Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Drama in Popamole Land: PUBG devs accuse Epic's Fortnite of being a ripoff

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
With a press release and everything: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...attlegrounds-hits-out-at-fornites-replicating

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds developer slams Fornite for "replicating" gameplay
Will "contemplate further action".

The developer of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has hit out at Epic's Fortnite for "replicating" its game.

In an eyebrow-raising press release, Bluepoint exec Chang Han Kim slammed Fortnite's new Battle Royale mode for its similarities to PUBG. Kim said his studio was "concerned" and - ominously - stated it would "contemplate further action".

It's a surprising position to take; despite Battlegrounds' huge popularity, it is far from the first game to offer Battle Royale-inspired gameplay. It's not even the first competitor from a major publisher - GTA Online recently launched its own take, for example.

Fornite is muscling in with the might of Epic behind it, and this week announced an aggressive launch proposition: it will be completely free to download and launch on console as soon as next week, eclipsing PUBG's own Xbox One version. It's feels like it's rattled Bluepoint - not least because Epic has mentioned PUBG while talking about its competitor.

"We've had an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG's development as they are the creators of [Unreal Engine], the engine we licensed for the game," Kim stated. "After listening to the growing feedback from our community and reviewing the gameplay for ourselves, we are concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known.

"We have also noticed that Epic Games references PUBG in the promotion of Fortnite to their community and in communications with the press. This was never discussed with us and we don't feel that it's right."

"The PUBG community has and continues to provide evidence of the many similarities as we contemplate further action."

It's unclear what further action Bluepoint plans to take. We've asked both Bluepoint and Epic for more information.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
So Epic pulled out developers from the new Unreal Tournament team for this?
 
Joined
Apr 3, 2013
Messages
2,071
Location
Siberia
Yeah but day-z did that way back and it also had zombies as a questionable bonus.

On a side note, PUBG is the weirdest game i've played in a long while, tech wise it's an absolutely horrendous piece of shit, never seen anything worse... gameplay however, is rather addictive.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.pcgamer.com/pubg-exec-cl...t-about-the-idea-itself-its-about-epic-games/

PUBG exec clarifies objection to Fortnite Battle Royale: 'it's not about the idea itself, it's about Epic Games'
Bluehole says PUBG was used to promote Epic's BR game "without our knowledge".

As we reported early on Friday, the release of Fortnite Battle Royale, a 100-player last-man standing game mode for Epic Games base-building FPS, drew criticism from PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' development team, specifically Bluehole VP and executive producer Changhan Kim. Bluehole's press release expressed concern that Fortnite "may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known" and that Bluehole was contemplating "further action."

Bluehole contacted PC Gamer Friday evening to clarify its objection to Fortnite Battle Royale and explain in greater detail some of the statements made in the press release. I spoke with C.H. Kim tonight over Skype (he was in Tokyo), with marketing and events manager Sammie Kang providing translation and giving the final two responses.

C.H. Kim: So the first thing that I'd like to clarify is that this is not about the battle royale game mode itself. There were other BR gamemodes earlier this year that were released, like last man standing or GTA 5's battle royale game mode, and we never raised an issue, and I think it's great that there's more competition and everyone should be able to create their own battle royale game mode, and it's not about the idea itself, it's about Epic Games, and that wasn't really clear [in the press release].

PC Gamer: So it's not the mode you guys have an issue with. From your statement or your press release earlier today, it said that there were similarities in the UI, and the other things mentioned were the gameplay and structural replication in the battle royale mode. Can you specify exactly, if you're not objecting to a battle royale mode in another game, then what do you mean by concerns about gameplay?


There are a lot of different issues but everyone else that released a battle royale game mode made their own thing, but it was Epic Games that made this game that is similar to us that has similar elements, and that's the concern, that it was Epic Games.

We use Unreal Engine to develop PUBG, and we pay a large amount of royalties based on the size of our success to Epic Games, and Epic Games always promoted their licensing models [saying] "We want to support the success indie developers", and [Bluehole is] this indie developer that has been the most successful one using the Unreal Engine this year, and that's the problem that I see.

So if, say, you had no real connection with Epic through the Unreal Engine, say you used another engine, or this battle royale mode was from some other company you don't have that connection with, it wouldn't be an issue? It's specifically because it's Epic and you licensed their engine, is that correct?


So, battle royale is just about last man standing, it's a simple game mode, and we're not claiming any kind of ownership over the game mode or genre itself, it's not for us to even comment. There were a lot of copycats in China and [in that] industry there is a lot of battle royale games that look exactly [the] same as ours, so we will definitely look into similarities if there are different products that are very similar to our game, but even before we actually looked deeper into how similar [Fortnite Battle Royale] is, we wanted to raise an issue because this is from Epic Games. We could be the biggest indie success story that they have and there will be other indie developers that aspire to succeed like us using Unreal Engine, and they would be concerned, right? So we just wanted to raise an issue and let people know that it can be a problem.

And in terms of a resolution you'd be satisfied with, what are you hoping or thinking that Epic could do with Fortnite's battle royale mode that would remove the objections you have?


Well, we would have to specifically talk about the details with Epic Games but we haven't been connected to their headquarters yet. So what I want to explain here is that PUBG might have really simple battle royale rules and systems, but we see that as Brendan's own idea and that game mode in PUBG belongs to Brendan. You know that Daybreak Games actually licensed this idea and worked with him to develop their game mode and [Bluehole] did license his idea as well. Not only [did we bring] him to Korea to hire him as the creative director, we licensed his idea to develop PUBG.

So we're not just taking someone else's idea. Bluehole's stance is that we respect and value the indie developer or modder's idea and we actually licensed it.

So what I think I'm hearing is you would like Epic to license their battle royale from you? Is that what I'm hearing?


