PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has featured a cosmetic-based economy since its early access days, and most gamers quickly came to terms with that. After all, a simple cosmetic doesn't have much of an impact on gameplay, right? As it turns out, however, the game's own developers at PUBG Corporation seem to disagree with that commonly held belief.
In making its case to remove infringing games like
Rules Of Survival from sale,
PUBG Corp asserts a rather interesting claim about PUBG's cosmetic loot. More specifically, the documents suggest cosmetic infringement should be taken seriously because PUBG's cosmetics are a critical gameplay element. That excerpt of the lawsuit can be read below:
"However,
clothing does affect gameplay in terms of camouflage. Clothing can be used to assist the player to blend in with the environment, making the player less visually detectable. In particular, Battlegrounds includes a Ghillie suit, a full body suit covered with camouflaging material typically used by snipers. The Ghillie suit allows the player to become nearly visually invisible depending upon the terrain."
Even though the Ghillie suit used in the official example refers to an item that's freely available during a given match, the statement itself can be easily applied to all paid cosmetic loot in the game. For example, when the new Savage map goes public,
there's technically nothing stopping content creators from making an exceptionally camouflaged suit to match the environment that costs $50 or more per key. The ability to conceal is a gameplay advantage, and, in the framework of this lawsuit, the game's developers concur.
Some
PUBG fans may not see such an admission as a big deal, but it's worth highlighting tha
t the phrasing goes directly against statements made by PUBG Corporation CEO Changhan Kim this past November. "We will never add anything that affects the gameplay," Kim said
in a Q&A, adding that "there is a relatively strong demand for cosmetic items." But, as suggested in the statement above, these cosmetics do have a gameplay effect.
