As part of the ongoing Triple Town vs Yeti Town lawsuit, Triple Town developer Spry Fox has called out 6waves Lolapps' defense as "disingenuous."
Spry Fox sued 6waves last month over its latest release Yeti Town, which Spry Fox claims is a "blatant copy of Triple Town."
However, 6waves hit back, saying that it did not break a non-disclosure agreement with the Triple Town developer. It said that Yeti Town was actually developed by a company that 6waves only acquired last month, Escalation Studios.
The company also noted that an Amazon Kindle version of Triple Town has been available since October 2010.
Spry Fox's David Edery has now given a statement to Gamasutra, in which he questions 6waves' explanation.
"We find it remarkable that 6waves would imply that the existence of the Kindle version of Triple Town somehow excuses 6waves' behavior," he stated.
"Anyone who has played the Kindle version of Triple Town knows that it is substantially different from the Facebook and Google+ versions released a year later, and furthermore, that the copyrighted game elements 6waves' is accused of copying are exclusive to the Facebook and Google+ versions of Triple Town."
He concluded, "This sort of disingenuous defense will not be of much help to 6waves. Finally, there are additional facts that will be revealed at trial that will clearly establish a linkage between the development team and the business team at 6waves."
This is a pretty hot topic for Gamasutra. I'm wondering what the long term effects of this event will have in terms of IP protection in the mobile markets and so fourth. I'm a little concerned for the freedoms of Game Developers as a whole, I mean what if ONLY original games can be sold in iTunes after this lawsuit, if it gets that big? ("You can't make this game, it's too much like Tetris! Theft!")
I think it's important, in addressing to what extent a game 'system' (mechanics, story, etc.) is protectable ip. It seems the conventional wisdom is that the game system, much like a film's story is not protected in copyright (and therefore no real IP protection).
At some point, it seems to me a game's 'system' has to be protected, particularly in the industry we have today: where you have what some might consider to be "predatory publishers" who have the resources to easily copy a smaller dev's idea, and much more easily market it and push it towards consumers. If all that is needed is to change the facade of a game, it would be truly tragic for the industry.
By analogy, if we consider movies, it's not considered a copyright infringment to tell a similar story. One could write a movie about people going to another planet, to mine it for some rare mineral, where they encounter a species of very strong and large aliens and a disabled / injured soldier integrates himself into their alien society, etc. etc. But, it would cross the line to simply use different actors and recite Avatar scene by scene and line by line.
I think the line for what is permissible derivation, and what is impermissible "copying" simply hasn't been drawn yet, but it has to be drawn somewhere, and that is what makes this so exciting.
Plagiarism - as theft or stealing, does not exist in a legal sense. It is not a crime (criminal or civil.) It's a moral offense. So for the freedoms of game developers as a whole to make games similar to Tetris and such... you're fine (legally.)
Where this case is interesting is whether it gets into copyright infringement, which is a crime. Copyright law allows the holder (Spry Fox) exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or make derivative works.
If 6waves and Spry Fox were in communication prior to the release of Yeti Town (which they were) AND Spry Fox was sharing information and possibly source code about Triple Town, it's game design, mechanics, etc... I believe it could be argued that Yeti Town is an unauthorized derivative work.
If there was no communication between the companies, it would be much harder to win a lawsuit.
Maybe the only thing that can be done is to develop a healthy relationship between developers and consumers so news of plagiarism can get out and consumers can decide how much they want to support that. Unfortunately, I doubt the majority of the smartphone or facebook markets will be religiously reading kotaku or gamasutra anytime soon to be educated on such matters. Oh well, small steps I guess; just do what you can to get the word out when you hear something like this, if you feel it is unethical.
It's really not that difficult to find the line that goes from being good for game developers to being bad (and yes, I mean in the moral sense).
Danc and David are great people and are extremely creative. Would I use a triple-town-like mechanic of combining a ladder of objects within a limited space or resource pool as part of another game? I might well, if it fit the game I was working on, added something to it, and wasn't just a stand-alone clone of what they've done -- just as I might use a hundred other mechanics that were novel once (match-three or tower defense anyone?) but which have become common place.
OTOH, producing a game that copies their mechanics, costs, difficulty ramps, etc., *exactly* with just a change in art to make it "new" is an entirely different thing. That's plagiarism, unethical, ungentlemanly, un-creative, soul-destroying, and possibly -- were I under NDA with them, say -- grounds for a civil suit. Which in the current case I hope and expect they will win.
The suit isn't really about copyright of an idea. It's claimed that they were about to make a facebook version, the deal fell through, so they only changed a few graphics. Therefore some parts of the game (code? text? some graphics?) might actually be infringing.
I’m an indie developer who has created some potentially revolutionary “hardware” technology at SUNY Fredonia’s tech incubator. I had been in the process of feeling 6Waves out as a potential investor when they asked me to sign their NDA on the 23rd of January and reveal to them the particulars of the new tech.
I’m so glad that I put it off and that I’m now aware of their thieving ways!
At the same time it could be good... right?
lookalike.php, and http://gamepolitics.com/2012/01/03/atari-takes-down-ios-games-having-039p assing-
resemblance-039-battlezone-claims-developer.
At some point, it seems to me a game's 'system' has to be protected, particularly in the industry we have today: where you have what some might consider to be "predatory publishers" who have the resources to easily copy a smaller dev's idea, and much more easily market it and push it towards consumers. If all that is needed is to change the facade of a game, it would be truly tragic for the industry.
By analogy, if we consider movies, it's not considered a copyright infringment to tell a similar story. One could write a movie about people going to another planet, to mine it for some rare mineral, where they encounter a species of very strong and large aliens and a disabled / injured soldier integrates himself into their alien society, etc. etc. But, it would cross the line to simply use different actors and recite Avatar scene by scene and line by line.
I think the line for what is permissible derivation, and what is impermissible "copying" simply hasn't been drawn yet, but it has to be drawn somewhere, and that is what makes this so exciting.
Plagiarism - as theft or stealing, does not exist in a legal sense. It is not a crime (criminal or civil.) It's a moral offense. So for the freedoms of game developers as a whole to make games similar to Tetris and such... you're fine (legally.)
Where this case is interesting is whether it gets into copyright infringement, which is a crime. Copyright law allows the holder (Spry Fox) exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or make derivative works.
If 6waves and Spry Fox were in communication prior to the release of Yeti Town (which they were) AND Spry Fox was sharing information and possibly source code about Triple Town, it's game design, mechanics, etc... I believe it could be argued that Yeti Town is an unauthorized derivative work.
If there was no communication between the companies, it would be much harder to win a lawsuit.
Danc and David are great people and are extremely creative. Would I use a triple-town-like mechanic of combining a ladder of objects within a limited space or resource pool as part of another game? I might well, if it fit the game I was working on, added something to it, and wasn't just a stand-alone clone of what they've done -- just as I might use a hundred other mechanics that were novel once (match-three or tower defense anyone?) but which have become common place.
OTOH, producing a game that copies their mechanics, costs, difficulty ramps, etc., *exactly* with just a change in art to make it "new" is an entirely different thing. That's plagiarism, unethical, ungentlemanly, un-creative, soul-destroying, and possibly -- were I under NDA with them, say -- grounds for a civil suit. Which in the current case I hope and expect they will win.
I’m so glad that I put it off and that I’m now aware of their thieving ways!