While the battle royale formula was popularized by PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the show was entirely stolen by Epic Games’ Fortnite, which quickly appropriated the mode and put its own spin on it. Smart and savvy decisions, such as making it free to play, and making the game available on all platforms, as well as steady optimization and polish, a great art style, and excellent support for the mode, have led to Fortnite becoming the most popular game in the world- while PUBG is still popular, the crown that could have been its is now with Epic Games and Fortnite.
PUBG Corp had indicated that it would be suing companies that had stolen its idea previously, including Epic Games- and now, according to a report by Korea Times, it seems that that is a threat it intends to make good on. A PUBG Corp official said Friday that the firm has filed an injunction, alleging copyright infringement, with the Seoul Central District Court against Epic Games Korea. “We filed the suit to protect our copyright in January,” said the official.
If the injunction is successful, then Fortnite will not be able to release in South Korea, which is a major market for eSports, competitive games, and PC gaming- that said, for now, at least, it is a market that Fortnite seems to have done just fine without.
Whether or not this lawsuit goes through remains to be seen, but I have to admit, this is all terribly silly. The games industry grows and propagates because other companies take popular ideas and iterate on them- imagine if id Software had sued first person shooters after DOOM, or Capcom fighters after Street Fighter II, or Nintendo, well, most games after Mario or Zelda on NES and N64. Where would the industry be today?