PUBG developer shocked someone cynically cloned PUBG

Hope this doesn't happen again.

PUBG Dev Threatens "Further Action" As It Takes Issue With "Similarities" In Fortnite's New Mode

Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene invented the battle royale game mode long before he turned it into a standalone game with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. But for all of the battle royale mods and games that exist, PUBG has been far more successful: The game has smashed all-time records on Steam and enjoyed a meteoric rise, with no end in sight. As you'd expect, other companies are looking to capitalize on the interest in PUBG, but the game's developer is unhappy with the particular approach Epic Games is taking with a new mode in Fortnite.

Epic announced earlier this month that it was releasing a new battle royale-style game mode for its upcoming free-to-play game, Fortnite. It made no attempt to hide its obvious inspiration, naming the mode Battle Royale and stating in a blog post, "We love battle royale games like PUBG and thought Fortnite would make a great foundation for our own version." After initially opening it only to those who purchased the early access version, Epic recently revealed that it will offer this aspect of the game for free to everyone starting on September 26 (the entirety of Fortnite will be free-to-play beginning next year).

In a curious move, PUBG developer Bluehole has now spoken out about the mode, even going so far as to release a press release sharing its reaction to Epic's announcement. The press release, which refers to PUBG as "the first standalone Battle Royale survival shooter game," states that it's decided to respond to "growing concerns regarding the similarities between the battle royale mode in Epic Games' newly revealed Fortnite and PUBG."

"We've had an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG's development as they are the creators of UE4, the engine we licensed for the game," said Bluehole VP and executive producer Chang Han Kim. "After listening to the growing feedback from our community and reviewing the gameplay for ourselves, we are concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known."

The press release notes that PUBG developers have "no relationship to Fortnite's development as concerns around User Interface (UI), gameplay, and structural replication in the battle royale mode exist."

Han Kim also took issue with Epic mentioning PUBG in reference to Fortnite's new mode. "We have also noticed that Epic Games references PUBG in the promotion of Fortnite to their community and in communications with the press. This was never discussed with us and we don't feel that it's right."

He also issued a threat, suggesting that Bluehole could attempt to take some "action" against Epic. "The PUBG community has and continues to provide evidence of the many similarities as we contemplate further action," Han Kim said.

No further specifics were shared, and it's unclear whether Bluehole has any intention of actually pursuing legal action. In light of PUBG's massive success, it's no surprise to see other developers looking to it for inspiration. As the press release even points out, Greene discussed copycats in a recent Reddit AMA.

"Other companies will, of course, enter the marketplace, but I would just hope they put their own spin on the game mode and not just make a carbon copy!" he said in response to a question (which didn't specifically mention Fortnite). "I try not to worry about them to be honest and instead just concentrate on completing my vision for a battle royale game."

We've reached out to Epic for a response to Bluehole's comments. We'll report back with anything it has to share.

What a bunch of jerks.

This is good for the industry, it breeds competition and potential innovations to a very similar genre.

That's like WoW sueing other companies for MMOs that came out after 2004.

Greedy ass devs.

What a bunch of jerks, they didn't invent that mode

Yeah I don't really support this thinking.

The developers of PUBG were very clearly inspired by the manga and film and now they're cracking down on other developers inspired by the success of their game? Not cool guys. :(

Lol, that's pretty damn egregious. "You can't steal that mode, we invented it and it can ONLY be in our games!"

I've never heard of a dev doing that before. You'd think they'd be honored that another dev is copying them and even go as far as to praise them.

To be fair, they did invent the circle thing that encloses in on the players after a certain amount of time. The initial design is copied from Battle Royale, but the circle thing is what makes it so interesting.

PUBG didn't even event king of the hill, maybe the size of the map it's played on but the mode has been in games like Marathon (1994).

AS i said before and you heard this first by Azatis , Grand Theft auto 6 most likely will have an epic battle royal online mode in the city and all that and lets see how Bluehole will react to that if they are so butthurt about Fortnite.

