“It’s concerning to see a precedent emerging where Fortnite developers can clone a Roblox game 1:1.” Roblox dev Jandel criticizes Fortnite for promoting a copy of Plants vs Brainrots

Roblox has had a pretty eventful year. Rumors of it shutting down, safety scandals blowing up, but things seem to have calmed down for now. The platform is still growing, with some games hitting up to 24 million concurrent players. And even when those games are clearly inspired by other titles or viral memes, popularity can bring trouble – so much so that other developers start copying them onto different platforms, like it happened with Plants vs Brainrots.

Jandel slams Fortnite over cloned Roblox titles

Grow a Garden, created by 16-year-old BMWLux with help from Jandel, launched in May and has quickly become one of Roblox’s hottest games. Since then, Jandel has stepped back from Grow a Garden, started a new studio called Yo Gurt, and released Plants vs Brainrots in August, which has also blown up to become one of the most played games on the platform.

But now, Jandel is calling out Fortnite, specifically its UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite), for promoting games that are almost exact copies of popular Roblox titles. He points to UEFN games like Unbox a Brainrot, Steal the Brainrots, and Garden vs Brainrots, which he says replicate Roblox originals like Steal a Brainrot and Plants vs Brainrots “1:1.”

In his recent X post, Jandel accused the creator, Pandvil, of copying assets before even asking for a license, and said Pandvil admitted to cloning the game with plans to “change it later,” going ahead even after being denied a license. Jandel argues this kind of copying sets a risky precedent, developers could just take existing user-generated content, clone it, and then retroactively license or tweak it. According to Jandel, it’s a breach of “metaverse ethics,” where innovation should build on ideas, not directly copy them.

Source: X @jandelRblx

On October 15, the day his Plants vs Brainrots launched on Fortnite, Pandvil shared a pretty mocking post about the whole situation with the Roblox’s version.

Source: X @iPandvil

Roblox’s Plants vs Brainrots is, of course, inspired by the 2009 hit Plants vs Zombies, a hugely popular tower-defense game that spawned tons of sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations. You could say Jandel’s Plants vs Brainrots is another take on that formula. There’s already a discussion under Jandel’s post about whether his game counts as a fresh adaptation with its own identity, or just a Plants vs Zombies copy.

Source: X

With user-generated content thriving across platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, questions about copying, inspiration, and intellectual property are only going to get louder.

Roblox

August 27, 2006

Rate It!

• Overview

• copyright
• Fortnite (franchise)
• Roblox Corporation