Rajkotupdates.news : PUBG developer Krafton has filed a lawsuit against Garena Free Fire for plagiarism. PUBG (Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds) has over 500 million downloads and over 1 billion online players. It’s a free battle shooter game that is widely played in Asia and has a third ranking in action games on Google PlayStore.
PUBG is developed by popular South Korean game developers Krafton, LightSpeed, and Quantum Studio which is a sector of Tencent Games). Krafton Inc holds the titles of various big names in the gaming arena like PUBG, TERA, Battlegrounds, Moonbreaker, and New State Mobiles.
PUBG, which makes $8.1 million every day, faced a major setback in players after the surge in popularity of Free Fire. Free Fire has identical game modes and functions as PUBG. Free Fire is a battle royale game with over 187 million daily active players. The game was released in 2017 by Garena for Android and iOS in Singapore.
In the same year, PUBG was released. However, in 2019, with Covid 19 and the following pandemic paved a smooth road to success for both games. In 2019, Free Fire became the most downloaded game among Android and iOS smartphone users.
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Similarities and Differences between Garena Free Fire and PUBG
Both games gave similar genres and play modes with a few distinctions. In likenesses, players of both games are taken off to an island through a jet, where they have to land using a parachute, game structure, locations, color schemes, materials, textures, and weapon combinations. Later, they have to scavenge for weapons and start their hunting to get the most kills for ranking higher. The last standing player or team wins the game.
Additionally, both games use analogous gameplay mechanisms like looting supplies and weapons after killing or landing on the island, shrinking play zones, and environmental jeopardies.
In contrast, Garena Free Fire has smaller maps and shorter battle times. Further, it is a fast-paced, agility focusentrated, action arcade-style game. Whereas, PUBG focuses on the strategic planning of players and how they make decisions by available resources and terrains. Hence, it’s a tactical and realistic game based on decision-making and proficiency.
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Details on Rajkotupdates.News : PUBG Developer Krafton Has Filed A Lawsuit Against Garena Free Fire
Krafton alleges blatantly that Garena has spawned their royale battle gameplay after witnessing the success of PUBG and Free Fire is the detailed copy of their game. They owe their popularity in Latin America and Southeast Asia to them. Moreover, they are using their rights without paying the license fees.
The lawsuit dictates that Free Fire and Free Fire Max (launched in 2021) have copied the interface, characters, and gameplay from PUBG and BGMI (the Indian version of PUBG) due to close resemblances. Likewise, they also assert that Gareena has also copied various elements from other popular games like Fortnite and Apex Legend.
Krafton has faced a multitude of damages from copyright infringement and unnecessary competition from Garena Free Fire. Hence, they are seeking a referendum to prevent the alleged twin game from stealing elements from other games, particularly PUBG.
Further, they also filed a case against Apple and Google for promoting the Garena games through their App Stores for generating money despite the copyright protection controversies going on. YouTube wasn’t exempted from this lawsuit. YouTube playing videos of the two games and numerous posts about them was the prime cause of it.
On December 21, Krafton asked the main parties of the lawsuit to cease exploiting and asked Google to remove the Chinese movie of the game containing infringing content from YouTube. Regardless, no action has been taken on.
Free Fire is facing banning threats on Google Play Store and Apple App Store due to the impact of the lawsuit. Lately, many countries have been banning these games due to the monopoly caused by them.
How did Garena respond to the lawsuit?
Garena hasn’t adopted any measures against the lawsuit publically. However, in 2019, the Singapore gaming company denied accusations of copyright violation in an official statement. A spokesperson Jason Golz of Garena’s parent Company Sea said that Krafton’s assertions are “groundless.”
Apart from that, they haven’t taken any other measures against the lawsuit.
What to expect from the Krafton lawsuit?
Although rajkotupdates.news : PUBG developer Krafton has filed a lawsuit against Garena Free Fire but it’s unclear where the lawsuit will lead in the future.
Although, there’s not much progress made in this lawsuit. Yet, it has initiated a debate in the gaming world around the globe about the usage of similar elements in different games.
If the lawsuit proceeds further and copyright laws are implemented on the game. Then, it would certainly create a wave of disorientation and damage for various gaming corporations. Other gaming developers function their games on similar gameplay and elements would be taken into the limitation of laws.
On the other hand, if Free Fire remains steady and defends itself against the accusations. This will elevate the precedent of lenient interpretations of copyright violations in the gaming industry. As a result, more and more developers would employ elements from other games and bore the players with constant repetitiveness.
Various other game developers have declared their competitors for breaching copyrights and borrowing characteristics of features from games without authorization. Such lawsuits will likely become a staple in the gaming zone soon.
Lawsuits prevailing against gaming developers by PUBG
Free Fire isn’t the only one being targeted. Other cases were against Epic Games and Fortnite developers which duplicated the “battle royale” gameplay of the shooting game PUBG.
Besides, Rules of Survival and Knives Out also extort various elements from the shooting game. Consequently, it has sparked controversies on the originality of various games and the erosion of newness in the gaming industry.
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What to do if Garena Free Fire gets banned?
rajkotupdates.news : PUBG developer Krafton has filed a lawsuit against Garena Free Fire and what if it results in the ban of Garena Free Fire? Garena fans must be in distress due to the news about the ban on their favorite game. However, if they download the game now, they can keep on playing the game even after its ban from Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
What is your take on rajkotupdates.news : PUBG developer Krafton has filed a lawsuit against Garena Free Fire.
