PUBG files a lawsuit vs clones and of course, the frying pan legal offensive.

[ItsMitch]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/04/pubg-creators-finally-decide-a-copycat-game-has-gone-too-far-file-suit/ lawsuit was filed a week ago, sue me

PUBG Corp. has filed a lawsuit over two of its clones called Rules of Survival and Knives Out made by Chinese developer NetEase. PUBG are asserting that the use of "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner" oh and very amusingly, a frying pan. Yes, I'm not lying, on page 62, they're trying to argue that a frying pan can be used as a legal offence over the company. (Pictures will be included at the end)

Quote

 

As expected, the massively popular online shooter Playerunknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) has been followed by a wave of imitators, particularly on smartphones. But it has been unclear if or when the game's creators would ever consider legal action against any of these copycats. In particular, a brief chest-puffing incident involving the similar, and hugely popular, Fortnite Battle Royale came and went last year without incident.

That changed on Monday with a suit filed against NetEase, a Chinese game publisher with two very PUBG-like games on smartphones. The suit, filed in Northern California's US District Court by PUBG Corp (a wholly owned subsidiary of Korean game publisher Bluehole), alleges both copyright and trademark violations by NetEase's mobile-only games Rules of Survival and Knives Out.

Much like PUBG, NetEase's games offer 100-person online battles on an island that players parachute onto. The battles revolve around a constantly shrinking "safe zone," a specific set of military-grade weapons and armor, and a variety of island-crossing vehicles. What's more, NetEase's games beat PUBG to iOS, which invited a substantial number of "PUBG on phone" comparisons before the official version finally hit mobile devices.

PUBG Corp points out in the suit that it first took action by sending a complaint to Apple on January 24 about the games being on the App Store. (The suit doesn't clarify if PUBG Corp asked for those games to be delisted at that time.) Apple forwarded that complaint to NetEase one week later, and NetEase responded via email on January 31, "denying that Rules of Survival and Knives Out infringe PUBG Corporation’s rights.

 

 

This is just very silly, yes they're actual clones, sure but some of the claims are rather silly, a frying pan? Really Bluehole? Come on, you're better than that. You're hardly an original concept but I won't go into that whole argument.

 

PUBG Corp has asked the court to award damages and to have NetEase blocked from operating either game any longer. Bit extreme. Finally, they included an actual frying pan meme in their lawsuit

Credits to Jim for bringing this up

f

[AresKrieger]

Yeah whatever that won't get those morons at PUBG anywhere, the creator of the game is a imbecile who will not fix issues with his game and claims players are racists for not wanting to have laggy chinese hackers in the NA servers.

 

(also doesn't PUBG use stock assets for their frying pan )

[ItsMitch]

Just now, AresKrieger said:

claims players are racists for not wanting to have laggy chinese hackers in the NA servers.

lol, he actually said this?

[AresKrieger]

Just now, SC2Mitch said:

lol, he actually said this?

Yep, when people complained about the issues with Chinese players on NA servers he just called them a bunch of racists, think he specifically used the term xenophobic in the interview but the message was clear, he's stupid.

[Spotty]

This may not be a money grab or an attempt to shut down competition, and instead could just be a situation where PUBG have to try and enforce their IP rights or else everyone will begin making PUBG clones.

2 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

the creator of the game is a imbecile who will not fix issues with his game and claims players are racists for not wanting to have laggy chinese hackers in the NA servers.

I legitimately believe that the Oceania servers would die if not for Chinese players on the servers. I've played group with randoms quite a bit and I've only met one English speaking Oceania region player. We were both shocked that we found another English speaking person.

[Frankenburger]

3 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

lol, he actually said this?

Not verbatim, but basically yes

 

“This kind of xenophobic attitude that a lot of Western players seem to have online is just disgraceful. It's 2017! We live on one big planet together! What the ****? I'm quite ashamed of those players that shout these things out. We want to create a great space for everyone to enjoy across the globe and locking one region out ... I don't know what the **** they’re thinking.”

