Chinese Olympics web site accused of game piracy

by Kyle Orland { Mar 12th 2008 at 1:00PM }

China isn't exactly a stranger to video game piracy, but you'd think a major undertaking like the upcoming Beijing Olympics would be able to avoid association with this unseemly process. Not so according to Cadin Batrack, who noticed some extreme similarities between his 2006 flash game Snow Day and the Olympic site's Fuwa Fight the Olympic Clouds.

The infringing game has been removed from the Olympics site as of Monday, but two other games that are still up on the site seem cribbed directly from similar games at Ferry Halim's excellent Orisinal.com. While game cloning is nothing new in the casual games business, these Olympic site games show signs of going past simple inspiration and towards outright theft of the original Flash files themselves. The theft is especially ironic because China has itself made an intense effort to stop pirates from using their Olympic logos and mascots in unlicensed products. What's the Chinese word for hypocrisy, again?

[Via AOL Sports]

Tags: Beijing, china, lympics, pirate, priacy, steal, theft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

StarFoxA @ Mar 12th 2008 1:10PM

Oh wow.

KeenCommander @ Mar 12th 2008 1:15PM

I'd be careful if I were these flash game creators, the Chinese "government" will probably have them killed.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 1:20PM

They can't do shit if they're not Chinese citizens.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Mar 12th 2008 1:25PM

I'm pretty sure that, when it comes to secret killings, it doesn't matter what nationality the target is.

Courtney @ Mar 12th 2008 1:20PM

Well, since it's a Communist government, aren't they just applying their general principles here?

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 1:25PM

Please care to elaborate, all I know about normal Communist governments is that they nationalize companies and rely on heavy taxes to create heavy public services.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Mar 12th 2008 1:27PM

Therefore, the flash IP belongs to everybody!

Courtney @ Mar 12th 2008 2:19PM

@ThornedVenom

Early in Soviet history, the government nationalized a number of creative works and retained the right to do so (not sure if it was used very often). There's also the general issue of media and content control in China, USSR and other communist states.

As for China specifically, legal protection for Intellectual Property is a relatively new development (as I understand it), beginning in the late 70s and evolving in the 90s because of international pressure (particularly in regard to foreign works).

Josiah @ Mar 12th 2008 11:52PM

Well, they're certainly a corrupt and self-serving government. In that sense, this is a perfect application of their basic principles. I don't know about communist, though. That's more of a tag-line for the regime to try and gain some legitimacy with the masses. They're just about as Communist as Atari is still Atari from the 80's.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 1:22PM

One day their current government shall crumble from the bottom, because they can't forever act like that. I just wonder if I'll ever be able to witness that within my lifetime.

Batzarro @ Mar 12th 2008 1:55PM

Castro ask that you not hold your breath. Zing!

(Yes, I zing myself)

jadenguy @ Mar 12th 2008 1:23PM

I dunno, but I think it's the same word for opportunity.

jared @ Mar 12th 2008 1:36PM

I had sent an e-mail to the legal department of the olympics when this story broke saying I was encouraging everybody I know to boycott the olympics this year. Never got a response though.

Royale @ Mar 12th 2008 1:46PM

Go get 'em Jared!

Ian @ Mar 12th 2008 1:53PM

Don't worry Jared, your response will come in the form of a shuriken to the eye in
SEVEN DAYS

upz @ Mar 12th 2008 2:00PM

"What's the Chinese word for hypocrisy, again?"

Wei4 shan4

And yes, it's pretty rampant. Then again, it's government we're talking about! Speaking of which, I'm late for a lunch date with Eliot Spitzer.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Mar 12th 2008 2:19PM

You're such a prostitute, upz.

:)

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 2:29PM

... how do you pronounce that? 4chan?

upz @ Mar 12th 2008 2:40PM

Shush. I believe "escort" is the proper term.

LaughingTarget @ Mar 12th 2008 6:05PM

I thought it is "hypoclisy", or is that N. Korean? I get confused sometimes.

Josiah @ Mar 12th 2008 11:38PM

Wei Shan, both fourth tone? Xie4 Xie4.

Backslash @ Mar 13th 2008 12:35AM

Or how about 偽善? 8D

不客氣.

risrepkel @ Mar 12th 2008 7:16PM

Wouldn't they be hypocrites only if they accused someone else of doing it?

kchenisp @ Mar 12th 2008 7:41PM

Well, that (and the OP) assumes that the guys in charge of hunting down pirates are the same guys in charge of uploading web content, which is something like believing that Bill Gates coded Windows XP. But you get 1 bonus pt for attempting to be rational, which is more than I can say for some of the almost blatantly racist attitudes I am seeing here.

They would have been hypocrites had they acknowledged the piracy and done nothing about it; but the fact is, they took it down to respect the original author's IP. There's no hypocrisy in that even if the lawmen were doubling as the web coders.

What would be hypocrisy is a guy posting on his blog chiding other people for piracy, as if he'd never, ever pirated anything himself. Care to comment, Mr. Orland?

Kyle Orland @ Mar 13th 2008 9:32AM

First off, I meant no disrespect to Chinese people in general, and I'm extremely sorry if any of my comments came off that way.

I understand that the people stealing content for these games and the people protecting the Chinese olympic IP are different, but they're part of the same organization, and the irony was too large not to point out. And while they did take down one game, they still haven't addressed the two other blatant rip-offs to be found on the site. I just feel that an organization as respected as the Olympics should hold themselves to a higher standard in this regard.

I can't speak for the original blog poster, but for all I know maybe he has never taken part in piracy. Seems like a non sequitir to me.