What you need to know
- Apple and Google are being sued by game developer Ubisoft.
- A lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles, May 15, over sales of a game called Area F2.
- Ubisoft claims the game is a 'carbon copy' of Rainbow Six: Siege.
Game developer Ubisoft is suing both Apple and Google, over an app in their respective app stores it claims is a 'carbon copy' of Rainbow Six: Siege.
According to a report from Bloomberg:
Ubisoft Entertainment SA sued Apple Inc. and Google LLC, accusing the companies of selling a ripoff of its popular video game "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege.""Area F2," created by Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.'s Ejoy.com, is a "near carbon copy" of Rainbow Six: Siege, and that can't be "seriously be disputed," Ubisoft said in a complaint filed Friday in federal court in Los Angeles.
According to the lawsuit, Rainbow Six: Siege has 55 million registered players and an active user base of 3 million players a day. Teams also compete for "millions of dollars in prizes" in the game's competitive scene. As such, Ubisoft says that R6S is "among Ubisoft's most valuable intellectual properties" and that "virtually every aspect of AF2 is copied from R6S", including the operator selection screen, final scoring screen "and everything in between."
Area F2 is listed on Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store by developer Qookka Games. This is the name Alibaba's Hong Kong-based Ejoy.com Ltd does business under. Alibaba bought Ejoy back in 2017 to boost its standing in the mobile and online gaming sector. According to Bloomberg, the game was promoted through various social media campaigns through 2019 and was made available to the public on tablets and smartphones last month. According to the report, Ubisoft has previously notified both Apple and Google of the infringement to no avail.
Interestingly, Ubisoft is suing Apple and Google for enabling the distribution of the game, rather than Qookka Games itself for the initial infringement. It remains unclear at this stage whether Ubisoft plans to file a separate action in that regard.
The game has over 75,000 reviews on the Google Play Store, and more than 2,000 on Apple's App Store. A plethora of reviews on both platforms note the similarities to Ubisoft's Rainbow Six title.