 

https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2017/12/22/16810348/pubg-1-0-release-playerunknown-interview-china

[ItsMitch]

Just now, Frankenburger said:

This kind of xenophobic attitude that a lot of Western players seem to have online is just disgraceful

Mhmm... Mhmm..... MHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM............... makes you think doesn't it

[Murasaki]

To be expected really.. but the frying pan part is hillarious. I think there was a melee frying pan weapon on TF2, but probably isnt the first game to use that

[yian88]

Im so sick of america, copyright laws needs to dissapear, no protection whatsoever zero.

You release a game you make money of it, no tech patents or software patents or copyrights, all free thats how it must be period.

[AresKrieger]

5 minutes ago, Spotty said:

This may not be a money grab or an attempt to shut down competition, and instead could just be a situation where PUBG have to try and enforce their IP rights or else everyone will begin making PUBG clones.

The issue with that is quite simple, copyright does not protect you from someone making a clone it protects your assets (they used stock assets mostly strike one) code and things that are specific too the ip (the concept is based on Battle Royale strike that too), and the the last one it has to be blatant, there is a reason "Doomclone" was the original name for the FPS genre and they makers of these "Doomclones" were not sued for making them.

[Frankenburger]

4 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

 

good luck.

Kinda like when Greene tried claiming that the battle royale genre belonged to him. He's just desperate to get attention now that Fortnite has overtaken PUBG.

[Jito463]

9 minutes ago, yian88 said:

Im so sick of america, copyright laws needs to dissapear, no protection whatsoever zero.

Well, good thing that Bluehole is based in South Korea, then.

[Mooshi]

Can these fuckwits just go already? Bad enough they we're biting the hand that feeds them with the baby fit against the creaters of Unreal engine  and spamming YouTube with their horrid ads.

[Misanthrope]

What happened to going after Fortnite? You know, the one game that's now beating PUBG? Oh wait that might not be a push-over target for lawsuits right?

 

Fuck PUBG, Fuck PlayerUnknown and his glorified fucking mod.

[Blademaster91]

2 hours ago, AresKrieger said:

Yeah whatever that won't get those morons at PUBG anywhere, the creator of the game is a imbecile who will not fix issues with his game and claims players are racists for not wanting to have laggy chinese hackers in the NA servers.

(also doesn't PUBG us stock assets for their frying pan )

They aren't the only creator or devs to complain racism instead of looking at how laggy players affects everyone regardless of where they are from. It sucks in a free FPS game but rather inexcusable to deal with lagging players in a paid game.

2 hours ago, yian88 said:

Im so sick of america, copyright laws needs to dissapear, no protection whatsoever zero.

You release a game you make money of it, no tech patents or software patents or copyrights, all free thats how it must be period.

Having copyright laws is good to protect a created IP,but this is just the creator getting desperate and afraid games like Fortnite are going to take over. I can't stand the idiot creator and their overhyped game, trying to claim copyright on a frying pan instead of actually fixing the game?

 

[DildorTheDecent]

I'm sure people have used frying pans as defense tool before.

 

He should try suing them lol.

 

What a fucking tool. I want what he smokes cos damn it must be good.

[GoodBytes]

Good luck to Players Unknowns.

If they didn't want clones (which ironically more downloaded and played than their own games), they should have not made a smartphone version of their game. The issue to why the Chinese knockoff games are more popular, as that they play better than PUBG in terms of performance, as they are native games for the mobile system, and not the PC version cut down in an attempt to run it on mobile devices. And to think that Google and iOS Stores would care 1 moment about copyright protection of apps in their Store, you are in for surprise. Smartphone is a death trap in this regard. They should have focused on making a Nintendo Switch version (if the wanted a portable version of their game) where you have Nintendo backing against this in their Store, much like XBox One and PS4 Stores, as they decide what goes in and not. They control the experience they want to give to its consumers, and game devs/publishers.

