Armed Heroes iOS mmorpg steals Torchlight assets

[Outlawedprod]

http://toucharcade.com/2012/07/13/armed-heroes-sees-canadian-release-trailer-is-pretty-flashy/

Travis Baldree, President of Runic Games says direct rip of assets and they are contacting Apple.
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?s=9bd4b2da13e1e5bec00eda838c7e8e38&p=2345376&postcount=26

Game's official site.  Claims mmorpg.
http://ah.eglsgame.com/

[Shatter]

"UPDATE: This is awkward. Moments ago we got an email from Travis Baldree, President of Runic Games, who gave us the heads up that every asset they've come across in the game so far is lifted directly from Torchlight. We'd usually catch stuff like this, but unfortunately Torchlight is amongst the bazillion Steam games I own and haven't played yet. The good news is, if you thought this game looked cool, Torchlight is available on Steam for the Mac and PC for $8.99 as part of Steam's massive summer sale. That's 40% off for those of you playing along at home. -Eli"

Uhhhhh

[Malakili]

Ok, look, I'm no insider in the gaming industry, but this looks pretty bad.  Can someone who knows what they are talking about explain if something like this could possibly happen by accident?

[MahrinSkel]

It couldn't, really.  There have been cases where someone "borrowed" assets for prototyping and something from that slipped through into a beta or even a final product, but to launch with that many assets lifted directly from another game...it's hard to see how that could happen by accident.

--Dave

[Trippy]

It's a mainland China company that developed the game. That's all you really need to know, sadly.

[Amaron]

It's a mainland China company that developed the game. That's all you really need to know, sadly.

Torchlight is owned by Perfect World though.   So this isn't just a case of them ripping off some foreign company.

[Scold]

It's a mainland China company that developed the game. That's all you really need to know, sadly.

Torchlight is owned by Perfect World though.   So this isn't just a case of them ripping off some foreign company.

Oh, Chinese firms rip each other off plenty.

[Merusk]

They ripped-off Blizzard assets as well.  Some of the armors are exact rips of old WOW armors.  One of the posts I read pointed out Warlock tier 3 or 4 for one of the necro sets.

[Khaldun]

Oh, dear, how did that happen? I'm shocked, shocked to find gambling going on here.

[Pendan]

Ok, look, I'm no insider in the gaming industry, but this looks pretty bad.  Can someone who knows what they are talking about explain if something like this could possibly happen by accident?

The company I work for has outsourced some art work from China. It is possible for a contractor to give the same artwork to two different employers. Still would not expect it to be most assets.

[Phred]

Bah. Signing up for reading comprehension 101 tonight

[Outlawedprod]

EGLS responds:

We sincerely hope that Mr. Travis Baldree can note that the similarity between Armed Heroes and Torchlight may be due to that we both learn from Blizzard, unless you are suggesting that except you the rest must not learn these advanced skills from Blizzard who has long been one of the great leaders within the industry.

http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=144793

Grab yo popcorn this is gonna get good.

[Amaron]

Nah they are toast:

http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=2349850#post2349850

They've reduced the poly's on some of the models they ripped but they left too much evidence.

[Fordel]

They ripped-off Blizzard assets as well.  Some of the armors are exact rips of old WOW armors.  One of the posts I read pointed out Warlock tier 3 or 4 for one of the necro sets.

Yea, that's what I saw right away too. Oops. 

[MahrinSkel]

Nah they are toast:

http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=2349850#post2349850

They've reduced the poly's on some of the models they ripped but they left too much evidence.

Those darned mispellings will get you every time.  Time for them to call the lawyers, I think (although the details of how the US subsidiary of a Chinese company sues another Chinese company for IP infringement...).

--Dave

[Phred]

Nah they are toast:

http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=2349850#post2349850

They've reduced the poly's on some of the models they ripped but they left too much evidence.

Those darned mispellings will get you every time.  Time for them to call the lawyers, I think (although the details of how the US subsidiary of a Chinese company sues another Chinese company for IP infringement...).

--Dave

According to the poster from Runic they just want the game delisted from the APP store. He says they aren't interested in legal hassles.

[UnSub]

Delisting exact clones / cloned assets would potentially open a can of worms though and reduce the number of apps in the App Store. Apple might just as easily say, "Deal with your IP issues yourself."

[Kail]

Delisting exact clones / cloned assets would potentially open a can of worms though and reduce the number of apps in the App Store. Apple might just as easily say, "Deal with your IP issues yourself."

Is that a viable strategy?  I thought the whole Napster thing was the courts saying "You distribute the content, you're responsible for it being legit," hence the reason why Youtube is constantly pulling videos with copyrighted music in them and the whole Megaupload raid thing happened.

[UnSub]

The approach there is more a case of having to pull the content if asked, but leaving it up there until then until asked to investigate it because that way you have a bigger range and attract more eyeballs.

YouTube could do a lot more to prevent violating content ever being uploaded, but they don't, because it attracts viewers (and I believe they've been caught in internal emails saying as much). I'm guessing Apple is the same.

I'm interested to see which side Apple of this argument Apple sides with - the app developer who's making them money or the software developer on a different platform.

[Merusk]

The approach there is more a case of having to pull the content if asked, but leaving it up there until then until asked to investigate it because that way you have a bigger range and attract more eyeballs.

YouTube could do a lot more to prevent violating content ever being uploaded, but they don't, because it attracts viewers (and I believe they've been caught in internal emails saying as much). I'm guessing Apple is the same.

I'm interested to see which side Apple of this argument Apple sides with - the app developer who's making them money or the software developer on a different platform.

Yes, DMCA says they have to pull it if asked but the burden is on the Copyright holders to find offending material.  Napster was in violation because they didn't pull material, instead saying "Hey we're just the middleman." That doesn't fly anymore.

The SOPA & PIPA laws that were nearly passed earlier this year shifted that burden to the content distributors and didn't allow for fair-use.  Meaning pretty much the death of the internet outside of shared corporate networks had they passed.  No private movie reviews, discussions of media in electronic format outside of corporate permission, etc.