Krafton is suing Garena: PUBG creator Krafton has filed a new suit with Free Fire developer Garena, alleging that Garena has been distributing a copycat edition of the battle royale game.
In the lawsuit, Krafton asserts that numerous features of Free Fire and the more recent Free Fire Max infringe on copyrighted elements of PUBG, including in-game objects, weapons, items, and the map.
One of the claims in the lawsuit, which deals with the “substantially similar” in-game maps, claims that Free Fire has attempted to imitate PUBG with the inclusion of a river that flows across the map and the similarity between a coastal village in both games.
Krafton has stated that Garena has been responsible for infringing its copyrighted materials since April 13, 2019.
The breach has been “willful deliberate, deliberate and deliberate.”
“Willful intent, deliberate, and with a purposeful.”
The lawsuit Krafton states in the case that Apple and Google have “refused to cooperate” with the demand that Free Fire be removed from their respective marketplaces.
Both parties are being included in the suit.
The complaint cites that Garena has generated 100 million dollars in revenue from Free Fire in the first three months of 2021.
The revenue comes through the sale of subscriptions and in-app purchases.
Krafton said that the amount of income was “ill-gotten,” which is due to “wrongful transactions.”
A comparison of maps from the complaint As per App Annie, Free Fire was the most played battle royale game downloaded in 2021, edging out PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty Mobile.
But, PUBG Mobile still maintained the most active user base of battle royale mobile games.
In addition, Krafton has named YouTube as an additional defendant because of hosting Free Fire gameplay on its platform, in addition to a Chinese production that’s “nothing more than an egregiously infringing live-action dramatization of Battlegrounds.”
History repeats itself
It’s not the first time the PUBG developer has filed legal proceedings against a rival battle royale producer.
In 2018, PUBG Corp brought an action with Netease for its Knives Out and Rules of Survival, claiming that the games were both duplicates to PUBG and demanded that both titles be removed.
In the months following, PUBG Corp filed another lawsuit against Fortnite developer Epic Games with similar clone claims, asserting that since PUBG was developed within Epic’s Unreal Engine 4, Epic’s battle royale has an exciting conflict.
Both Rules of Survival and Knives Out have been removed from the app marketplaces and remain accessible.
Fortnite remains accessible on mobile devices; however, it’s not available through the App Store and Google Play due to separate ongoing legal battles.
In the last week of December, Krafton asked to have Garena “revoke the apparent authorization” for Apple and Google to permit the publication in the form of Free Fire and Free Fire Max and Free Fire Max, with a suggested date of January 5, 2022.
The complaint requests that Free Fire and Free Fire Max sales be shut down from Google Play and the App Store.
App Store and Google Play and that the company has the right to a maximum amount of $150,000 per copyright infringement.
Krafton and publisher Tencent were recently granted $10 million as part of a legal fight against PUBG Hackers on mobile devices who distributed hacks and cheats to the game.
The two companies stated that any money derived from the case would develop the anti-cheat system.
