About a month ago, two of the biggest battle royale games – PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (smartly abbreviated to PUBG) and Fortnite – entered court to see who would come out alive, as the former filed a copyright lawsuit against the latter in the Seoul Central District Court. The Korean Times reported that the suit was filed earlier this year, but the issue between PUBG Corporation and Epic Games goes as far back as at least September 2017. Now, in an unexpected turn of events, PUBG Corporation has rescinded its lawsuit and pulled out from the court royale.
According to Bloomberg, “PUBG Corp. sent a letter of withdrawal to Epic Games Inc.’s attorneys on Monday and the South Korean case has since closed, according to the website of the local court system. PUBG and its law firm confirmed the action but wouldn’t say why, nor whether a settlement had been reached.” Representatives from either side haven’t provided an explanation for the decision yet nor have they provided a comment regarding the reports.
This move from the PUBG developers is unexpected, especially considering how adamant the team was about Fortnite infringing on PUBG‘s copyright. However, what has always complicated the lawsuit was PUBG Corporation owning a licensed copy of Epic’s Unreal Engine, which was used in the creation of the entirety of PUBG as a product. The Unreal Engine, a game engine developed by Epic Games first showcased in 1998, is an industry standard amongst games and game developers, so the PUBG team using Unreal to build their game is not new. However, because PUBG used a licensed copy of the Unreal Engine, initial word of the lawsuit was met with raised eyebrows.
It’s unclear how this will affect either game, or whether this will fundamentally change PUBG as a product, but with approximately 1.5 million players entering PUBG‘s battle royale at any given time, it doesn’t seem the lawsuit really matters to players.
[Source: Bloomberg]
