The creator of the world’s top-selling video game has sued a Chinese company for allegedly ripping off content, from military-style air drops to the iconic frying pan and chicken dinner victory slogan the survival shooter’s become known for.
PUBG Corp, an affiliate of South Korean studio Bluehole Inc, accused Netease Inc (網易科技), China’s second-largest video game publisher, of basing two mobile games — Rules of Survival and Knives Out — on the ideas behind Brendan Greene’s PC smash hit PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
PUBG wants both games removed from Apple Inc’s App Store and Alphabet Inc’s Google Play, and is demanding US$150,000 “per infringed work,” according to a court filing.
Netease-rival Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) is Bluehole’s distribution partner in China.
The game features 100 players racing to kill each other until there is one survivor: a so-called Battle Royale concept that has taken the gaming industry by storm since PlayerUnknown’s Ballegrounds’ release a year ago, but the studio says Netease went too far, detailing a plethora of alleged copyright infringements in a 154-page filing with a US district court.
Rules of Survival victors are feted by an enthusiastic chicken, which PUBG claims evokes the “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner” message that greets sole survivors in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
In both Knives Out and Battlegrounds an air-dropped supply box spews red smoke.
A frying pan, both weapon and butt-armor in Battlegrounds, operates similarly in Rules of Survival, PUBG said, calling the cooking utensil a “beloved” emblem.
Netease “intended to create consumer confusion” that its mobile games were created by PUBG, according to the filing.
Rules of Survival and Knives Out both have their own independent intellectual property, said Sharon Hu, a spokeswoman for Netease, adding that the company would publish a more detailed response soon.
Bluehole has sold more than 32 million copies of its game, earning more than 250 billion won (US$235 million) last year in operating profit.
Netease’s Rules of Survival, released late last year, is in the top 100 in about 60 nations, while Knives Out was the fourth-highest grossing game in Japan as of yesterday.
As smartphones and tablets have gotten more sophisticated and powerful, they have become more satisfying for gamers.
Global mobile gaming revenue was US$42 billion in 2016, 39 percent of the overall video game market, according to research by German investment bank Berenberg.
By 2020, that is projected to be 50 percent, or US$65 billion.
Last month, Amazon.com Inc rolled out its GameOn service, a competitor to Skillz that helps mobile and PC developers promote their games by creating e-sports tournaments.
In the past two weeks, Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, two of the world’s top-grossing computer games, launched on mobile.
They are the top two free games on Apple’s App Store.
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