PUBG Corp. Acknowledges Camouflaging Abilities of Cosmetic Items in Lawsuit

Whenever you make "the next big thing," half-baked clones will quickly follow suit. Oftentimes, in order to protect their interests, companies will seek legal action against the developers of these games. PUBG Corp. filed a lawsuit against NetEase, the creator of Rules of Survival, accusing the company of copyright infringement. Unfortunately, this has caused a new spark in the debate over cosmetic items affecting gameplay.

Cosmetic loot boxes are available in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the contents of which can be sold on the Steam market for a cash value. When discussing the cosmetic's impact on gameplay, the lawsuit made the following statement.

"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."

It's a hard argument to dispute. When everything is a faded grassy color, it'll be nearly impossible to tell if there's someone hiding in a ghillie suit. While clothing does not offer any stat changing effects, or grants the player with skills or abilities, the visual impact is still present.

Yet again, cosmetics are meant to add diversity to the usual palette. If you tried to make all items "visually fair," then they wouldn't look very interesting, would they?