Home Gaming Luftrausers clone Skyfar steals money from Vlambeer

Luftrausers clone Skyfar steals money from Vlambeer

2 min read
16

luftrausers

Do you have a decent idea for a game? Then by all means, protect the crap out of it. Game development is home to a new lawless frontier, where a simple idea will get plagiarised on a level akin to that of a lazy varsity student with access to Wikipedia. And current indie darling Luftrausers knows all about that.

Luftrausers developer Vlambeer don’t exactly coat themselves in secrecy when it comes to game development, a tactic that resulted in Skyfar making an April appearance on the iOS store last year. Vlambeer managed to get the game taken offline, but it’s back with a vengeance now that Luftrausers has finally launched.

“People are going to search for Luftrausers and they won’t find it on iOS because it doesn’t exist,” Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail said to Game Informer.

So [Rubiq Lab] put up a game with screenshots that look like Luftrausers and it actually is nothing like Luftrausers because if we could’ve done the game well on iOS, then we would’ve done it. There is no way to do Luftrausers properly on iOS because you need one button too many. [Rubiq Lab] is just trying to steal money, effectively, promising something that it is not.

An iOS app that is nothing more than a cheap knock-off of a far superior product being rushed into the iOS games market in order to make a quick buck? Why I never! That’s disgusting, isn’t it you pile of obnoxious Flappy Bird clones that have infected the Apple store like blue waffle syndrome on a 99 cents hooker?

Luftrausers isn’t the only game that’s been hit with a few copycats on iOS. That storefront is a hive of scum and villainy, with rip-offs ranging from poor imitations of Super Mario Bros and the Legend of Zelda, all the way to a fong kong rip-off of Desktop Dungeons.

There’s a lot of money to be made in making a great game and releasing it. And a stack of cash more when you can bypass that pesky originality part of the design process and just steal an idea.

Last Updated: March 26, 2014

16 Comments

  1. I wonder if at some point the loss of income from clones together with piracy will actually just make most guys through in the towel. We will be left with no decent indies and just a couple of big corporates. No competition means just charge what you want and stuff the quality. Just copy/paste FPS and flappy birds.

    Reply

    • Rince

      March 26, 2014 at 14:19

      Agreed. And most indie chaps cannot afford the lawyers to defend them.

      Reply

      • Weanerdog

        March 26, 2014 at 14:33

        Love to know when the law became about who could spend more not about what is morally right. Lawyers don’t seem to mind though. I watched a divorce that went bad when they were eventually fighting about the pot plants. Neither lawyer had the decency to tell their client that the legal fees saved if they walked away could buy them 10x the pot plants. Anyone say conflict of interest.

        Reply

        • Rince

          March 26, 2014 at 14:35

          I know some people who fought over the bloody dog. Sad world man. ADD: This is where the community CAN help. It’s like that whole King saga, they backed down from suing the person who actually invented the damn game.

          Reply

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          March 26, 2014 at 14:42

          That’s why I laugh when anyone talks about an official “code of ethics” for a field. They’re not worth the paper they’re printed on.

          Reply

    • natasha

      March 29, 2014 at 00:27

      CHECK THIS

      Reply

  2. Hammersteyn

    March 26, 2014 at 14:24

    Can’t the Apple store do something about this?

    Reply

    • VampyreSquirrel

      March 26, 2014 at 14:26

      LOL! You said “Apple” and “do something” in the same sentence!!! HAHAHAHAHA

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        March 26, 2014 at 14:49

        LOL well played

        Reply

    • Gr8_Balls_o_Fire

      March 26, 2014 at 15:35

      They’d need more than one button

      Reply

  3. Lance Armstrong

    March 28, 2014 at 04:28

    It is just a clone guys, it IS legal so the law cant do anything about it lawyers or not. Have any of you ever played Mac-Man as a kid? It’s a clone of PacMan for the PC and no one could do anything about it back then, even with a huge team of lawyers high on power pellets on PacMan’s side. It is up to a game maker to create a work of art so fun with deeply powerful enough gameplay elements that they can’t be recreated, and when they are recreated, wont compare. You can’t copyright simple games like pacman, deep complexity and depth is the only path to a functioning copyright claim. Some indie games can be cloned in 5 minutes, so in those instances the only thing the original artist deserves is his first mover advantage, it’s all he has to protect his work. This means if your game is easily cloned, you had better market and sell the game quickly with little to no marketing beforehand so no company can start making a clone of you before your release date. A few screenshots released 1 month before luftrausers would be enough even for a poorly skilled programmer like me to clone the game. The original artist needs to leverage his first mover advantage by keeping things hush hush and if he isnt smart enough to know these things, he will have to suffer the inevitable. The creator of luftrauser made alot of mistakes, not fun game making mistakes, but business strategy mistakes. I wish you cold all just own up to it. Sorry, i know your all losing minds reading this, I love luftrausers so much as well, but making money is about proper business techniques in any capitalist society whether you like it or not. I applaud the cloner as well, and if the cloner had any cojones, he would try to innovate a little and SURPASS luftrausers.

    Reply

    • John

      March 28, 2014 at 22:41

      i totally agree with “lance armstorng” after reading this blog i researched on this even luftrausers cloned of some game play…i got some stuff in Google before blaming another people they have to see there ass … from where?? steel the game play so who is stealing the money now???
      ” Vlambeer clone 90’s game play “

      Reply

    • natasha

      March 29, 2014 at 15:00

      Why cant Rubiqlab ?

      Reply

      • natasha

        March 29, 2014 at 15:28

        SO STUPID LUFTRAUSER.

        Reply

  4. Natasha D'costa

    March 28, 2014 at 23:15

    I love this game( Jet Engine Nights)
    Rather than luftrausers. Every 1 should check this.

    After seeing this link. No will support luftrauser.
    I would like to tell people “before you random comment do some research regarding issues.
    You will find a real answer.

    THERE IS NO VIRGINITY IN LUFTRAUSER & SKYFAR.

    TOPIC HEADING NEEDS TO BE CHANGED

    Reply

    • Rohit

      March 29, 2014 at 00:12

      Luftrausers has a same to same mechanism which Jet Engine Nights (long back).

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Developers once again say they’d rather you pirate games than buy them from G2A

The site notorious for selling shady game keys at excessive discounts seems to have figure…