PUBG devs clarify their stance on Fortnite situation

Last week we reported that the PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds devs are considering legal action against Epic Games after a Battle Royale mode was inserted into their game Fortnite, and now Bluehole VP and executive producer Changhan Kim has clarified their stance to PC Gamer, and what their issues are.

"So the first thing that I'd like to clarify is that this is not about the battle royale game mode itself," he started. "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]."

Kim then clarifies exactly why their relationship with Epic Games has a relationship to the issue. "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, there's another issue," he continued. "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."

For the whole discussion, visit PC Gamer, but Kim also added that the team are having discussions with Epic right now about the situation. Does this make things a bit clearer?