PUBG devs sue Epic Games amidst plummeting player count

PUBG Corporation have actually gone and done it. The developers of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds are taking Epic Games to court over alleged copyright infringement due to the creation of Fortnite Battle Royale. Whilst they have talked about doing this in the past, it is only now that a lawsuit has actually been filed and proceedings are underway.

The claim of copyright infringement stems from the fact that Fortnite and PUBG share some obvious similarities from a gameplay perspective. Clearly PUBG Corp believe they have ownership over an entire genre of games. The lawsuit is taking place in Korea with the target of the lawsuit being Epic Games Korea, the local office for the game development / publishing studio.

It doesn’t seem like a stretch to suggest that the lawsuit may stem from bitterness. Undeniably the idea for Fortnite Battle Royale originated from the success of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Although if you look at the numbers it is clear that Fortnite is the more successful game of the two. In fact, Fortnite is breaking records all over the place. As one game gathers more and more attention and more and more players, the other begins to slow down. PUBG may still have a lot of players, but it is certainly an amount that is dropping month after month.

According to Steam Spy, the player count for PUBG has been dropping in the hundreds of thousands since January of 2018. In fact, the average player count has dropped from 1,584,887 in January to 876,180 in May. That’s a 45% decrease. PUBG seems to be losing a battle to its biggest competitor but I’m not convinced filing a lawsuit is their best answer.