As much as the similarities between battle royale titles Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds are clear, it's not like either truly invented the formula. That's why the PUBG Corp lawsuit against Fortnite developer, Epic Games was rather silly and why it's perhaps no surprise that the lawsuit has now been dropped.
The original lawsuit initiated by PUBG Corp a few weeks ago suggested that in using the Unreal Engine to develop its own battle royale title, Epic Games was effectively replicating the experience offered by PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which too uses the Unreal Engine for its more-realistic slant on the battle royale formula.
While that was a tenuous idea in the first place, it appears as if cooler heads have prevailed at PUBG Corp and as its player numbers appear to be dwindling, despite still enjoying millions of regular players, it may not want to be seen as the bitter second-place runner. As Bloomberg reports, it sent out a letter to Epic's legal team this week to withdraw its lawsuit and make it clear that it had no plans to sue the game developer in the future.
That's probably a good thing for its finances too, because as much as PUBG has made a killing, Fortnite is raking in huge sums. In its last month alone it brought in over $300 million just through cosmetic sales. That's doubly impressive considering the game is free to play.
The most bizarre part of this whole lawsuit fiasco, is that Tencent, the Chinese game publishing giant, holds a stake in both companies. You have to wonder whether it waded in and told PUBG to cool off.
