A few days ago it came to our attention that Ubisoft was suing Apple and Google over the Rainbow Six Siege clone on mobile devices, Area F2. According to Ubisoft, “every aspect of AF2 is copied from our game, from the operator selection to final scoring screen”. And with the recent official announcements, it seems Ubisoft won the lawsuit and successfully able to stop the operations of Qooka games as the developers have announced that Area F2 game services will be shutting down from May 20. The developers of Area F2, Qooka is a subsidiary of Ejoy.com, which is owned by the Chinese giant Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.
Official announcement regarding the termination of Area F2
The announcement is recently made on the official Area F2 discord server. Here’s what they have said,
Dear Agents,
Thank you for your support of Area F2. We are carrying out improvements to Area F2 in order to deliver a better experience to players. Thus, we will terminate the service of the current version at 12:00 PM on 20 May 2020 (GMT+0).
We are thrilled at the number of downloads that Area F2 has received since its launch, making it into the top 3 of App Store free-to-play game rankings in some regions. Many players have joined our community and provided valued feedback.
In addition, many streamers, reviewers and players have created streams and videos of the game, with more than 300 game videos uploaded to date. We are pleased about this, but we are also aware of our responsibility to provide the best user experience to our players.
The mission of Area F2 is to allow players to experience the fun of Close-Quarters Battle (AKA CQB) on mobile devices. While we have had a lot of positive feedback, we also found that a lot of players gave up quickly before they were able to experience the core CQB gameplay. The steep learning curve resulted in many players abandoning the game in less than 30 minutes, and the reasons given include not knowing what to do, not knowing where the targets or their teammates are, and dying without seeing the enemy or knowing what killed them.
As game developers, we are not willing to accept an experience that we cannot deliver smoothly to as many players as we can. It is our responsibility to solve this issue, and extensive discussion has shown that this is an issue that requires large-scale, in-depth adjustments, perhaps even a complete overhaul of the design to achieve the mission of bringing CQB to as many players as we can on mobile devices. We have therefore made the difficult decision of terminating the operation of Area F2 in its current form to focus on making further improvements.
We received more than 10,000 feedback comments from players during the testing phase, and they will be invaluable to us as we work on designing an outstanding experience in subsequent development. Thank you for your support, and we hope to see you again once these improvements are complete.
Area F2 Team
What about the in-app purchases?
As the game was already very popular within a short period of time, many players made a lot of in-app purchases. Players can apply for refunds after the termination of game services on May 20. Luckily, the ios players will be able to get the refunds easily while the Android users may face a little problem because of the Google Play policies.
All the ios players who made transactions can apply for a refund via the platform. All the applications will be accepted as per the iOS store return policy. However, for Android, the players will only get the refund if the transaction was made less than 48 hours ago.
Players can reach out to Area F2’s Support team via Helpshift through the game client or their official website. Players can also reach out to the developers directly by this email areaf2game@gmail.com
What is the game that you are going to play now as Area F2 is shutting down? Do let us know in the comments below! And, for more mobile gaming news and updates, make sure to follow GamingonPhone on Twitter and Instagram.
I will play call of duty mobile
Yeah, thats the best game right now if we want to play shooting games.
Good! The game is literally a copy of R6.
Yeah, it has to happen sooner or later.
Oh really punk? Then what bout standoff 2? Looks suprisingly similar to csgo. Ubisoft money hunger punks…..aint gonna buy no assassins creed anymore
I definitely agree with you, Rishav.
Money wh**e company u r making copy of their game ofcourse they will sue u because of people like u pc gaming is not getting popular in india and china always copying games they should make their own game or make it different
No idea why you’ve got so many downvotes, you’re right.
I’ll actually go back to r6
Until next time! 😉
im happy for UbiSoft! cheers.
When and where did the trial happen? Where is the court decision that shows they won? I want to know how both party argued the case.
There was not much information on this. However, we know that the complaint was filed in federal court in Los Angeles. You may like to check this when this issue was first initiated.
https://gamingonphone.com/news/rainbow-six-siege-maker-ubisoft-sued-apple-and-google-for-area-f2/
So… did they win the lawsuit? Did the hearing take place? Bloomberg didn’t have any more updates on the matter. There was no mention on when the court hearing was scheduled to be held, even if it could be held during this pandemic.
