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Comment by usaphp | Hacker News Reader

What does HN people think on the whole idea of stealing concept from PUBG? I am kind of divided on this topic.

I didn't even blink, there's tons of precedent everywhere for copying the concept and doing it better than the first person. Minecraft wasn't the first to do what it did (commonly Infiniminer gets that credit), neither was Unreal Tournament (Quake), neither was Starcraft (commonly Dune 2 gets the credit, but also Age of Empires came out, did well, but didn't become more or less an official South Korean sport), nor World of Warcraft (Ultima Online and lots of others).

Honestly, possibly because of my Silicon Valley biases, I tend to think that the idea isn't sacred, it's that the execution on the idea is what turns a good idea into a successful one, and Epic executed way better despite PUBG's initial momentum. They threw it away with performance problems, bugs, cheaters, etc. and Fortnite capitalized.

I tend to agree but at the same time it’s hard to square that with the theory of IP (vs it’s implementation where the game mechanics can’t be patented), which says that nobody will be incentivized to develop new things if there is no state protection against copying.

I agree that the line is blurry, but I think there's a workable line.

1. You are still given a monopoly over selling your game, and someone else can't just make the same game using your assets, so at least you get to make money from your work via copyright.

2. It's a game, so I would argue that it's not worth as much to society to let you monopolize selling of a game mechanic as opposed to, say, a mechanical design. (I'm fully aware of patent controversies, but we're talking about games so I'm staying at broad strokes.)

3. I think there's an argument to be made that games are more like art than machines, and thus they count enough as speech that over-protecting IP rights in games would have a chilling effect.

Just some thoughts.

I don't really see it any different than stealing the concept of FPS from companies that came before, or from stealing the concept of video games from the original creators. I see no issue with it, much like I see no issue with all sorts of games borrowing from LOTR (or from other sources that eventually trace their way back to LOTR). Even PUBG stole the concept from others. It reminds me a lot of Hunger Games actual battles (not the teenage romance angst portions), and Hunger Games effectively stole the idea from elsewhere. (And likely I'm missing links in the chain of who stole what from who, and I don't even like the idea of calling it stealing.)

It's all literally the name of a film and novel, Battle Royale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Royale_(film)

Hunger Games is pretty clear about what its influences are: Ancient Rome and Reality TV. Some people will claim Collins stole the idea from Battle Royale, but it is more likely the two authors had the idea independently.

PUBG was not nearly the first survival shooter. I still remember Hunger Games style maps in Minecraft back in 2010 and those were derivative of older survival mods from ARMA.

Nothing is completely novel, or original. Everything made today is built on our collective experience up to the moment we release it. Its why you can't patent a concept like "battle royale" or "arena shooter" or "survival game" the same way the first successful action movie couldn't patent action movies.

Was PUBG the first? Didn't they arguably steal the idea from a movie? And isn't the concept of last man standing like as old as dirt? Not exactly the same but I played assassin in the early 80s and it wasn't a new concept then.

Arguably I feel like the idea is too simple to deserve any kind of protection. It would be like protecting "hide and seek" or "tag"

It’s interesting becuase I saw PUBG as an adaptation of Sa-Matras excellent Arma 3 wasteland mod which included all of the elements seen in fortnite/pubg like: scavenging firearms, building and free-for-all/teamwork choice through the Blufor/Opfor/Independent team selection.

https://wasteland.arma.su

The lead designer on PUBG, Brendan Greene, had previously made a Battle Royale Arma 2 mod.

I think Brendan’s mod came out ~2015 and Sa-Matras came out around 2013 which, itself is an adaptation of another mod. Please correct me if I am wrong. Not to say any of this is really new or original. As I recall there is an Arma 2 wasteland mod that came out before Arma 3: https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/134450-arma2ru-waste...

Brendan's original mod was a fork of DayZ for Arma2 and came out roughly the same time as the Arma2 wasteland mod.

The idea of intellectual property is now so deeply ingrained in the average person's consciousness that a mere "concept" can be "stolen" now.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think it was PUBG that came up with the battle royal concept. I believe H1Z1 had battle royal mode before PUBG existed.

A Minecraft mod seems to get credit for being the first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_royale_game

Quake 3 Arena had a last-man-standing mod. I don't recall the shrinking arena aspect, though.

H1Z1's BR mod was a copy of the fork of the Arma 2 DayZ mod... which was done by the creator of PUBG.

Concepts can't be stolen. The gameplay is so significantly different, it's hard to say what we're arguing what's stolen that PUBG didn't "steal" themselves.

This is free market at it's best - a company taking a concept, building a better product and offering it to the customers. It's like Sony building a better portable cassette player, Samsung building a better TV, Apple offering better headphones and Valve Software building a better first person shooter.

Trying to block or interfere with this, like IP laws tend to do these days, will cause stagnation and break the main reason why free market has proven to be the most people-serving economic system.

PUBG did it to themselves. The game just doesn't run well, so people are moving on to better versions of the battle royale experience (Fortnite, Black Ops 4, etc).

Is it stealing? Should there only be one battle royale game? Should there only be one racing game? Should there only be one FPS game?

PUBG makes a lot of money still so no harm done. And the game concept is kind of different. I don’t enjoy Fortnite but spent many hours on PUBG. I’d say let them steal, that’s how new genres are born.

The fast follower beating the original by offering a lower price is a well established business trend. Usually works pretty well. I just don't understand why PUBG isn't free yet.

PUBG doesn't have the scope for skins in the same way that Fortnite does. Fortnite's art style lends itself way better to crazy skins. It's also played more by a younger generation who are more likely to buy digital accessories (that's just IMO tho)

Because it's free, that's why it's played more by kids. Until you remove that huge distinction from the equation it's hard to claim anything else had as much of a factor. IMO if PUBG was free when Fortnite came out Fortnite would not have the marketshare it has today. Things like crazy skins is just a matter of willingness rather than anything intrinsic to the game.

What about Mario clones? (platformers)

Doom clones? (first person shooters)

Warcraft clones? (real time strategy)

...

I agree with your point but a funny thing about this list is that I can think of earlier games in the genre for both FPS and RTS off the top of my head. Dune 2 is the earliest RTS that I'm aware of and Wolfenstein is probably the earliest example of an FPS. I'd say this probably strengthens your point rather than weakening it.

Herzog Zwei was the influence for Dune 2, and Catacomb 3D was the precursor to Wolfenstein (both by id Software), so we can go even further in history if we like. Just goes to show there are large influences all over.

I don't think it's a problem at all except for the small issue that PUBG is an Unreal Engine game and there's a possibility that Epic's inside information about PUBG benefited their development of Fortnite. It's all just speculation (and a settled lawsuit?) but it's an awkward piece of the genre's history.

Good artists borrow...

... great artists steal.

I'd argue it's a similar case as when businesses create competing product offerings with better execution and end up winning in the long term.

Staying on the gaming topic, you could say Call of Duty is a copy of Counter Strike? I'm not sure which came first but the idea still stands.

Not Country Strike, but yes, it was clearly inspired by Medal of Honor. Which was itself inspired by GoldenEye 007 and the movie Saving Private Ryan.

Epic had this working long before PUBG ever existed.

You can start a death match in Unreal Tournament 2004 and check some settings to make it a sort of battle royale.

What was it that was stole from PUBG?

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