Candy Crush maker, King, has taken down one of its games following accusations from an indie developer that the company has deliberately copied his work.
The accusations were made by Matthew Cox (a.k.a. Junkyard Sam) who documented his allegations on his . Cox and his partner Nick Bray entered negotiations with King representative Lars Jornow to have their Flash game, Scamperghost, be part of King's portfolio. The negotiations were then stopped abruptly after the duo reached a better deal with Max Games.com. King then contracted another developer to clone Scamperghost before it launches.
"Scamper Ghost [sic] is a great game. We're sorry our deal didn't turn out with you guys - you made out with more money and we were left without an avoider game that we had already planned on," wrote Jornow in alleged email to Cox."We needed an avoider game and sponsored a similar game."
Cox also claims to have received an email from the clone game, Pac-Avoid, developer apologizing for his unethical collaboration with King.
"[Jornow] asked us to clone the game very quickly, and even wanted to beat the release of the original game," the email reading. "He offered us 3k, and the only reasons we took the project was because we found it immoral that you backed out of a deal (as it was told to us, perhaps not as it was), and because we were short on cash and in a very shitty living condition."
Cox is adamant that no agreement was reached with King because both sides couldn't come to terms regarding some of King's requirements. For example, Scamperghost had to be reworked to fit the resolution King wanted.
King denied all of Cox's allegations, but still took Pac-Avoid down "for the avoidance of doubt."
"King does not clone other peoples' games," the publisher said in an official statement. "King believes that IP - both our own IP and that of others - is important and should be properly protected. Like any prudent company, we take all appropriate steps to protect our IP in a sensible and fair way. At the same time, we are respectful of the rights and IP of other developers. Before we launch any game, we do a thorough search of other games in the marketplace, as well as a review of trademark filings, to ensure that we are not infringing anyone else's IP. However, for the avoidance of doubt, in this case, this game - which was coded by a third-party developer 5 years ago - has been taken down."
