[RESOLVED] Publisher Issue

UPDATE: Since making this post GameDistribution.com have reached out to me apologised and made a fair deal to put things right. I've gone from unhappy with the company to actually very happy with them.

Just wanted to warn other developers about these companies. Kizi and GameDistribution.com are both part of the company Orange Games.

Ted Ursu from Kizi emailed me to ask if he could license my game Super Stacker 2. I had a lot of non-game work on at the time and wasn't taking requests and didn't answer. The next thing I know they have decompiled/stolen my game, added their own branding and adverts and are distributing it via GameDistribution.com (same company) pretending it is their own. On the scale of ethics in web game publishing this is about as low as you can get in my opinion. Even if they haven't stolen your game - if you work with this company are you confident they are ripping you off in other ways? If you are featuring their games on your website I wonder how many stolen games you are featuring without even knowing? I doubt I'm the only dev they have done this to.

You mean they cloned it when you declined to license it.

It's a pretty standard practice for something that can't be patented, or given copywrite.

The fact that they asked to license it is what is extra ordinary.

They re-used all of the art assets, exact level designs, exact name etc. - it's identical. That IS copyrighted material.

Ok, then sue em.

Then tell us about it.

Forum rants with no proof are completely useless.

Forums are about discussion and sharing information.

Ok.

Im saying please prove what you are saying.

Here it is with Kizi Branding, published by Orange Games on GameDistribution.com:

https://gamedistribution.com/games/super-stacker-2#/

They published it there in 2017.

If you doubt that I published it first you can see my original upload to Newgrounds here in 2009:

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/481558

They do not have permission to use my game with their branding and adverts. If it was a crappy little website decompiling/stealing games sure I get it but Orange Games is a huge company worth millions.

You're warning other devs, but that's probably where the new one came from.

These platforms do little if any vetting, and the game is not that complex.

I would give the theft by an individual a much higher probability than an established company purposely breaking the law.

Best advice, make a DMCA notice, and get a lawyer if it stays up.

https://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/dmca/

Sent you a PM + thanks for the link.

They re-used all of the art assets, exact level designs, exact name etc. - it's identical. That IS copyrighted material.

Turns out the newgrounds games are embedable, you might not be able to sue them, next time check the portal you upload to.

all they did was using the code bellow now the code can be a iframe embed, a frame etc anything that can pull content from online servers... i don't think they personally host your game.

 ?<embed src="http://uploads.ungrounded.net/481000\/481558_superstacker2.swf?f1233884077" width="600" height=
"400"></embed>[/code:6j5d0c1d]

The code above is on a public server, all they did was free distributing your game, and added their logo on top before loading. the question is .... is that ethical? no ... but newgrounds gives old flash games free in their feed many of the games there end up on automated arcade script websites like kizi websites or arcadeboosterscripts. 

What you can do at this point is update your game version, and lock the game on newgrounds portal. that means any embedding would redirect people to your  games page on newgrounds, if you code it that way, or you can simply code it to show a image that is " not child friendly " or something, and then contact them back and ask them about that license if they still want it. have fun.

took me 1 minute to figure the code above... the hard part was finding the game source on newgrounds servers. but is pretty visible inside the newgrounds games page if you right click and show source.

im not usually doing this... im just trying to explain is very simple, they don't host your game on their website they just embed it. so you can unite forces with newgrounds and sue them, if that is against newgrounds rules.  problem with suing someone for digital work online, is .... money... is that game worth the thousands of dollars to sue someone in some other country? is it generating that much money that you can afford it? are they making that much money that they can pay damages to your business? what are the damages for them doing that outside moral ones? if you don't have a business around that product/game, even if you instant win in court... your reward from a judge would be like % of the game/product/business generating profit, and the court fees paid by the other party.  if not then domain locking is your solution.

Edited: kizi.com which is part of game distribution and all kizi related domains... they are a multi million dollar game distribution network... you will definitely get some nice money from suing them if newgrounds rules are against what they did, and you win in court. However ... they have millions of $ and can keep you in court for years... bankrupting you. [b][i][u]To be understood i don't encourage you to do this[/u][/i][/b], your life will be in a legislation nightmare for some stupid thing for years. just domain lock your games/content.

