Back in September, PUBG Corp, the Korea-based subsidiary of Bluehole Games opened up to work on PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS, threatened legal action against Epic Games for Fortnite's portrayal of Battle Royale and concerns that Fortnite may be "replicating the experience for which PUBG is known." It would seem those were not the empty threats we all thought they were.
According to The Korean Times, PUBG Corp has filed a lawsuit against the Epic Games Korea, the Korean division of Epic Games, seeking to settle once and for all whether Fortnite Battle Royale did indeed "replicate" the PUBG experience. According to PUBG Corp, PUBG is the "first standalone Battle Royale survival shooter game."
A representative of PUBG Corp told the news outlet that the lawsuit was filed back in January with Seoul Central District Court.
"We filed the suit to protect our copyright in January," said the rep.
All this drama spun up last year when in July, assumedly after seeing the success of PUBG skyrocket, Epic Games modified their early access game Fortnite with a Battle Royale mode. the small experiment quickly exploded into its own (ongoing) success story. Adding to that drama, Epic also lent a helping hand to Bluehole when it licensed out its Unreal Engine 4.
For the time being, the lawsuit is limited to Korea, as there is currently no such lawsuit in the United States courts database. It will certainly take some time for all this to pan out, so stick around in my web to see it all unfold.
