Photo credit: arstechnica.com
Incident of Copycat Gaming
The developers at VoltekPlay discovered a surge of traffic on their itch.io page, leading them to identify the unauthorized iOS game My Baby or Not!. This unexpected spike was traced back to a sudden influx of searches on Google. Only after implementing a player feedback poll did they learn that popular TikTok videos were driving users to seek out their game.
In the comments of these TikTok videos, some users mentioned the original game’s title—Diapers, Please!—which helped a few thousand players find their way to VoltekPlay’s page. However, they speculated that many others likely ended up downloading the imitative app instead.
Recently, the iOS launch of My Baby or Not!, which is priced at $2.99, experienced rapid growth on the paid games charts, reportedly achieving around 20,000 downloads, as noted by Sensor Tower.
Marwane Benyssef, who is credited as the developer of My Baby or Not!, is relatively new to the iOS game development scene. His previous title, Kiosk Food Night Shift, also appears to be directly inspired by an itch.io game. The original game, Kiosk, allows users to pay what they choose and was first launched on itch.io the previous year before receiving a full version release on Steam.
Following the discovery of this infringement, VoltekPlay reported that they had filed a DMCA copyright claim against the unauthorized game. Apple communicated this claim to Benyssef and encouraged both parties to address the dispute directly. As of today, attempts to obtain a statement from Apple regarding the situation have been made, yet the company has not yet responded. Meanwhile, reports indicate that all of Benyssef’s games and developer profile have been removed from the iOS App Store.
Source
arstechnica.com