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Reader Comments (45)

Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:06PM (Unverified) said

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or Overweight Queen....
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Posted: Jun 26th 2009 5:32PM (Unverified) said

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Hmm? thatgamecompany isn't making Fat Princess. I fail to understand what you did there. Sorry if I'm wrong.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:44PM smatts said

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so i could have had flow, or a version of it, on my ipod but now i cant? sadface
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 5:37PM seamonkey420 said

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i got it on my iphone before it was yanked and it was free :P

thank you jailbroken iphone and disabling the killswitch.
and yes, it was identical to flOw :)
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 5:29PM kevlar said

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Just what I was thinking. flOw was a great game. An incredibly fun flash distraction.

Don't apologize and remove it completely! Work WITH Jenova Chen to make an officially-licensed version, properly titled, share some profits, and everyone can be happy!
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Posted: Jun 26th 2009 4:18AM Jacksy said

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@Kevlar

That's what he should of done in the first place, now he ruined it .
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:09PM Duke said

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What a dirtbag.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:09PM THEBLAH said

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or Business Man: The Adventure Through Time
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:19PM Geist said

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Nest Game:
Super Tony Brothers' Adventures in the Fungal Monarchy.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:19PM Geist said

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*next
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:21PM jynxycat said

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Surprised he pulled it. The gaming community does not revolve around Youtube comments, he probably could of made a bunch of cash.


Oh well.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:27PM (Unverified) said

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The gaming community does however revolve around blogs that posted said Youtube videos.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:31PM Kabapu said

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Surprised? Really?

You don't think ThatGameCompany's lawyers got in touch with him and said, "If you don't pull this app immediately we're going to sue for damages (which would probably exceed whatever measley amount he may have made) and put you entirely out of business" ?

I'm surprised he thought he could get away with it.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 5:09PM Arashikou said

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The thing is, his initial statement - though sad and amoral - isn't really that incorrect... a lot of the industry IS just rebadging other people's gameplay with their own artwork. If he'd come up with his own art instead of ripping that off too, we'd probably be arguing over whether he should pull it, not why he already did. :(
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:25PM adolson said

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I was looking forward to their upcoming sure-fire hit, Deity of Battle. That Greytoes character looked cool!
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 5:01PM Sly C said

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and their next one, Keytar Savior!
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:39PM corei7 said

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The code must be different since you program the iPhone in Objective-C, not flash.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:51PM RyogaVee said

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And its in Cocoa.

He ripped the concept but not all the code. It would have been MUCH better had he made the game and then sold the work / collaborated with the maker.

This is not too far different that that groups that ported Tony Hawk to the iPhone, Only they went about it the right way.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 6:52PM (Unverified) said

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Actually, you only need to interface with the hardware with Objective C. You can use C++ (and other languages) in conjunction with that.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:45PM JoseElMaton said

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Jesus christ, they even ripped the sound effects?!?! I LOVE that game, man!
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:47PM (Unverified) said

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Looks sweet - I would have bought it.
Cheaper $ as well.
Winner winner chicken dinner all round.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:48PM RyogaVee said

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Next up coming games...

Necro Galaxy
Reflective Corner
Popular Football announcer 09
Circular Head Piece: OTS
Ending Fiction: XIV
Spook Zappers
Organic Electricity: Rise of the older Siblings

I could go on forever.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 5:19PM Arashikou said

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Have you ever heard of Demakes?

http://www.tigsource.com/features/demakes/

Those would make GREAT demake titles... They're right up there with Noiseless Mound and Contract Killer's Ideology.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:53PM xnicox said

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Actually, last night I read the original article and they had marked it down to FREE and I nabbed it before it was removed completely.

I can only hope that Chen allows someone to port FLOWER to the iphone or even better, does it himself.

That is of course if Sony didnt have a gripe
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Posted: Jun 26th 2009 4:10AM (Unverified) said

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Flower will need to be powered down a lot to port it
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:58PM (Unverified) said

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and I was looking forward to Petals: the flying floral adventure. Now I guess I'll have to settle for Creatures: gotta catch them all, or Last Fantasy 7: the magical adventure of Mako.

this is why so many people claim open source can't work: some idiot makes money off of copying the program, not just emulating the idea.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 4:59PM Oldtaku said

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Wait, these guys are Canadian and not Chinese?
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Posted: Jun 26th 2009 4:36PM (Unverified) said

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Why would you say something messed up about Chinese people when Chen himself is probably Chinese?

