Pubg sues fortnite

Can PUBG Sue Fortnite?

By now, it’s hard to miss hearing rumours about Fortnite and the multiple comparisons people have drawn between the game and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, since both are of the battle royale genre and released in the same year, although PUBG was released first.

It’s not too much of a surprise to hear that the developers of PUBG were dissatisfied when they heard of Fortnite’s release, as well as how how similar it was to PUBG’s style and gameplay.

The developers were displeased for good reason too, as Fortnite now has more players when compared to PUBG’s player base in February 2018. Even before Fortnite’s release in late 2017, the developers voiced their concerns and one may say they even threatened Fortnite, insulting the game by calling it a ‘carbon copy’ of PUBG and saying that they are considering further action

So, the Question Rises, Can PUBG Sue Fortnite? And if They Can, Will They?

Perhaps a better question isn’t whether PUBG can sue Fortnite, but what the consequences would be from suing Fortnite’s developers in the first place.

See, PUBG runs on Unreal Engine 4, which was created by Fortnite’s developers (Epic Games). Suing Fortnite will not only destroy the relationship between PUBG’s developers and Epic Games, but may also result in Epic Games pulling the license that PUBG uses to run the game in Unreal Engine 4.

As one might see, doing so will most likely break PUBG, so it’s a question of whether the developers feel suing Fortnite outweighs being able to run PUBG at all. The answer to that question is probably no.

Moreover, the developers of PUBG have forgotten that they did not create the first ever battle royale game. While it is one of the most recent battle royale games that have been seriously popular, there have also been earlier battle royale games such as The Culling and a mod created for Minecraft called the Survival Games.

They are nowhere near as popular, but if PUBG had the grounds to sue Fortnite for being similar in terms of game genre, then those who created The Culling and similar games would also have the grounds to sue PUBG.

In short, PUBG developers were not the ones who first created the battle royale game genre, but the ones who popularized it. But that does not allow them to sue other, popular battle royale games. They are not ‘ripping off’ PUBG unless they were to directly take game elements or code from PUBG, which so far Fortnite has not done.

For all their threats and concerns late last year, Fortnite has not done anything to warrant a claim from PUBG developers. In fact, it is perhaps in the developer’s best interests not to sue Fortnite, lest they give themselves a bad reputation or potentially losing access to Unreal Engine 4.

While Fortnite was and has proven itself to be a major threat to PUBG’s player base, it is not and will never be a credible claim for PUBG to use to sue Fortnite.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you think it’s fair to say that PUBG have no rights to try and sue Fortnite? Let us know your thoughts! After you’ve left a comment, why not take a look at our in-depth PUBG tips and tricks list.