"PlayerUnknown's Battleground" - PUBG has filed a lawsuit against the rival game "Fortnite" due to similarities.

The studio working for PUBG has been summoned by the South Korean court to determine if Epic Games’ "Fortnite" has infringed on the game.

The Tech shop CeX tweeted the news of the lawsuit, stating "It happened" almost as if they were waiting for this day to come.

The similarities

Both games revolve around players entering a map and having the fight against other players using various guns and explosive devices to kill and ultimately to come first out of 100 players.

Both games have modes that allow players to either play alone and be the sole survivor or play in squads so that they can team up with their friends (or random players online) to the the last team standing.

"PlayerUnknown’s Battleground" became popular among gamer's last year when it was released on the 23 March 2017, quickly becoming the sixth-best-selling video game.

While "Fortnite" was released on the 25 July 2017 in early access. However, at this time the game was not involved with the Battle Royale genre, instead based around a cooperative sandbox survival player-versus-environment called “Save the World”. This mode of the game involves crafting weapons, building forts and structures, exploring the environment and fighting off hordes of monsters.

Yet, due to the rise and current success in the genre of Battleground games, Epic Games decided to release their own Battle Royale mode in September 2017. The two major differences from PUBG is that Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode is free to download, with them profiting from microtransactions from the cosmetics, and within the game itself the element of harvesting materials and building forts to shield players from the enemy players.

Is PUBG jealous of the success of 'Fortnite'?

Despite the differences, the two games have attracted millions of gamers with a clear healthy competition between the games and players who favour one over the other. At this moment in time, "Fortnite" has broken the world record for having the most players playing at one time - 3.4 million people, the previous record held by PUBG with 3.3 million players.

To attract more players across different platforms both games have crossed over onto mobile devices which have increased the popularity of both.

Also, both games appear to be making a large profit as of right now, according to Bloomberg, PUGB has generated up to £980m ($1.3 billion) sales. While, due to Fortnite’s free to download nature, from the skins and other cosmetics players can buy, analysts have suggested that they make over £150 million ($200 million) a month from these transactions.

PUBG confirmed in January this year they would be filing the suit against "Fortnite "as the company believed that the new competition has replicated their weapons, interface and other items. The Korean Times says the company states, “We filed the suit to protect our copyright.” The two companies have an existing relationship in the form of the business aspect due to PUBG and "Fortnite" being created on the same Unreal game engine.

This lead PUBG's developer Bluehole to have “growing concerns” because of the clear similarities in the games.

Nevertheless, both games are not the creators of this game style as both games have taken their inspiration from 2000 Japanese film “Battle Royale”, in which the plotline of a group of high school students is forced by the government to fight to the death. With many other forms of popular culture taking inspiration from this movie such as “The Hunger Games” and “H1Z1” another free-to-play game.

However, at this moment in time, Epic Games have not made a public comment regarding the lawsuit.
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