Ubisoft sues Google and Apple over Rainbow 6:Siege clone


Seeing Chinese knock-offs of many popular products is very common these days. However, seeing an exact copy of an AAA-video game title like Ubisoft’s popular game “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege” is rare and that is exactly what developers at Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.’s Ejoy.com have created, called “Area F2”. For obvious reasons, Ubisoft has filed a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement to try to remove the game from app stores.

It would be very difficult to dispute the copyright claims made by Ubisoft in its lawsuit. Area F2’s developers appear to have copied nearly every aspect of the game, from the operator selection screen, drones, UI elements like scores etc. For those who are familiar with Rainbow 6: Siege, the similarities are strikingly obvious.

The developers are from a studio called Ejoy, who was acquired back in 2017 by Alibaba. The game had been in beta for quite a while, with Ejoy promoting the game via YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It became available for the public to download sometime last month.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Siege is one of Ubisoft most successful game to date with nearly 55 million registered players and has over 3 million people every day playing every day. The game is 5v5 PvP first-person shooter game with heavy focus on destructibility and strategy.

It is understandable to see why Ubisoft is reacting so strongly and has chosen to sue to get the apps removed. However, at the time of publishing this article, neither Apple nor Google have taken down the game from their app stores.

Source