Is this piracy?

[StoneRyno]

I discovered today when browsing tapjoy offers, in a game I play, a game (https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...s/details?id=com.z14.darkdemon&token=UV-21vsx) that is identical as far as I can tell to Demon Clash (https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...?id=com.igg.third.demonclashen&token=tEouuKP4). This would be the first time I have ever encountered something like this on google play and I figure I would post here to find more info. Is this something that needs to be reported to google? Who in turn would turn the guilty party over to the proper authorities? As I can only assume there is something illegal taking place here. My assumption here is that IGG is the genuine and the other the pirate.

 

[DJantel Ware]

There is plenty of copied stuff in the Google Play Store. It is often piracy, I used to think that it is always piracy, but I am not sure today. There are plenty of this "reskin" communities, where people sell source code to other people, allowing them to use the game with (often only slightly) different graphics (reskinning the game). But then again, who knows if the source code that can be bought there is not itself pirated.


If you care for it, the only way is to report this to Google.
The sad and dirty truth is, that Google often needs a really long time to react (several weeks if not months). So it is profitable for this criminals to just throw in other peoples games (with changed ad ids) and get downloads before Google even starts to do anything.

 

[Nosferatu Pro]

I don't think that it is a piracy case. You can check the game Nosferatu Run from the Sun, there are 2 "acconts" of this game at Gplay, both have +1000 000 downloads.

 

[StoneRyno]

Both interesting info and saddening info at the same time that if this is criminal that google takes so long to deal with it that the criminals profit. Though I suppose that is not so different than tradition piracy. In the case of a company letting another company have the exact same game on the market doesn't make much sense. It's like saying here we want you to have some of our revenue for people who would play the game and pay us for it but they are playing it released by you and paying you for it. That'd be like blizzard letting some other company run servers and have people sub to world of warcraft through that other company and not get a dime of the money. I don't get it.

 

[Teedo145]

It could be piracy but like others have said, some developers sell their source code so others can develop clones.

 

[workgames]

I think that Teedo145 is right.

 

[DJantel Ware]

Hello Reskin is not piracy. its a process of changing graphics and if you are intrested in reskin [removed advertisement] is selling some Ios source codes for free so that you can make money making games absolutely free.

It can be very well piracy. Who guarantees that:
a) The people throwing in copied games ever payed for the code?
b) The people that sell the source code on this reskin communities (or resell them somewhere else) do really own it?

Exactly - noone.

Of course there can be people that have a legit reskinned game. But simply saying it is definitely not piracy is ... just not valid.