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The Fight for WorldBox
- fxtentacle 6y agoTLDR: a group of people are setting up po box companies that they use to clone indie games and sometimes even to steal the name trademark. Obviously, they then sell while deceiving customers and at a much higher price, thereby milking and ruining the hard earned respect of the indie game.
- Daho0n 6y agoWould be nice with a TLDR on all links as many are not deserving of a click.
- tpetry 6y agoHow good are auto-tldr algorithms nowadays?
- programbreeding 6y agoBelow is the majority of the post, before it gets in to all the links and such, run through SMMRY[0] set to only use 7 sentences (92% reduction). It obviously doesn't tell the full story, but it isn't bad for a tl;dnr. My name is Maxim and I'm an independent game developer. With millions of downloads it is definitely my most successful game so far, and that's thanks to a very active fan base which I'm very grateful to have. It's really cool to see people play the game in front of your eyes. You evaluate behavior - are they passionate gamers? Or rather cold business people. You check out their game - it looks like a copy of a popular game you know. The answer So as with many other people who offered to buy the game - you politely decline. How come? How come a copycat can use the name of the original game? You guessed it... trademarks. [0] https://smmry.com/ https://smmry.com/
- tpetry 6y agoSounds like some key phrases from the page. If GPT-3 would be able to glue them together?
- Intermernet 6y agoIf you actually care about something, nothing is "tldr". If you regard something important as "too long", then you aren't doing due diligence.
- permo-w 6y agoSome authors do tend to repeat themselves and use unnecessary language, or use the title to hook you into reading the article for a piece of information that they only reveal at the end
- Daho0n 6y agoTotally misses the point: > as many are not deserving of a click How do you do "due diligence" on a HN link without clicking on it? Do you use Google to look at the story and then click the link if it turns out not to be clickbait or other crap that you believe doesn't deserve a click?
- geek_at 6y agowow that sounds incredibly exhausting for an indie dev. Good thing they have a good community to at least correct the fake reviews on the apps
- lbj 6y agoWhat a painful read. Im always surprised to find/meet these people who spend 20 hours per day, trying to make other people miserable. I guess I shouldn't be.
- reedf1 6y agoI do wonder how they sleep at night. Probably see themselves as thrifty and clever.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoLike babies, on pillows filled with dollar bills. Unfortunately, humans are very good at getting used to doing the wrong thing. It's probably a survival feature, otherwise it would be too easy to trap yourself in a situation where you're paralyzed by your conscience.
- rtx 6y agoOr maybe people are different and can rationalize differently.
- Intermernet 6y agoDifferently does not mean correctly, or ethically.
- genedan 6y agoI find it odd because if they tried that hard doing something legitimate, they might be just as successful too. Maybe it stems from some kind of deep-seated insecurity about their ability to create or taking responsibility for their decisions if they fail.
- polotics 6y agoToo bad the doxing happens very late in the post. The bad actors are: -Alexander Novikov -Egor Agafonov -Eugene Kluchinski I think a dox is valid in this case, as hopefully young developers will stumble upon this page and avoid tainting their own names by associating with the thieves.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago>The bad actors are: I used to think it would be a good idea to call out people for their mis-deeds but after a while I realised that these stories are often followed up with some crucial missing information. It probably isn't the case here but it happens often enough that I'd be wary about calling them out.
- rewq4321 6y agoDid you read the full post? What sort of missing information could possibly redeem them? They've built an almost-exact clone and are filing trademarks for his game's name all around the world. The information given in the post has heavily contrained the possible explanations of this.
- dmix 6y agoThere’s been plenty of examples of people on the internet (especially Twitter) getting it wrong. It’s actually a hobby of some groups to spread the wrong names purposefully. This is why doxxing is usually outright looked down upon. It’s a mob rule tactic that can be very dangerous. Regardless if this case sounds “correct” or “just”.
- ealexhudson 6y agoIn this case, it would be difficult for him not to dox them: his game is closely attached to his identity, and the filers of trade marks (and directors of companies, for that matter) are all matters of public record. These names etc are all in the public domain for pretty much this reason.
- polack 6y agoGoogle and Apple should be forced to refund all the money for these scams and pay fines for it. As long as their interests are aligned with the scammers they will let it happen. They need to be held accountable for what they sell the same way Silk Road was.
- sneak 6y agoWhat scam?
- stunlocked 6y agoalright I'll bite: The scam of copying someone elses game just because they refused your offer of buying it, since that's essentially what happened.
- sneak 6y agoIt sounds like they implemented it from scratch, which means they simply beat him to market. I'm not sure what the issue is here.
- josephcsible 6y agoThe issue is they stole the name. Had they made a clone under a different name, it would be fine.
- Intermernet 6y agoHis game was already on the market
- simonh 6y agoThey didn’t beat him to market, Worldbox had been out in the market before they even approached the dev about it or hiked the trademark. That’s why he believes it will be possible to invalidate their trademark.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- slx26 6y agoI don't even know what should be done with people like this. Are there any appropriate deterrent measures? Do scammers on that level require psychotherapy? What can be done about all this?
- thetechinfinite 6y agoReally Bad
- frankdilo 6y agoThis was hard to read. I am furious. Fenced App Store make this problem 100x worse with their shitty search (especially the iOS one) and their hands-off approach with regards to IP. If you hold a trademark, you can bring other apps that yes that trademark in their name down.