Counterfeit game (Lugaru) on App Store

[FrieChamp]

Dux posted this on Facebook, but this is surely interesting enough to be shared among all of us here. The Wolfire team discovered that somebody is selling their (!) game "Lugaru" for 0,99 $ on the app store. For comparison: the genuine "Lugaru HD" copy sold by Wolfire through the App Store costs 9,99$. It isn't necessary to mention that this hurts their business. The kicker is that the person(s) who sell the counterfeit copy claim that they have all the rights to do so, because the code to the game is open source AND that Apple hasn't taken any action yet. The later is most likely related to the fact that their support is slow, but the more people hear about this, the faster Apple is going to fix this and ensure that it isn't going to happen again.

Full Wolfire article: http://blog.wolfire.com/2011/02/Counter ... developing

[dux]

Yeah this is total bullcrap, we know Wolfire, they used to be in the office nextdoor with our onsite guys. Apple has done sod all so far to help them, lame.

[Vilham]

From what ive been reading its only the code that is full open source, the assets themselves can't be sold. So hopefully Wolfire can do something about this.

[Private]

Dux posted this on Facebook, but this is surely interesting enough to be shared among all of us here. The Wolfire team discovered that somebody is selling their (!) game "Lugaru" for 0,99 $ on the app store. For comparison: the genuine "Lugaru HD" copy sold by Wolfire through the App Store costs 9,99$.

This is the app store page for the fake version. I do believe the price is 1,99 $.

This is the real one.

Edit: The Canadian scumbags upped the price after this story started making it's way across the web. It was 0.99 $ when Wolfire made their original post.

[Thrik]

Yeah the assets are definitely not OK to re-sell, and also there's surely a trademark case over the name 'Lugaru' — assuming they actually trademarked it. The sad part is the developer probably doesn't have the funds to bother with lengthy trademark and copyright lawsuits, so until Apple wakes up and resolves the issue (the worst part of this whole thing IMO) they're going to get little justice.

[⌐■_■]

wtf, what a complete douchebag. should be suckerpunched in the neck!

[hessi]

well actually you can't distribute open source software that easily in the app store. its not been to long since VLC was taken out of the store because of that (i am not talking about the vlc remote. i am talking about video playback for any videoformat you can play in your pc version of vlc.)

another example is the scummvm. we all know it runs perfectly fine on the iphone, but the licensing prohibits a release on the app store.

shame on apple, shame on open source licenses and shame on those software thiefs.

gosh, i am really pissed about the software world. there is so many unnecessary conflicts.

[Izuno]

Getting more press: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/apple-in-the-middle-of-app-store-game-war/

[Mr. Happy]

I have seen this story cropping up all over. It is very shameful what they are doing! But I suppose there is a lesson: do business with apple, get nothing or less in return.

[zaphod]

Thats a pretty retarded lesson to take away from it.

[Thrik]

A bit OTT perhaps, but it is fairly alarming that this story has been very public for like a week now and Apple is yet to respond with any action.

[FrieChamp]

Steve Jobs takes time off and everybody at Apple stops working.

[AlexM]

that is rough. What type of open source license was it?

This might be a good reason to only open source the engine portion of a game and not the actual gameplay code.

[Defrag]

Apple used to have a totally closed (read: guess why you were denied?) submission process, yet they can't respond to something that is clearly violating copyright? Pretty weird extremes.

[Izuno]

And more:

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/apple-pulls-fake-lugaru-from-app-store/