Apple fights game clones, pulls Angry Ninja Birds, Plants vs Zombie, others
Apple has finally started to notice clones on its App Store and it’s not happy about having them - the company has pulled clones like Angry Ninja Birds, Plants vs Zombie and Temple Jump from its application catalog.
The three games mentioned obviously borrow a lot from the originals: Angry Birds, Plants vs Zombies, and Temple Run. Not all of the removed games were extremely popular, but Temple Jump for example climbed to the top of the Paid Apps chart.
Interestingly, all of the clones come from the same developer - Anton Sinelnikov. After the sweep, the total number of his apps on the App Store dropped from 68 to mere nine.
Game cloning is forming to become the next huge scandal in the mobile industry as some of the largest studios were accused of blindly copying existing titles. Zynga for example has recently made a direct clone to Tiny Tower named Dream Heights, and has now also released a clone of Buffalo Studios’s Bingo Blitz.
"We're really happy with how quickly Apple responded to the situation and removed [Temple Jump]," Imangi Studios co-founder Natalia Luckyanova said. "The app was clearly a scam that traded entirely on the popularity of Temple Run and was packaged to confuse users."
Do you think Apple did right to remove the obviously cloned games, or do you think that they have the right to exist? Let us know why in the comments below.
source: Gamasutra via Pocket Gamer
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