules of Survival use this phrase to indicate the winner of a match.  Rules of Survival also has a rubber chicken which may be used as a melee weapon. 
• Shrinking Gameplay Area – Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, Rules of Survival, and Knives Out have a progressively shrinking gameplay area and a timer which warns players when a next shrinking event will occur.

Individually, all of the above examples could arguably be found in other video games or in real life.  For example, the M416 in Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds’ is arguably a version of the Heckler & Koch HK416.  As another example, Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is far from the progenitor of the term “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner,” as the term originated during the Depression. It seems likely that PUBG will argue that the combination of such elements, rather than the individual elements themselves, has been copied by NetEase.

PUBG is far from the first game company to sue creators of alleged copycat game titles.  Tetris Holding, the company that owns the rights to Tetris, won a battle against a copycat app.  In that case, the Court found that the fact that game mechanics and game rules are not entitled to protection “does not mean, and cannot mean, that any and all expression related to a game rule or game function is unprotectable” such that Tetris Holdings was “entitled to copyright protection for the way in which it [chose] to express game rules or game play as one would be to the way in which one chooses to express an idea.”  Similar battles occurred between the creators of The Sims Social and The Ville and between the creators of Triple Town and Yeti Town.  Our firm (Banner & Witcoff), for example, represented Wargaming.net in a similar dispute against Changyou.com involving an alleged knockoff of Wargaming’s World of Tanks.

On October 11, Epic Games, Inc. and Epic Games International (“Epic”) sued individuals Brandon Broom and Charles Vraspir in two separate suits (5:17-CV-0511 and 5:17-CV-0512) for copyright infringement, circumvention of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), breach of contract, and intentional interference with contractual relations.  The suits, filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina, relate to Epic's game Fortnite.



Epic alleges that Broom and Vraspir not only cheated in Fortnite, but also assisted others in doing so on the website AddictedCheats.net.  When cheating themselves, Broom and Vraspir allegedly intentionally targeted Fortnite streamers (i.e. “stream sniping”) because, allegedly per Vrapsir, “its [sic] fun to rage and see streamers cry about how loaded they are and then get them stomped anyways.”  Epic’s complaints seem to suggest that Vraspir was particularly aggressive on cheating in Fortnite because he was banned from Fortnite: allegedly per Vraspir, his ban “unleash[ed] the beast” such that “Epic will have to take care or their game will die.”

Fortnite’s popularity in recent weeks has exploded since a recent free mode released which, some allege, provides a game mode duplicative of the massively popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.  Some speculated that Bluehole, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ developer, might explore a suit against Epic (indeed, Bluehole issued a public press release complaining about the similarities); however, Bluehole’s extensive reliance on Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 and ongoing licensing relationship with Epic makes such a suit seemingly unlikely.