That's like me defending my Hispanic friend by calling other Hispanics lazy and illegal immigrants. I'm pretty sure that would offend him too.

Don't be an insensitive idiot.
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Posted: Jun 26th 2009 4:58PM Oldtaku said

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Yes he's Chinese - born in Shanghai. That's what makes this extra amusing. This isn't a racial stereotype, it's a cultural stereotype - Chinese companies will steal and copy anything because they have no respect for the idea of intellectual property (whether they should is another debate). Even the national Green Dam spyware/filtering software turned out to be code ripped off wholesale from another program. This is such a cliche that Engadget even has a running 'Keeping it Real Fake' section which documents these.

So yes, I think it's a funny turnaround when a Canadian company takes the code of a Chinese guy, slaps a new name on it, and sells it.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 5:05PM (Unverified) said

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he should have just made it free to download. I don't want him to profit from theft, BUT I sure as hell would have liked to play "fl0w" on my iphone.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 6:58PM spin cycle said

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So theft is okay as long as you don't profit from it?

What if Jenova Chen is currently working on fl0w for iPhone and this guys' knockoff means it doesn't sell well?
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 7:00PM (Unverified) said

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Good point.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 5:09PM (Unverified) said

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From the description of the youtube video posted by ketarasoft:

"Please note that we have decided that it is in the best interests of everyone to delete this game from the App Store. We will also do our best to make sure nothing like this happens in the future."

I love the power of the masses ensuring justice is served.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 5:30PM Nomi said

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Now I hope that thatgamecompany releases flow for the iPhone.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 5:13PM Cabcru said

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Not having played Flow, the reference is a bit lost on me (though I do recall screenshots). Reminds me somewhat of that crappy first section of Spore, really. Oh well, at least the iPhone indies can go back to lifting other games like Locoroco and cranking out Scorched Earth 'homages'.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 6:04PM (Unverified) said

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Sony should sue this guy's ass. It's like tracing a famous piece of art and saying you created it. He should be ashamed of himself.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 6:53PM (Unverified) said

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If he stole the code that's one thing. But if he just 'ripped' the game design, that's kind of tradition in game development, isn't it? Think of all the Breakout/Tetris/etc clones out there.

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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 8:02PM CitizenErased115 said

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Yeah this is a huge rip off and the way they tried to play it off. Wow.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 8:06PM (Unverified) said

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horsesheet ketara. nice try.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 8:31PM (Unverified) said

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Last night I saw this on the AppStore and was going to buy it, but when I searched for it, it said it was free, and when I tapped on it, it said 1.99... I decided to wait not see if it would be fixed, but guess I'm screwed.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 10:33PM Nobledevil Gaming Optimist said

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Wait.. they completely copied a game from one popular download service to another and expected no one to notice? Are they retar... well, actually, they MUST be.
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Posted: Jun 25th 2009 10:55PM f1rehead said

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But no one complains about Rolando?
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Posted: Jun 26th 2009 6:27AM MrHashbrown said

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I'm very impressed by the way Mr. Chen handled this situation. If I had learned that one of my first games that made me get any attention was ripped off and redistributed even without my consent (monetary issues aside) I would probably flip out.

I'm just glad to see this didn't turn into a legal battle.
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Posted: Jun 26th 2009 8:04AM (Unverified) said

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it doesn't even look as good as flOw. The controls in flOw are very fluid, such as when you tilt in a certain way to turn etc, your creature kind of folds/doubles back on itself, you can really turn on a dime. In this, you seem to be forced to make big flat loops. Also, it's far faster, the screen is cluttered with all kinds of extraneous crap that the original conveys far more subtlely. From the short clip, the behaviour of the enemy creatures also seems lacking.

Sure game clones are everywhere, from tetris to Geometry wars (though usually they're free/bundled with hardware). But this one seems to go just that one step further by lifting the fine details of the graphical style, the sound effects etc. of what was a very distinctive and pretty game. It's possible to make a version of tetris or even a geometry wars type game with just the memory of how the original game worked, and add some degree of your own spin to things. This was clearly made with a copy of flOw sitting there right in front of the coder.
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Posted: Jun 26th 2009 3:56PM easo said

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Wait, this guy was surprised that someone stole and renamed his i.p. and put it in the app store? Of the 50,000 plus apps in apples store, about 40% are clones of some other i.p.
Another another 30% are glorified bookmarks(weather.com app, facebookapp, google maps app, etc).
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