DONUT COUNTY GAME ONLINE PC
Yes, it’s probably because it’s also coming out on PC and PS4, but that’s sort of beside the point. It recently received a $200 million US investment from Goldman Sachs' private equity fund, aiming to double its staff to 150 this year.Not a ton of mobile games get shown off at E3, relative to console and PC titles, but Donut County ($4.99) did this year. The prospect of facing off against a company like Voodoo in court could be especially daunting. And when you're putting in 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week trying to not just put out a video game, but generate hype for an upcoming video game, I can't imagine anything less appealing than pursuing a lawsuit," said D'Anastasio. "It takes a lot of energy, takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of money. In both Canada and the United States, taking a clone to court is often too costly for small businesses like indie game makers. The story pointed to Voodoo's own website, which proclaims: "We are experts at buying cheap installs in big numbers, thanks to our mobile growth team." Goldman Sachs invest in Hole.io makers According to Variety, Voodoo "doesn't hide that it games Apple and Google's ranking systems" - meaning that many people may find games like Hole.io, but not the games that they allegedly copied in the first place. Right: Ninja Fishing, by Gamenauts, which Vlambeer alleges is a clone of their game. "Independent creators come from a place of passion," he said, "and nothing will destroy that passion like feeling like you've been taken advantage of - and nothing will kill the drive to be creative faster than seeing someone else treat it as a cynical cash-grab." "It almost killed the company right there and then," Vlambeer's Rami Ismail told Kotaku. Like Donut County, a clone of Ridiculous Fishing called Ninja Fishing appeared in app stores before Ridiculous Fishing itself was finished. Clone warsĭ'Anastasio pointed to Infinite Golf, which resembles Vancouver-based Pirate Games' 2014 hit Desert Golfing, as well as The Fish Master, which plays similarly to Ridiculous Fishing by Vlambeer. "In the case of Donut County and Hole.io, it is possible that the growing hole feature of Donut County is itself so distinctive and original that this feature alone constitutes a substantial part of the original game," he said. He cited a 2013 decision involving a television cartoon, where the Supreme Court of Canada took a "holistic" approach that considered "the cumulative effect of the features copied from the work" in the case. "But what if the game is not literally a copy, but simply uses a feature or combination of features of the original game?" "It's easy enough to spot literal copying – the copy or elements of the copy are exactly the same as the original," Mark Edwards, an Ontario-based lawyer with expertise in digital and traditional entertainment industries, told Day 6. Games reporter Cecilia D'Anastasio says independent game developers rarely have the time and money required to take another company that they believe copied their games to court. The fine line lies in the distinction between a game that's merely "inspired by" a previous game, and a game that's an outright copy. That practice often leads to entire new genres of games growing out of a single game's new idea. Nintendo owns the likeness of Mario, for example, but not the idea of running and jumping on a two-dimensional plane. She explained that game designers and studios have historically used pre-existing ideas or concepts to make new ones all the time. "For instance, Donut County and Hole.io are two games with similar gameplay but with different interpretations that each bring a unique game experience," the statement said.Ĭecilia D'Anastasio, a reporter for the games site Kotaku, characterised the statement as "dripping with slime."ĭ'Anastasio said Voodoo has "put out a number of games that resemble, in pretty significant ways, other indie developers' games as well." (Submitted by Ben Esposito)In a statement, a representative for Voodoo told Day 6 that "our developers, whether internal or external … freely interpret existing gameplays as it is the custom throughout the profession where all developers feed off each other's creations. He plans to release it by the end of 2018. Ben Esposito has been working on his upcoming game, Donut County, for the last 5 years.