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PUBG-manufacturer Krafton filed a big lawsuit Monday: It’s suing the developer of two mobile games it accuses of copying PUBG: Battlegrounds, the hit Battle Royale shooter game for PC, Y is suing Apple and Google for distributing those games in their app stores. Krafton even accuses Google of hosting Youtube gameplay videos for the two games in question, as well as “numerous posts containing a full-length Chinese movie that is nothing more than a live-action dramatization blatantly infringing on battlefields.”
The games Krafton disagrees with are called Free shot Y Max Free Fire, offered by the developer Garena. In both the App Store and Google Play, they appear as Garena free fire Y Garena Free Fire Max.. Both are available for free with in-app purchases.
According to Krafton:
Free shot Y Max Free Fire extensively copy numerous aspects of battlefields, both individually and in combination, including battlefields The unique copyrighted game opening “air drop” feature, the game’s structure and gameplay, the combination and selection of unique weapons, armor, and items, locations, and the overall choice of color schemes, materials, and textures.
Krafton alleges that Garena has made “hundreds of millions of dollars” from sales of the apps and that Apple and Google have “similarly made a substantial amount of revenue from their distribution of apps.” Free shot.”
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Krafton claims that on December 21 he took some action: he asked Garena to “immediately stop its exploitation of Free shot Y max Free Fire,” which Garena apparently rejected; asked Apple and Google to stop distributing the games, which are still available in both app stores; and asked YouTube to remove the videos featuring Free shot Y Max Free Fire gameplay “which includes elements that blatantly infringe battlefields and, separately, the offending feature film,” which Krafton says YouTube has not done.
In case you’re wondering about that movie:
Update on the following:
1. The directors said it’s not a PUBG movie, even though it’s basically a PUBG movie.
2. Krafton said they are considering suing given the similarities to the PUBG IP.
3. You can watch it with English subs here: https://t.co/lS1SfdTRhj https://t.co/pBdcsqZttn
—Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) August 15, 2021
Krafton also points out that Garena sold a game in Singapore in 2017 that it “copied” PUBG: Battlegrounds. While the claims were settled, no licensing agreement was established, according to the lawsuit.
I admit I hadn’t heard of Free shot before this lawsuit, but I have since learned that it is quite lucrative. Free shot made $1.1 billion in player spending in 2021, according to data analytics firm Sensor Tower shared with the edge, an amount that is up 48 percent from 2020. While the total dollar amount is quite a bit less than the staggering $2.9 billion that PUBG-Mobile earned on player spending last year, PUBG mobile the numbers were up just seven percent year over year, Sensor Tower reports. that might suggest PUBG mobile growth is slowing as well free fire it’s shooting.
We also checked with another analytics firm, Appfigures, and while the data was different, it still suggested that Free shot is catching up PUBG Mobile, PUBG Mobile Lite, and the China- and India-specific versions of PUBG-Mobile earned a combined revenue of $639 million last year, according to Appfigures, while Free shot it earned $414 million.
Apple and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jason Golz, a spokesman for Sea, the parent company of Garena, says the edge that “Krafton’s claims are baseless.”