Ubisoft is such crybaby! Until something is 100% copied from the original, you cant file a copyright kinda lawsuit. They say everything is copied from r6s – so what bout standoff 2? Its literally csgo mobile! In fact standoff 2 is more ‘copied’ from csgo than area f2 is compared to r6s. That maps are different, guns are different, characters are different (although they have the same ability). You cant claim a gameplay style to be your asset. If that was the case then call of duty devs should file a case against battlefield for being similar to them or… Read more »
They are busy with making money milker gachas such as “Elite squad” truly the pinnacle of pushing the platform forward and delivering unprecedented experiences to mobile, right?
Worst take I’ve seen yet. Most of the titles you’ve named have had similar lawsuits filed in the early stages before each became more fleshed out and individualized. The Standoff 2 argument is stupid essentially saying that because one company didn’t sue others shouldn’t? That’s inherently wrong. I understand the setup problems but I ask why should that effect the mentality of companies who make games for specific platforms? Rainbow six is available for multiple platforms except mobile, each of those platforms are accessable one way or another whether it be console sales or less powerful PC parts. I agree… Read more »
How does it feel to be really stupid?
You can’t say that ubisoft is bad… everyone has a right to their intellectual property, Area F2 is an infringement of that right.
And don’t buy Assassin’s creed Valhalla…..no one cares if you buy it or not anyways
You really need to do more research before you spat out bullsh*t
Your fallacy is laughable. CSGO devs didn’t sue standoff devs so Ubisoft should go meh at their ideas being stolen? Stooges like you are the reason why mobile gaming is trash tier money garbing BS with low effort, cheap knockoffs that no one in PC and Console gaming takes seriously.
Also no one currs that some 6 year old throwing tantrum online isn’t gonna buy Vallhalla. Also Fortnite made money on consoles, not mobile get your facts right. The trend is dead on top of that. Pubg is no longer in the yearly top 10 mobile games revenue lists. Fortnite revenue has been going down for 2 or 3 years straight.
Obvi ubisoft win dam now ubisoft have the best of my life sometime make me happy but now it just depress thank you ubisoft your a great to society
jesus f**k ubisoft is so f**king greedy , instead of working on the broken f**king operators and unbalanced mechanics in r6 , they pay attention on who’s hurting their pockets or profiting off them fix your f**king game , i really don’t want to go back and play f**king gadgets simulator.
Bro Y’all got Jesus down here. Is God gonna show up next?
Not sure how long ago you played r6 but last time I played a couple days ago after playing 10 matches there wasn’t once when people were using an operator every game and they were always winning because of them if it seems unbalanced it’s purely because someone has been practicing with that operator for ages. R6 is a lot more balanced since a year ago
GET RID OF DISORDER THEN it’s a ripoff by netease but they put in anime characters to make it look “unique”
This is the only one CQB game on mobile.Why ubisoft whyyy:(
i miss it it was amazing i played it all the time and i loved it i do hope to see them again soon please come back
SEGURAMENTE NO A RAINBOW SIX
Jugaré call of duty mobile
I guess im going back to pubg mobile i guess
Same
Will it be back????
There is a chance that the developers might bring something back related to this game with some major changes so that they can avoid the lawsuit.
Yess
This is not fair bc r6s is not on mobile so I think AF2 is better
So the game is similar to r6. So what. There was different things about it. The fact that it had to be recoded to make it a mobile game makes it in itself different. Ubisoft is butt hurt they didn’t beat them to the punch. I enjoyed area f2 and I don’t think it should have been shut down. All ubisoft had to do is release a r6 mobile game and no one would play f2. Does anyone remember rules of survival? Not many do because pubg came out with their version and rules went under. I am more than… Read more »
Why even is ubisoft so greedy , they should. Have not done anything area f2 developers just took the idea of the game , the agents were different and the abilitys also. Ubisoft just go’s after money and not focusing on what to fix but focusing on how they can lose money. area f2 had did a great thing they brought those games which were hard to get , not all people can afford a gaming setup but area f2 did it on mobile which every one has what they should have done was to make rainbow six on mobile… Read more »
What am I going to play?Area f2 is the superior cqb mobile game with 5m+ downloads.All the other cqb games are shitty imo.There’s no better cqb game on mobile than area f2 it’s good it’s great,sure the connection sometimes are whacky but it’s still the best cqb game on mobile compared to other cqb mobile games and other mobile games are jack shit.Im a mobile player,i dont have a PC and I don’t like this.I have codm it’s okay just less weapons and and no zombie mode return.Pls don’t go (imo)
copy cat just became copy dead
Bring the servers back up and ubisoft needs to stop whinging
Aww man now im feeling bored cuz i cant afford r6 to play cqb. I only played area f2 cuz its familiar to r6 so that I can experience the cqb. I Hope that ubisoft will make the r6 mobile 😢
hopefully the game will be back in no time