Ubisoft Sues Apple, Google Over Alibaba’s Rainbow Six “Ripoff”

(Bloomberg) -- Ubisoft Entertainment SA sued Apple Inc. and Google LLC, accusing the companies of selling a ripoff of its popular video game “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege.”

“Area F2,” created by Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.’s Ejoy.com, is a “near carbon copy” of Rainbow Six: Siege, and that can’t be “seriously be disputed,” Ubisoft said in a complaint filed Friday in federal court in Los Angeles.

Rainbow Six: Siege, or R6S, has 55 million registered players around the world, according to Ubisoft’s copyright infringement lawsuit and is played by more than 3 million people every day. R6S also is played as a competitive “esport,” with professional and semi-professional teams competing for millions of dollars in prizes.

“R6S is among the most popular competitive multiplayer games in the world, and is among Ubisoft’s most valuable intellectual properties, the French company said. “Virtually every aspect of AF2 is copied from R6S, from the operator selection screen to the final scoring screen, and everything in between.”

Representatives of Google had no immediate comment on the lawsuit. Alibaba and Apple didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, made after regular business hours.

The game is based on Clancy’s novel about a counter-terrorism unit and “Ubisoft’s competitors are constantly looking for ways to piggyback on R6S’s popularity and to capture the attention, and money, of R6S players.”

Alibaba acquired Ejoy in 2017 to increase its presence in online and mobile gaming. Ejoy started promoting Area F2 in the U.S. late last year through YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The game became available to the public for download on mobile phones and tablets last month, according to the complaint.

Ubisoft said it has notified Apple and Google that Area F2 is infringing its copyrights but the companies have refused to remove the game from the Google Play and Apple App stores.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.