Krafton PUBG Mobile sues Apple, Google and Garena, Free Fire over clones

PUBG Mobile and Free Fire are currently the most popular battle royale games for smartphone users. Both games have seen huge growth in recent years. Both games have recently released new versions of PUBG: New State and Free Fire Max respectively.

Now, in a recent move, Krafton, the developers of the PUBG franchise, have filed a lawsuit against Free Fire creators, Garena. Krafton also named the Google Play Store, Youtube and the Apple App Store in its lawsuit. That’s why Krafton filed a lawsuit against Garena and big tech companies, Google and Apple.

Why is Krafton suing Garena?

The developers of PUBG, Crafton claims that Garena replicates many of its own aspects, including the opening of the game, the structure and gameplay, the combination and choice of weapons, armor and unique objects, locations, as well as the overall color schemes, materials and textures. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on January 10, 2022.

According to the Krafton lawsuit, Garena began selling Free Fire: Battlegrounds (now Free Fire) in Singapore in 2017, shortly after the launch of PUBG: Battlegrounds. Claims in this regard were settled, but no license agreement was concluded. Then, on September 28, 2021, Garena launched a new game called “Free Fire Max”, which Krafton says offers the same user experience as Free Fire.

A spokesman for parent company Garena told The Verge that Krafton’s claims were baseless.

Crafton claims that Garena has made hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of its games, and that Apple and Google have similarly generated significant revenue from the distribution of Free Fire.

But why Google and Apple?

Krafton also named the Google Play Store, Youtube and Apple in its lawsuit. The company claims that Google and Apple are major players in distributing millions of copies of Free Fire through their app stores. For your information, Apple and Google take a percentage of developer fees through their platforms. Krafton asked both companies to remove the game, which is still in their stores. On December 21, 2021, Krafton asked Garena to stop operating Free Fire and Free Fire Max, but they refused.

Similarly, Youtube hosts free gameplay videos that get millions of views. Youtube also featured Garena’s Chinese movie “Biubiubiu”, which Crafton described as a blatant PUBG staging. However, the video has been removed from the platform, you can check out the video from the above tweet.