Bunch of jerks.

Maybe they'll realize they were wrong and chill.

@DragonfireXZ95: The circle thing is also from Battle Royale. :P

They didn't come up with that either.

Some more idiot developers. Maybe their success is going to their head. Maybe they should sell to MS like the Minecraft dude did and live a nice life(financially). It's kinda funny hearing all these new indie devs talk like they are some big business that's been around for years and has had multiple top grade titles released.

@AzatiS: Bluehole? More like Butthole.

Hmm, I don't remember the circle thing in the movie... unless you're talking about the manga. I never read that.

@AzatiS: That would be sick

That would be sick as hell

PU making a fool of himself is starting to become a tradition.

Just wait for E3 2018, boy.

You're in for a shock.

@DragonfireXZ95: Yes. It was only in the manga from what I remember. Everyone was outfitted with an explosive collar. The collar would detonate if the participants failed to keep within the play-zone which shrunk as time went on.

It's a very gruesome manga. Very disturbing and not for the light-hearted. I didn't really enjoy it too much. :(

It's more gruesome than the movie.

Edit: I researched how they introduced this rule to the reader. It was the death of Sho Tsukioka that went on to explain the boundaries rule.

Haha , true

EA, Activision, Rockstar, Ubisoft ex. Are coming with huge budgets for a piece of the pie.

Ah, ok, so they did pretty much copy it. Lol. So, it's even worse then. Pretty shitty of them.

@DragonfireXZ95: Basically. There's nothing original about the concept of their game. I think it's a little backwards to be stomping down on others for doing the same thing. Heck, who's to say Fortnite were inspired by Battle Royale also?

I think it's a bit big-headed of them. Art has no room for that.

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. You can tell that someone is new to being part of a competitive industry when they say things like this.

So should Takami go after PlayerUnknown and Bluehole? By this logic, apparently so!

Wow **** off Bluehole. PUBG didn't invent shit, it's popular only because it did what everyone else was already making, just with a level of quality above trashy shovelware.

Even beyond that, you can't own concepts. This has already been argued and given precedent in gaming. They can claim PUBG custom assets and coding, but they can't claim the Battle Royale concept like they own it.

MArk my words it will have and you heard this first here. It might not be a copy paste ala pubg but it will have this mode.

Damn, hopefully they dont waste their money in court settling this later. I've yet to play PUBG, but I did play Fortnite a lot on release, its a PVE/Tower defense type game I enjoyed a lot. Haven't tried their new BR mode though, and as long as they don't directly copy certain elements I dont see the issue because its just a genre that existed before.

My copyrights!

Thanks for finally telling me what "PUBG" stands for. Keep on hearing about it and now I know it stands for "Another dumb PC Moba".

Rockstar’s description of Motor Wars - Blending the adrenaline rush of Drop Zone with the claustrophobic tension of a match of Penned In, this brutal Adversary Mode is a deadly scavenger hunt where second place is not an option. Up to four teams parachute into a periodically shrinking kill box strewn with a lethal assortment of guns, explosives and Weaponized Vehicles. Work together, find a vehicle, and fight opposing teams and the shrinking map to survive and win.

The most amusing thing to me is that PUBG runs so much worse than Fortnite and they are using the same engine. I am indifferent to Epic personally, but considering Fortnight BR is free and PU/Bluehole are a bunch of colossal dickh***s, I think I'll play Fortnite BR. Don't get me wrong, the base game is a total freemium microtrans hellhole, but the BR mode looks like a lot of fun. I trust Epic a hell of a lot more to have regular updates and content additions (ie new maps, weapons, skins, etc...) than PU/Bluehole. This s*** lately with Bluehole banning people when streamers start getting diaper rash after they are killed pisses me off to no end. F*** 'em.

1. It's not a Moba. Not even remotely. Massive fail.

2. It's clearly not dumb given it's popularity and that big companies are scrambling to make clones.

3. It's going to be the next big thing on consoles, just like most "dumb PC ideas" end up being.

Weirdest MOBA I've ever seen.

