SA indie game developer QCF Design has managed to bring an end to the sale of an iPhone game that was a direct clone of their Desktop Dungeons title.
Desktop Dungeons is the brainchild of South African indie developer Rodain Joubert and a full version is currently under development at QCF Design. The current free-to-play version of Desktop Dungeons is sitting on v.0.15.
The trouble began back in November 2010 when the clone in question, League of Epic Heroes (LoEH), emerged on the App Store. At the time, this raised serious concerns about the viability of the Desktop Dungeons project and how the team should approach the problem. Solutions put forward involved either quickly putting out an iPhone version to compete, accepting it as a form of flattery, slogging it out and releasing the planned full version, or setting lawyers loose on the problem.
QCF’s Danny Day also raised the point that this case serves as example of the challenges facing South African indie developers.
A couple of months down the line and QCF have a result. The developer of LoEH has yielded to copyright infringement notices and has removed the application for sale in all countries. In a letter sent to QCF and reproduced via the QCF blog, the LeOH developer writes:
Just wanted to let you know that as of today, I’ve removed LoEH for sale in all countries, following the copyright infringement notice I received from your lawyer. I apologize for all the issues this has caused, and wish you best of luck on your IGF nomination. Looking forward to the full version of Desktop Dungeons on iPhone.
Day raises the issue of whether or not this was the correct course of action to take and he discusses the topic at length in his blog update, which is well worth reading for some insight into the copyright dilemmas facing game developers.
The QCF team even attempted to reach a middle ground and help the LeOH developer to produce something that wasn’t a direct rip of their core ideas and rather expand upon them. In the end, an agreement apparently could not be reached.
Joubert commented: “We’ve taken the news as one could pretty much expect. It’s just such a shame because, as outlined in our blog post, this is still very much a “lose-lose” scenario. There were so many ways to avoid this situation, and unfortunately it seems that we weren’t able to pursue any of them. The experience, however, is definitely one which I would describe as “educational” in many ways.”
Day also worries that Desktop Dungeons may now suffer from being compared to LeOH when it is finally released. This is probably something he needn’t worry about, as Desktop Dungeons is well on its way to being something special. Already the game has been nominated for two awards at the esteemed 13th Annual Independent Games Festival which is coming up in March. Many nominees that have appeared at previous IGFs have gone on to become critically acclaimed games, so we are eagerly awaiting the results of IGF 13.
Discuss Desktop Dungeons’ victory against their clone on the MyGaming forum.
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