Somebody pulled up an almost 8 month old thread and everything has been sorted out since then. Can't you just let something die in the dust like it should do or don't you have anything better to do? People live and learn so just leave it.
Cause.... it was their first game ever? I'm pretty sure when someone that has never worked on a game in their life is sitting on their computer the intricacies of the game industry aren't magically given to them. It's like yelling at a chef for not being able to run a restaurant. The chef's job is to make food not run a business. If a chef is forced to do both then you have to expect a few mistakes. It's being shrugged off because it's been completely resolved. I'm sure at the time they truly felt that their game was cloned (I thought the same thing when I saw it) but it turned out that the similarities for the game are in areas that can't be copyrighted. Imangi learned about the game industry in an unpleasant way (for both parties) and with that they grew. The Appstore is wonderful in that anyone can make games and have it sent to the masses. In the beginning there were a TON of mistakes by devs. Remember KinWits!? Going from 2.99 to FREE and once everyone downloaded it they sent out an "update" that neutered the game and made it a demo. Remember SpaceMonkey!? Went from 4.99 to .99 then went Free... WITH ADS! So those that paid full price had to deal with ads now I was so pissed at both devs that I started threads that got so much attention and bad publicity that Glu changed SpaceMonkey back to 99cents and made a separate free version. Troutfly has yet to make another game for the appstore since Kinwits "pro" I think it's completely fine to acknowledge, and in some cases be angry about, the mistakes that are made. But once they are resolved... then that should be the end of it Just my opinion though Cheers!
Just let bygones be bygones. I do remember this event though wasn't pretty but in the end it was handled well.
That is pretty shallow... The lawsuit, which the developer came on her to discuss, was resolved and was a personal business/legal matter between the two parties. No one was harmed in the process and the party that created the lawsuit stated it was a mistake and it has been resolved. Why are we being so naive to keep bringing it back up, when we can just drop it and spend some time doing something more fun, like playing one of the many great iPhone games.
Seeing as the defendant made it public domain by creating a post about it, I think it's open to discussion. Kudos to Imangi for coming on here and putting their hands up. People are going to be apathetic or disgusted by their action and that's up to people's prefernces. Doesn't seem too harmful as Harbor Master is doing well. My take is if you're entering a market you've got to know how it works and what does and doesn't count as your intellectual property. Chef analogy doesn't work either because devs and sellers are one and the same in indie game development. It's also bad IMO that too many people are buying into this litigatory society and shooting first, asking q's later. I can't condone this kind of thing by indie devs when I despise big companies for doing the same. This won't stop me buying an Imangi game but there's nothing wrong in a discussion about it.
I'd be careful to say that "no one was harmed" - quadrum had to change into quadrum:colors, with colors instead of words. If you want the original quadrum with words, you can't buy it, because of imangi. And NOW imangi says they didn't have the right to do that. With the same logic, if firemint decides that they want some changes in harbor master, imangi should do what they want - and still "no harm done".
I think its wrong for anyone to judge Imangi based on what has been said, for one its a old subject and it was settled already. I think its easy NOW for people to think they were wrong, seeing the app store now is a lot different then it was back then. Now you see a million TD games, a million match 3 games and so on. But back then when you quit your job to make games and all the sudden see the same exact game being put up for free and see how this could be a big problem for you and your profits. I am quit sure some of you who have said "I wont buy from them now" would think a little differently if you were in their shoes. I dont know any legal aspects of copyright laws so I cant say anything to that but I completely understand where Imangi could have been coming from. You can easily just look at StickWars and Defend Your Castle as a good example, DYC was the first on a different platform and SW's clearly has taken alot of potential sales by coming out with pretty much the same game and being first on the app store. Now not knowing the legal side of things I cant say anything about those issues but it sure sucks for DYC devs a bit. Also look at EDGE being taken down from the app store, that is way worse as it was being taken down just cause of the word, losing a lot of potential sales in the process. Now thats dumb. People live and learn and move on, simple as that. Obviously they did and you should too.
Actually it does. A chef creates food. This is what they are trained to do and what they have experience in. If that same chef buys a location and opens a restaurant then you're in the same situation. The chef is now the creator and the seller. Now that chef should OF COURSE learn everything they can about opening a business first but the truth is that without experience mistakes are bound to be made. Basically the point I was making was that just because anyone can have experience with code, can create a game, and then upload it to the appstore... that doesn't mean they know how to run a gaming business. They both fall under the title of gaming but are radically different things. One just needs to worry about making something fun and beautiful that people will want to play, the other has to worry about copyrights and tax forms. Even huge mobile gaming companies like Glu, which have been making games for 7+ years (2002-2009), have made huge mistakes on the appstore. So why chastise a dev that had only been doing this for months when this occurred? *that last part was not directed to Melli. Just a question to those that have said they refuse to buy games from this dev*
I completely agree. However, the game mechanics are completely different in HM and FC. The only similarity is the art style. The fact that you draw a line to move an object isn't exclusive to FC. That's the way all ATC games have been. I admit that FC did the line drawing WAY better than I have ever seen before but isn't that a good thing? If one game introduces a new mechanic that elevates the genre... shouldn't we want all future games in the genre to adopt that mechanic? (ex: ATC 4.0 updating to add a similar line drawing) Now if firemint said that the art style was too similar to theirs, to the point that we as customers might confuse HM as being made by firemint, I completely understand. I do remember seeing in the Iphone Launch Party coverage that nattylux demoed HM for firemint and they enjoyed it. Even if they didn't the game had only just been sent to apple for approval and could have been quickly removed until things were sorted out. On a completely unrelated note: I really enjoy threads like this. Aside from the few flamers there are a lot of interesting and well thought out posts for both sides of the argument.
You seem to be getting a little confused. intellectual property is an umbrella term which covers copyright, trademarks, patents or a design right. This case is either copyright infringement, trademark infringement, patent infringement an infringement of their design rights or possibly passing off (making something so similar as to confuse customers). Saying "its [a case of] intellectual property is a pretty meaningless phrase.
The concept of moving rows and columns is a well established mechanic going all the way back to Rubics Cube. A Mechanic can NOT be protected by copyright (only be patent) so strike this off the list. This is a standard control mechanism on the iPhone and again not protected by copyright. Yes, words are formed left to right and top to bottom as in crosswords and scrabble and other word puzzles. They can't claim ownership of that fact and nor can their implementation of that mechanic on a computer be protected by copyright - again only by patent. So actually there aren't any breaches of copyright there at all. If they had a patent or two then there might be problems. If the graphics are too similar they might claim passing off, but it certainly doesn't seem to be a copyright issue.
I wouldn't say it's wrong to judge them, if you are releasing apps then you should know basic copyright law / issues. You should not send baseless accusations threatening legal action if you do not understand the law. Yes not knowing the legal side of things sucks, but you should find out about them. The EDGE issue is different and is down to trademark IIRC, not copyright, but again, anyone releasing apps should make sure they understand the basics of relevant laws. Having said all this I would agree with you, they have learnt from their mistake and things should move on.