They're mad that they're paying Epic a large sum of money for the License of Unreal Engine 4 and Epic decides they're going to make their own Battle Royale Game and it'll be on the PS4 and Xbox One sooner then their game.

There is some legitimate concerns as explained in a later interview that Epic might have had some insight about PUBG and it's game modes and features and probably used the knowledge to make a better features for the engine to support the Battle Royale gameplay, but put in a game like Fornite instead of their game, PUBG. Since you know, Epic makes Fornite and Bluehole makes PUBG. Priorities.

Still I think the real issue really is that Bluehole is just scared that they're going to lose the console market because Epic beat them to the punch.

Let's just forget that PUBG already dominates the PC market, has Twitch by the balls and Shattered Steam Records, cause Epic adding Battle Royale in Fortnite is coming and it's gonna ruin everything!

I would me more willing to entertain this complaint if Bluehole hadn't done f*** all to improve their game since making bank on it. It is still a buggy, unoptimized mess and other than the cosmetics (which pissed off their customers) it hasn't seen any new content in 6 months. How long has the new map been in development? How long has it taken them to fix their garbage net code? The truth is that after making $100m on the game they really don't give a s*** anymore. They already got more than they could ever have hoped on return on investment, why would they give a f*** about continued support? The answer is they don't.

With the amount of money they have made they should have hired enough people to get it to market ASAP (and to optimize the engine and net code for the matter). Anyone with half a brain knows that they were going to get copied, it is their own fault for being so slow to get anything done. I give props to Epic for having the foresight to get their Battle Royal in playable shape quickly enough to beat them to market.

Shocking.

Now excuse me while i play my Overwatch clone.

Dear Bluehole. That's how genres are born. Someone does something cool, other people start to think that they want to give their own spin on it. And Fortnite wasn't even the first to do this.

You shouldn't be able to just steal someone else's idea and NOT expect a Lawsuit. Differentiate the game in a way that it doesn't feel like a straight rip off.

Didn't see FROM suing Lords of shadow or Surge or the new Anime type Souls game.

Its not like they invented the idea for that type of mode and have they never heard of clones either?

It's done all the time in a few industries but imo it's not right unless they are different enough that they don't feel the same or look exactly the same. 1 company does all the hard work, engineering, is burdened with the costs and risks of being the Originator of said idea while another company sits back, sees what works then goes on to steal the ideas that work and rake in the benefits of all the hard work done by the first company. I can't understand how people could think this is ok.

@EG101: No it's not OK, but it happens. Thanksfully we have control over it. Lords of Fallen failed, so did Surge. But we did see what Candy Crush tried to do with trademarkings so...doudle edge sword i guess.

Bluehole should listen more to the complaints about their game instead of trying to protect exclusive milking rights. It's a great base for a game but their approach to the release is turning PUBG into a PR train-wreck.

?

I'm not much into the genre, and I can be wrong here, but isnt PUBG just another shared world survival game ala DayZ and dozens of others that came after it? It also has an ARMA vibe to me. It sound to me that PUBG is just the new fad game like Minecraft and DayZ before it...

So why exactly are they complaining like they'be invented the genre? Also, if people couldnt copy nothing then we wouldnt have other FPS games after Wolfenstein 3D/DOOM or plartformers after Pitfall...

Pretty sure that was in the Battle Royale movie as well. There were danger zones where collars exploded if players were still there after a specified time.

I think you meant Lords of the Fallen. Lords of Shadow is the subtitle of the Castlevania GoW like games...

Lol, both names are stupid, so i don't care.

I'll have to re-watch it. Been years since I've seen it. I really only remember a few parts of the movie.

pubg go to hell you didn't invent this crap

just a small korean co trying to flex their muscle.

Love pubg concept and execution but this shows a lack of confidence on their own project. If game developers started to sue each other on the same basis that would be the end of it all.