Ubisoft has a new problem related to Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege outside of the apparent rise in cheaters, as it’s been discovered that the game is at the center of a legal action that has been taken against two of the biggest tech companies around.
Bloomberg reported this weekend that Ubisoft has sued both Apple and Google over Area F2, a mobile shooter released by Chinese mega-corporation Alibaba and its subsidiary Ejoy that players have compared to Siege a lot since its launch last month. It’s not hard to see why, as even a cursory glance at the game shows that it borrows heavily from Ubisoft’s five-year old title, featuring tactical gameplay centered around specialized operators with unique gadgets and destructible environments.
But Ubisoft’s lawsuit alleges that it goes too far. In a complaint filed yesterday in a US federal court in Los Angeles, the company accused Area F2 of being a “near carbon copy” of Siege that copies “virtually every aspect” of that game, “from the operator selection screen to the final scoring screen, and everything in between.”
The report stated that Ubisoft had originally brought its complaints to Apple and Google directly, stating the game was infringing on its copyrights for Rainbow Six Siege. Despite that, the games weren’t removed from the App Store and Google Play store, resulting in Ubisoft taking legal action. As of this writing, no representatives from Alibaba, Apple, or Google have officially commented on the lawsuit.
In the five years since it launched, Siege has gone on to become one of Ubisoft’s “most valuable intellectual properties,” with over 55 million registered players, millions of copies sold, and a healthy esports scene. Given how Ubisoft continues to build up the game in the hope of attracting even more success, it’s understandable why it wouldn’t take kindly to competitors it says are “constantly looking for ways to piggyback on R6S’s popularity and to capture the attention, and money, of R6S players.”
Aside from the lawsuit, Ubisoft continues to develop new content for the game, as well as adjust existing content with balance tweaks for operators like Ying. Additionally, the followup to Siege, the horror-themed co-op shooter Rainbow Six Quarantine, is still in the works and scheduled to release before the end of Ubisoft’s current fiscal year in March 2021.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions also being planned.
Source: Bloomberg