Indies struggle with blatant copycats on App Store

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

This also reminds me of the dude who's basically copy/pasting Minecraft, uprezzing the graphics, and planning to release it on XBLIG. It's kind of pathetic.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze
http://thesiteformerlyknownas.zachtronicsindustries.com/?p=713

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze Wasn't that the original idea for Minecraft? http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Infiniminer

@Bluebreaker

Not quite. This is different. Gameloft liberally rides the coattails of big name games, but they don't exactly copy games.

@ItsameMatt03

This may be out of the scope of a post what is the "line" between copy and not copied though? Has there been known standards established?

@Bluebreaker
Gameloft is the Chinese knockoff of video games.

@Bluebreaker

Plus, Gameloft don't exactly drive the big companies out of business, or even hurt their sales a whole lot. They just mooch off of their success.

@(Unverified)

There's like 12 Cut the Rope apps on the Android marketplace, and they're all fake. That's even worse.

@Bluebreaker Naw. The way I see it, Gameloft create titles similar to other titles that never come to mobile platforms. So there's a group of people who like a game A and would like to play it on the go, but that game would never be created, so Gameloft creates something similar to that game to fill that niche. And you really cant get mad at them for that.

@BananaBoat I would hope that Apple would freeze their accounts and not pay out, curious to see what happens in those situations.

@dcfox

Problem with that idea is similar to what was happening in the old Atari days. "Developers" like this would just change names every time they released a game, so there was no connecting trail to show that the same people copied 20 games. Given that they are willing to copy and publish games wholesale, I don't see why they wouldn't be willing to just churn through names and registrations to keep pushing their crap out.

@Anticrawl Yeah, that's the first thing that popped into my head too. Especially with the whole Smurf thing, Capcom is looking mad sketch.

@vidjagamer
Thing not THINK!

@vidjagamer

Or more directly related to the article: Capcom's MaXsplosion.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/11/capcom-mobile-rips-off-splosion-man-for-maxplosion/

Mobile markets are like the Wild West at the moment. It's quite saddening that most people can't even take a core idea and try and expand upon it and instead just clone a game out-right.

@Integral No pride or no shame? Complete opposites there.

@ArcaneAmoeba
Honestly? Apple does not care about the little guys.

They put up a "pirate" copy of Lugaru when there was an official copy already up. The author of the fake version claimed that since Lugaru went open source he was within his rights to steal all the game content (not provided with the source code) port it over to the ipad himself and throw it up for a fraction of the official price (Regardless of the fact that when the source code was released it specifically stated that A: It was not to be used for commercial projects and B: None of the games content was covered under the open source license, and could not be redistributed.)

When complaints came in about the cloned copy Apple still allowed the fake to double his asking price as he made a last ditch effort to cash in.

This stuff happens a lot. The reason Apple certification takes so long is not because they spend a lot of time, but because they fast track apps from bigger publishers. For most apps they only do a brief check for inappropriate content, or obviously copyrighted material.

@ArcaneAmoeba

How is Apple supposed to know that the game Developer A submits is a rip off of a game Developer B might submit in the future? They can't possible scour the internet looking for every game out there. Sure if its a title they know about they might catch it, but that will depend on the people reviewing it. Best they can do is respond when they are alerted, pull the game, freeze the account of the offending dev and help the original developer work with the proper authorities to sue the **** out of the offender.

@krizoitz
Google search would pretty much take care of that. If they see anything obviously copied contact the submitter and ask for proof that they are the legitimate developer. Withhold approval until proof is given. Pretty simple stuff IMO.
Sure, a couple games would slip through but those could be easily caught later and wouldn't be even half as severe as this was.

@krizoitz

So if I submit say, a Mirror's Edge clone onto the Market, which looked quite a lot like it and called it "Ultra Rush: Roof Jumping", do you think a Google search would pop up with Mirror's Edge?

Apple's screening process is simply to identify nonsense applications, enforce the App Store rules (no malicious content, no 'duplicate functionality', etc) and make sure that their walled garden remains a walled garden. That's it. If someone has a grievance with another app on the App Store, they submit a complaint, like in this case. Apple since removed the application.

It's unreasonable to think Apple would have encyclopaedic knowledge of every game ever made, especially when the App Store is far more than just games anyway. It's like governments telling YouTube to approve every video submitted (about 24 hours of video submitted every minute) incase it has copyrighted material or has hateful content such as kids beating up other kids or abuse to vulnerable people... It can't realistically happen. It's why YouTube has a "flag" option so the community can report what slips through the net. Not sure if the App Store has that ability, but I would think it does. So if you see a cloned game, report it as such.

@ArcaneAmoeba
Sadly there is no way to verify in the way you're proposing. Example, the code is copy written but you have to trademark a name, which is a huge hassle and a bit of an expense, a lot of small devs (myself included) just don't bother because we don't have a legal dept to push all the paperwork around. So only the actual code and art assets are protected at all in most cases. Further how do you know the real dev didn't pay the fake dev to port their game even if it is an exact copy. Ask to see a legal document authorizing the creation of the app? How do you prove that Dev A and Dev B arn't the same thing? Maybe they just use a different P.O. box for their flash business, do they even have an address for the one you find on google? What if the name is changed, you won't even find them on google.

Unless there's a big brother organization watching everything EVERYONE makes (and who pays for this? the people making stuff for fun in their basements? or the companies with the legal team to let them get out of paying taxes...) there's no way to track this. Then there's the whole international copywrite issue. Even if you have a copywrite for something if it's not registered internationally someone in brazil could copy/paste every since line of code (which they can get easy enough by looking up your copywrite in the US) and hit submit and it would technically be legal...

Ownership is hard to prove, harder to maintain and expensive as can be to defend. The fact that apple listens to, and actively polices the app store in response to developer requests like this I think shows that they're looking out for the little guy. In the contracts they say they can remove your app, but that doesn't mean someone who's app is removed, even legitimately, won't try to sue them...

@Agnostiq
Alright, fair enough. However, it's not like they would need irrefutable proof to approve fishy-looking apps. All they would require is a quick email from the original publisher. And as I said, some apps would definitely slip through. Does the app store have a "report app" button or something so that users can help out?