A Chinese developer is offering a mobile game on Android and iOS that looks remarkably similar to the popular shooter Rainbow Six: Siege. This now has legal consequences for the operators of the stores, Apple and Google, as Ubisoft is suing.
Why is Ubisoft suing Google and Apple? In April 2020, the mobile game Area F2 appeared in the Google Play Store (Android) and the Apple App Store (iOS). It strongly resembles a copy of one of the most popular shooters in the world, Rainbow Six: Siege.
As the news site Bloomberg reports, Rainbow publisher Ubisoft has reached out to Apple and Google requesting that the game be removed from the stores, as it constitutes copyright infringement.
Neither Google nor Apple have complied with this request – as of May 17, Area F2 is still available in both stores. Therefore, Ubisoft is now taking legal action against the two providers.
Why not sue the game itself? Area F2 comes from China and is published by Ejoy, a subsidiary of the Chinese online retailer Alibaba. A copyright lawsuit in the Middle Kingdom is generally considered rather difficult to pursue.
Ubisoft is now apparently trying to at least curb the distribution of Area F2 by having it removed from the official stores, as reported by the US site Kotaku.
Area F2 – Brazen Rainbow Six Clone?
This is what the game looks like: Those who know Rainbow Six: Siege will immediately see the similarities between the two games. The selection of characters is nearly identical, albeit with different names:
- all operators in Area F2 have the same abilities as their counterparts from Rainbow Six
- defenders fortify walls in the game, attackers gather intel with drones
- the character selection has the same menu as Rainbow Six
- even the victory screen looks identical
- YouTubers are already referring to Area F2 as “Rainbow Six: Siege on mobile”
Ubisoft described Area F2 as “almost traced”, and stated that “it cannot be seriously argued” that it is a copy.
Area F2 is actually quite well received by players. Alone in the Google Play Store, the game has over 5,000,000 installations and has a rating of 4/5 stars. Players praise the similarity to Siege and state that this is what makes the game so good.
Why is the game being copied? Rainbow Six is one of Ubisoft’s most important franchises, and Siege is one of its most successful games. In the quarterly figures from February 2020, it was mentioned that there are 55 million registered players, Ubisoft is raving about Rainbow Six: Siege.
This is also the explanation from the French publisher to Bloomberg. Rainbow Six is among the “most successful competitive multiplayer games in the world” – even if the shooter pro shroud recently complained about the competitive aspect.
It happens more frequently that Chinese companies use well-known and popular games to bring a copied version to the mobile market. Just in August 2019, the mobile game Glorious Saga copied the MMORPG World of Warcraft. It was promptly sued by Blizzard and had to shut down.
