Voodoo has released a clone of an indie game that has not yet been released
The author of the not yet released mobile arcade Donut County Ben Esposito (Ben Esposito) accused the French publisher Voodoo of plagiarism. As it turned out, Voodoo managed to make a clone of Donut County and release it in the App Store before the original.
In Donut County, the player controls a black hole that swallows different objects and gets bigger. The first demo of Donut County appeared in 2012, and this year the release of a full-fledged multiplatform version with stylish art was scheduled.
Donut County
The game released in May Hole.io Voodoo uses the same black hole mechanics.
The only difference is in the simplified graphics and the fact that instead of a singleplayer, players are offered the traditional io-games multiplayer on the principle of the king of the mountain.
Hole.io
Now Hole.io It is located at the top of the arcade top of the App Store.
Esposito admitted that at first he did not want to discuss a clone of his game at all, but decided to raise this issue after the Goldman Sachs private equity fund invested $200 million in Voodoo.
“Voodoo has an algorithm of work (accept an application, analyze retention, publish) that allows you to release successful games… But this algorithm also pushes developers to create and quickly release copies of other people’s games, such as mine. Apparently, all I can say in this situation is don’t tell anyone about your indie game before the release,” Ben Esposito wrote.
He was supported by another developer Dave Chenell, whose arcade game Powder — Alpine Simulator was released in 2015 and then acquired many clones, including from Voodoo. Chenell repeatedly received letters from players who expressed dissatisfaction with his game, and then it turned out that they were not playing the original at all.
Powder – Alpine Simulator and its clonesAlso on the topic:
