PUBG Corp sues NetEase for infringing chicken and pan copyrights

South Korea’s PUBG Corp, the developer of hit game Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), is suing NetEase in the US District of California in Northern California for copyright infringement, unfair competition and trade dress infringement–imitating the visual appearance of elements of intellectual property–over the Chinese company’s Knives Out and Rules of Survival.

Even before PUBG Corp created a mobile version of its island death match officially released in China via Tencent, NetEase had released Knives Out and Rules of Survival for smartphones. PUBG Corp has alleged the games bear striking similarities to theirs in terms of gameplay, visuals, themes and even the advertising of the game on Facebook.

The case has been filed in Northern California and the 155-page document (via Gadgets 360) makes for interesting and somewhat amusing reading, especially around the copying of PUBG’s “winner winner chicken dinner” (晚上吃鸡) terminology for celebrating, which has become so mainstream in Chinese gaming that it now refers to this type of game in general (吃鸡游戏). The use of pans in PUBG as both weapons and armor and the use of rubber chickens as weapons has appeared in Rules of Survival.

What you get

Full access to all premium content and our full archives

Members'-only newsletters

Preferential access and discounts to all TechNode events

Direct access to the TechNode newsroom