What I think is, they should have at least came to us before making it and had a discussion with us.

So, there's another issue. We're going to get some technical support [from Epic], and we're going to work with them to make sure Unreal Engine better supports battle royale gameplay which requires 100 people in one session, and now we're starting to have concerns that they're going to develop new features or improve something in the engine to support that battle royale gameplay, and then use it for their own game mode.

But not give [the improvements] to you, even though you've licensed the engine, is that what you're saying? They'll develop technology that improves their battle royale but is restricted from you?


We could be afraid when we make new features in the engine by modifying it internally, that is not already available and public, that feature could be leaked, or other things could happen.

Prior to the press release you sent out about this issue, had you reached out to Epic through different channels?


So we didn't have any real discussions [with Epic] and we just found out through articles from the media and then it took us a long time to figure out what was going on because we found this out through media, and it took us a long time, and [Epic was] being really aggressive about making this into a standalone game that will be released on different platforms, and we thought we need to straighten things out here and then clarify some things.

What is your next step? You're obviously hoping to get in contact with Epic at some point and start discussing your options.


So, yes, of course we want to start a discussion and we reached out to Epic Korea, and they have reached out to their headquarters based in the US, but we didn't get any response, and that might be because it's the weekend right now.

So, we just want to emphasize this only a problem because Epic Games is the company that makes the engine we use and we pay a large amount of royalties to them. And we had this business relationship and we had trust that we would be getting continued support, and we were looking forward to working more closely with them to get technical support, maybe develop new features. But our name was used to officially promote their game without our knowledge. There was no discussion. It was just a bit surprising and disappointing to see our business partner using our name officially to promote the game mode that is pretty similar to us and there was misunderstanding in the community that we're officially involved in the project.

When they used your name, was that in official promotional materials?


Sammie Kang: It was in their promotional video that was posted on Twitter and they would openly mention that they were fans of PUBG, we wanted to make this battle royale game mode, and that kind of gave the impression that we were officially involved in this.

So they were giving the impression that you guys were on board and were a part of this, and in no way were you.


Sammie Kang: Right, and there were players like, "Oh it's cool, now we get to play PUBG in Fortnite", and there was nothing we could do about it, because it was depicted that we were officially involved.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
We use Unreal Engine to develop PUBG, and we pay a large amount of royalties based on the size of our success to Epic Games,

I wonder if they licensed the engine with the standard 5% royalty for indies. Most large companies/projects pay upfront or negotiate lower royalty instead of the standard deal, but AFAIK PUBG was a low budget project for them and they expected 200K-300K sales. Now they're selling 10 millions of copies and given all the microstransaction potential, 5% royalty would be very, very hurt.

Maybe this is an attempt to renegotiate the license deal?
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
Patron
Joined
Feb 2, 2007
Messages
17,274
Location
Terra da Garoa
Wow, someone give this guy a PR manager. First a Press Release that makes no sense, then an entire interview spend asking "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEN?" yet not a single clear answer...
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2009
Messages
27,089
Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
Came into thread expecting tons of drama, find only a handful of it.

Still, potential drama flares means I'll make popcorn for people if they want it. :)

4Vvbx.gif
 

Raapys

Arcane
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
4,960
Sounds like they were contemplating suing, then talked to actual lawyers who said you can't sue over a game mode, so they changed their minds from threatening legal action to being offended.
 

flyingjohn

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
2,945
Can Epic stop licensing their engine to them if they actually go to court?(i know there is zero to slim chance)
Cause it seems suicidal to take "further action' against the company that licensed you their game engine.
 

Kz3r0

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2008
Messages
27,013
Guys, it is simple, they essentially see Epic becoming a competitor so gnawing at their potential customers and revenues, considering that Epic is using the same engine they suspect that Epic stole their codebase but also fear that any edge they can have over competition is neutered by Epic using the same engine but in a better way.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
Don't really care about PUBG since it's just the latest in a long line of "open world survival online shooters" (I know it's not exactly that), but Fortnite seems to have at least some interesting plot and lore that, ah, appeals. To a friend.

acf91b55fb44039b7e428b5d6767a713.jpg
 

Shinji

Savant
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Messages
313
Can Epic stop licensing their engine to them if they actually go to court?(i know there is zero to slim chance)
Cause it seems suicidal to take "further action' against the company that licensed you their game engine.

Well, some time ago Silicon Knights tried suing Epic Games, and failed horribly:

With this in mind, the judge has ordered Silicon Knights to remove all of Epic Games's technology from its own game engine, and destroy the code for all prior versions of the Silicon Knights's game engine in its possession.

Alongside this order, the judge also stated that Silicon Knights must recall and destroy all unsold copies of its Too Human and X-Men: Destiny titles, and must destroy any code done on the unreleased (and until now, unannounced) titles The Box/Ritualyst, The Sandman, and Siren in the Maelstrom

https://gamasutra.com/view/news/181..._destroy_code_games_related_to_Epic_trial.php

Silicon Knights basically accused Epic of using licensees' money to develop Gears of War, and of "withhelding the technology from its partners for its own advantage"

Which apparently is the cause of this developer's concern:
...and now we're starting to have concerns that they're going to develop new features or improve something in the engine to support that battle royale gameplay, and then use it for their own game mode.
 
Last edited:

Dawkinsfan69

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
Joined
Jun 3, 2016
Messages
2,815
Location
inside ur mom ᕦ( ▀̿ Ĺ̯ ▀̿ )ᕤ
If I were the designer of PUBG I'd have abandoned the game like 6 months ago and taken my $$ and fucked off to build a monestary somewhere to practice MMA and bang all the babes.

These guys hang out and stir drama on reddit, ban people from their game for experiencing bugs, and dream up the next thousand cosmetic loot drop ideas.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom