25% of the content of the ripped-off game.
For game developer Simon Wilson, Apple’s iTunes service and Google Play have been providing a nice stream of supplementary income over the last eighteen months as his game Bashing Things With A Hammer, has sold consistently, as well as receiving fairly decent reviews, averaging a 3 star rating on both iTunes and Google Play.
Now, however, Wilson has had to face up to a new foe – Chinese publishing house ROFL-MAO, an independent venture established two months ago, has been piggy-backing on his success – and doing it better.
“As a mobile developer, I’m used to these sort of things happening – a group comes in, prices their app at half the price of yours, adds some screenshots and then sells it until someone notifies Apple or Google. In the past I haven’t really minded, but the only problem now is that their version of the game, Hitting Things With A Mallet, has averaged a four-star review, and its sales are rapidly catching up to my own. They even nicked my screenshots!”
One of Wilson’s main bones for contention is not only that the game is receiving better reviews, but that all it is is a series of screenshots of the titular Things, pre-bashed with a hammer. Reviews have focussed on this aspect as a real time-saver, with A Google User posting “in my busy schedule I don’t have time for all this virtual hammer-smashing, to have an app do it for me is incredibly helpful! I get all the benefits of destruction with none of the outlays! 5/5 would buy again.”
We were unable to reach ROFL-MAO for comment, as the company had already been shut down by the time, however we were able to find a company established yesterday called ROFL-MAO, who had already deployed Smashing Things With A Mace to the iTunes app store.
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