 

Going after these Chinese studios is pretty much a lost cause, as:

1. They are good at copying a game just enough to not be copyrighted.
2. They are in China, or Russia, or some other country with lose copyright enforcement and is difficult for the police to intervene, especially when it is a company that is in a different country going after a local company in these countries.

 

[Ryujin2003]

I know everyone here wants PUBG to fuck off.. got it..

 

However, I looked at the games in question, and they look like nearly exact clones. The parachutes, plane, guns, the drop boxes. Everything is nearly identical. The difference is NetEase puts their branding on things in game.

 

 

 

I get people are very tired of the Battle Royale thing, but I understand the legal issues. Someone else is making money off of Bluehole's work, despite any issues with PUBG.

 

There are a lot of clones, and I think the mobile market has some of the biggest issue with copyright violations. PUBG aside, how many Star Wars games can you find that aren't officially licensed? Does it make it ok to use Lucas Arts and Disney IP?

 

Just because people don't like the game or the concept doesn't mean that mobile developers should be able to copy and profit from others.

 

There are plenty of other clones out there aside from NetEase.

[ItsMitch]

13 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

What happened to going after Fortnite? You know, the one game that's now beating PUBG? Oh wait that might not be a push-over target for lawsuits right?

 

 

I think they accept that they've lost the once great twitch userbase. 

[Cole5]

Hahahahahahaha

Whats next are they gonna go after Microsoft for having a frying pan weapon in Fable?

What a whiny idiot, take your money and jump off a cliff

[Selah]

37 minutes ago, Frankenburger said:

Not verbatim, but basically yes

 

 

 

 

https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2017/12/22/16810348/pubg-1-0-release-playerunknown-interview-china

" One such measure is an auto-ban for team-killing, the practice of killing allied players in duos or squads. When reports are made now, an automated system reviews the action and hands out bans on the spot. .... “We've reduced hacking by 67.5 percent with these types of strategies,” Greene said. “We're building these tools, we're analyzing the vast amount of data we get and really trying to build out the system. We're seeing progress, and this is something we're going to continue doing because we want to provide a competitive platform and a fair place for people to play in.” "

 

So teamkilling bans reduce hacking?????? what a lovely leap of logic.

[ScratchCat]

7 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

What happened to going after Fortnite? You know, the one game that's now beating PUBG? Oh wait that might not be a push-over target for lawsuits right?

 

Fuck PUBG, Fuck PlayerUnknown and his glorified fucking mod.

They probably realised they don't really have a case. They are both free-for-all games with a shinking map and random weapons - not exactly something you can patent.

 

Fortnite apparently copied Battle Royale from PUBG

PUBG Battle Royale technically copied from the Hunger Games/DayZ (free for all, shrinking area, random weapons/tools)

The Hunger Games and DayZ are based off conventional free for all and survival

...

They wouldn't have had a case.

 

[Frankenburger]

7 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

They wouldn't have had a case

PUBG Corp doesn't have a case with the whole "Muh frying pans!" either, yet here we are

Seems to me they think they're untouchable, and Fortnite rustling their jimmies got their panties in a bunch over the whole genre. The salt is real.

[DarkBlade2117]

1 hour ago, Frankenburger said:

Kinda like when Greene tried claiming that the battle royale genre belonged to him. He's just desperate to get attention now that Fortnite has overtaken PUBG.

Maybe, but they still dominate the Asian country which will generate them more than NA and EU.

[Frankenburger]

3 minutes ago, DarkBlade2117 said:

Maybe, but they still dominate the Asian country which will generate them more than NA and EU.

There's a reason for that though - the Steam marketplace. Most of the keys you see on G2A and Kinguin are from Chinese sellers who buy keys and flip them. Best way to do that and make a profit is by selling crates/items on the marketplace and buying the keys to flip. Hence the reason why 99% of the Chinese player base are hackers.