UFC Suing Ubisoft for "Fighters Uncaged", Public at Large Encouraged to Avoid This Sin Against Nature

In the last several years, the UFC and its parent company Zuffa have begun aggressively pursuing any and all infringement of its copyrights. This includes a prolonged battle with internet piracy, with several high-profile lawsuits being launched. Recently the UFC decided to take on another challenger: video game publisher Ubisoft. Zuffa, LLC, the parent company of the UFC, recently filed suit against the company, alleging copyright infringement over the recently-released Xbox 360 Kinect game “Fighters Uncaged”. Here are all the details.

We head to Sherdog for a nice little synopsis of the lawsuit. Apparently, the suit alleges that the underground/illegal fighting simulator encourages gamers to become “The ULTIMATE FIGHTING weapon”. Zuffa alleges that by using the term “ultimate fighting”, Ubisoft is attempting to piggyback off of the UFC name and even confuse consumers into thinking that the game has something to do with the UFC.

In addition, the suit also alleges that the UFC name and image is being harmed by being linked to a game about underground/illegal street fighting. According to the report, the UFC wants Ubisoft to pay a hefty price for their infringement. The UFC is asking the courts to force Ubisoft to “stop producing any product that infringes on the Zuffa trademark and that all copies of the game or any other material bearing the mark be destroyed.”

For those not familiar with video games, the “Kinect” is basically a motion-sensing platform for the popular Xbox 360 video game console. Perhaps the only thing funny about this entire situation is that the game itself is reportedly an atrocious mess. I’m not kidding here: one reviewer, writing for the major video game website Joystiq, summed up his experience with the game by saying “I’d rather eat a rain-soaked box of poison buttholes than ever play Fighters Uncaged again.” One IGN reviewer also called it “quite possibly the worst fighting game [of] this generation.”

In all honesty, I hope the UFC squeezes Ubisoft dry and gets this game pulled from the market. Both as a UFC fan and an avid video game nerd, I feel that this game is a travesty to both the sport I love and the console I love to play. Nothing I’ve read or seen about this game has been positive. Everyone is more than willing to point out that its controls are horrible, it barely works, and that it’s obviously a quick cash-in and nothing more.

So not only has Ubisoft made an affront to gamers everywhere in “Fighters Uncaged”, they’re basically trying to sneak in the back door and cash in on the MMA craze before anyone is the wiser. Point-blank, this game is trying to take advantage of gullible consumers. They made a new game for the latest shiny toy everyone just has to have, the Kinect, and they rushed it right out of the gate without any sort of serious work being done on it. This game has no heart, no soul, everyone hates it, and it tried to cash in on the MMA craze in the absolute worst way possible.

So, yeah, this game gets no sympathy from me. As an avid gamer and an MMA super-fan, I encourage any and all of my readers to avoid this game like the plague. Don’t buy into these cheap knockoffs that only want your money and don’t care how they get it.

And what about you, fans and friends? Any opinion on this latest lawsuit or the game it’s based around?