Hi gamecorpstudio. Thanks for your attention but I think you misunderstood the situation. I'm absolutely fine with people embedding my swf on their page infact I offer it freely to webmasters and Super Stacker 2 is hosted on many different websites. If they hotlinked the game on Newgrounds like you mentioned that would be fine as it would still be intact. What I'm not ok with is people taking apart games and rebuilding them with their branding and adverts in without paying any licensing fees or revenue share to the developer. That's stealing!

Incredibly disappointing to see such a large company behaving like that. They are well aware of the situation now and we'll see if we can come to an agreement. If not I have successfully taken action against companies for similar behaviour in the past and I'm happy to take that route again.

If they hotlinked the game on Newgrounds like you mentioned that would be fine as it would still be intact. What I'm not ok with is people taking apart games and rebuilding them with their branding and adverts in without paying any licensing fees or revenue share to the developer. That's stealing!

Hey, i understood what you were saying, i think you miss understood what i was saying, i was saying they did not take your game apart and altered the code, their portal has a overlay splash screen and advert area over the game embed area, and also triggers a advert each 5 10 seconds. to do that you don't need to reverse engineer the game. you can do that even with wordpress... or even plain html5 css ... like they are doing, using their custom CMS.

case in point, their CMS is provided by orange company .... which delivers splashscreens over embeded games taken from internet

see codes

https://html5.gamedistribution.com/3de0c1fd03414f92b4324ebfe54fc562/version.js?v=1526317379492
view-source:https://html5.gamedistribution.com/3de0c1fd03414f92b4324ebfe54fc562/index.html
view-source:https://gamedistribution.com/games/super-stacker-2#/
https://html5.gamedistribution.com/3de0c1fd03414f92b4324ebfe54fc562/super-stacker-2.min.js?v=24
[/code:2h6aq7la]

that entire code in all those source files, what they do is overlay ads over the game area.

Edited: atleast thats what i was thinking before (the above response).... but then i found this lil code in some script on their website... 
[code:2h6aq7la]b.exports = {
                name: "p2",
                version: "0.7.0",
                description: "A JavaScript 2D physics engine.",
                author: "Stefan Hedman <<>bad@gmail.com> (http://steffe.se)",
                keywords: ["p2.js", "p2", "physics", "engine", "2d"],
                main: "./src/p2.js",
                engines: {
                    node: "*"
                },
                repository: {
                    type: "git",
                    url: "https://github.com/schteppe/p2.js.git"
                },
                bugs: {
                    url: "https://github.com/schteppe/p2.js/issues"
                },
                licenses: [{
                    type: "MIT"
                }],
                devDependencies: {
                    grunt: "^0.4.5",
                    "grunt-contrib-jshint": "^0.11.2",
                    "grunt-contrib-nodeunit": "^0.4.1",
                    "grunt-contrib-uglify": "~0.4.0",
                    "grunt-contrib-watch": "~0.5.0",
                    "grunt-browserify": "~2.0.1",
                    "grunt-contrib-concat": "^0.4.0"
                },
                dependencies: {
                    "poly-decomp": "0.1.0"
                }
            }
        }[/code:2h6aq7la]

not really sure what that does ... but im pretty sure that decompiles your game... and then alters it :O did not expect that ....you better lock your game on newgrounds domain. and contact them. or contact newgrounds about it.

I appreciate your research but they definitely decompiled and rebuilt it. For one thing one version is flash and the other is HTML5. Also they have confirmed that's what they did.

I appreciate your research but they definitely decompiled and rebuilt it. For one thing one version is flash and the other is HTML5. Also they have confirmed that's what they did.

yeap i edited my response above... i found their decompiler .. and their turned your flash game into html5... snap... ok... ehm locking all my content from now on. thanks for sharing.

Side note: not sure why they had to decompile your game? they couldv overlay cms ads over the game itself... without altering your game... but i guess they really wanted to brand it as theirs...

Also after the confirmation from their side... did you got a deal back? or they just say .... no more offer on table? just curious.

locking all my content from now on. thanks for sharing.

Yes, worth doing! If you figure out a good technique can just repeat it for all of your games.

Also after the confirmation from their side... did you got a deal back? or they just say .... no more offer on table? just curious.

They contacted me today, will see if we can reach an agreement. Hopefully I can update this thread with a [Resolved] tag in the future.