PUBG’s biggest rival Garena Free Fire goes off app stores: What’s going on?

Krafton, the makers of PUBG and PUBG Battlegrounds for PC, recently filed a lawsuit against Garena Free Fire, Garena Free Fire Max and its makers demanding the game be banned for blatantly copying features from their battle royale game. The company filed a separate lawsuit against Apple and Google for allowing the game to exist on their app stores and also for YouTube hosting videos of gameplay of the two games along with “numerous posts containing a feature-length Chinese film that is nothing more than a blatantly infringing live-action dramatisation of Battlegrounds”.

Now, Garena Free Fire has been pulled off the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. However, Garena Free Fire Max is still available on the app stores. It is not known if the downloaded versions of the game are working on smartphones and none of the companies have released any statement explaining their stand on the matter yet.

Krafton had alleged about a month ago that Garena has directly copied elements from PUBG Battlegrounds.

“Free Fire and Free Fire Max extensively copy numerous aspects of Battlegrounds, both individually and in combination, including Battlegrounds’ copyrighted unique game-opening ‘airdrop’ feature, the game structure and play, the combination and selection of weapons, armour, and unique objects, locations, and the overall choice of colour schemes, materials, and textures,” the lawsuit read.

The game maker has claimed that it had asked Garena International to “immediately stop” the games but, of course, without any action from the other side.

Reports suggest that Krafton is worried about Garena Free Fire’s in-game revenue growing steadily despite earning quite well themselves. According to a report in The Verge, Garena has earned $414 million in 2021 and PUBG Mobile made $639 million from its games including the two India and China-specific versions.

Garena Free Fire became the go-to option for India’s battle royale fans when PUBG Mobile was banned in India in 2020. Krafton eventually released a new game for India (Battlegrounds Mobile India) by 2021. Garena, in the meanwhile has been constantly engaging its players with daily free rewards keeping things interesting the lucrative.

Garena Free Fire is one of 54 Chinese apps that has been banned by the Government of India. Some of the other apps on this list were apps that were blocked earlier and their cloned versions made their way to the app stores soon after.

Also Read: PUBG developer Krafton's lawsuit against Garena, Apple, Google: What we know so far

Also Read: Why Garena Free Fire removed from Play Store, iOS Store? China angle or Krafton could be factors