PUBG is Taking Apple and Google to Court

PUBG is getting into another legal feud, but this time with two of the biggest tech giants in the industry, Apple and Google. Krafton Inc, the maker of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (better known as PUBG ), is suing the tech giants for allowing rip-off versions of PUBG on their app stores.

Krafton claims in a US-based lawsuit that Garena’s online battle royale game Free Fire, which is currently one of the biggest rivals to PUBG Mobile, has copied several of PUBG’s copyrighted elements. This allegedly includes the game structure, in-game items, equipment, and locations.

PUBG was originally released as one of the first battle royale games of the industry. The battle royale game type was also incorporated into other popular titles later including Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, Apex Legends, and others.

Krafton says that Free Fire started selling on the App Store and Google Play Store in 2017 and Garena also started selling another copyright-infringing video game last year called Free Fire MAX. 

The official complaint says that Apple and Google have distributed millions of copies of Free Fire on their app stores. Garena has allegedly earned more than $100 million through Free Fire sales in the U.S. in the first three months of 2021.

Krafton also claims that Google’s YouTube acts as a defendant to Free Fire for hosting its gameplay videos on the platform as well as a Chinese film that is allegedly a live-action dramatization of PUBG.

Moreover, Krafton says that it asked Apple and Google to stop selling copies of Free Fire in December 2021 to no avail. The PUBG maker has now asked the court to block sales of Free Fire and has also requested damages that Garena has earned through the game.

There has been no official comment from any of the involved parties so far.