Garena Free Fire, a well-liked battle royale game, has been taken down from the App Store and Google Play. A month after filing two lawsuits against the firm, PUBG founder Krafton receives this news.
Those who have downloaded Free Fire have found some success playing it. Players have been reporting login problems for the previous 24 hours, citing technical difficulties. Neither mobile app shop is presently offering the game for download, and in some cases, the game doesn’t even come up when you search for it by name.
Worth mentioning is that at the time of writing, the improved version, Free Fire Max, can be downloaded from the Google Play Store but can’t be found in the App Store. The best bet is to wait until Garena issues an official statement, as they have not provided any precise reason.
Similar to the situation with PUBG: Mobile during the early phases of the COVID-19 outbreak, dedicated players have wondered if the game has been quietly banned in India. Around that time, India blocked access to hundreds of Chinese apps like TikTok, Weibo, and WeChat.
Recent legal action taken against Garena by Battlegrounds developer Krafton alleges that the eSports platform “extensively” replicated elements of the Battlegrounds game, including the ‘air drop’ mechanic, game structure, and weapon combinations, and unique goods. Additionally, the corporation accused Google and Apple of complicity because they too hosted and promoted Free Fire on their own platforms.
Besides the parent company of Garena, Sea, saying that “Krafton’s assertions are groundless,” not much else has been reported on the aforementioned complaint.
For Garena, which is already under fire for alleged plagiarism, this is a new low blow. To protect its intellectual property rights for Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and associated games, Krafton recently filed a lawsuit against Garena, claiming that Garena’s Free Fire battle royale is an unabashed rip-off of PUBG.
The lawsuit draws parallels between Free Fire and a number of games in the PUBG series, including PUBG Battlegrounds, PUBG Mobile, Battlegrounds Mobile India, Game for Peace in China, and PUBG New State, citing similarities in things like cars, scenery, map titles, weaponry, and skins. The article also claimed that Garena Free Fire’s success and popularity can be attributed to the fact that it is quite similar to PUBG Mobile.
