In the months since PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds became an out-of-nowhere top-selling hit, the Battle Royale genre of last-man-standing free-for-alls has been surging in popularity. Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene, though, says he isn’t too happy with the slate of “copycats” that have followed in Battlegrounds’ wake.
“There’s no intellectual property protection in games,” Greene complained to BBC Newsbeat recently. “In movies and music there is IP protection and you can really look after your work. In gaming that doesn’t exist yet, and it’s something that should be looked into.”
“Some amazing games pass under the radar,” he continued. “Then someone else takes the idea, has a marketing budget, and suddenly has a popular game because they ripped off someone else’s idea. I think it’s something the industry needs to look into. You’re protecting the work of artists basically. Games are art for a large part, and so I think it’s important they’re protected.”