It's bad enough when a fellow developer steals one idea from someone else, but how bad is it when they steal three and combine them? That's exactly what the makers of the iOS game Cut the Birds did. Taking the cuddly characters from Angry Birds, the slashing action of Fruit Ninja and the unique title of Cut The Rope, developer SolverLabs LLC managed to get the game on Apple's App Store
Of course this isn't SolverLabs' first run at blatantly stealing games from other developers. For example, nearly a year ago it published Angry Birds for BlackBerry (which we are pretty sure they don't hold a license from Rovio for) and Fruits and Ninjas for Blackberry.
At least its latest offering is free. As one commenter on the game's App Store pointed out "Good game but I sense a lawsuit or two."
You can check it out here. While Rovio recently said it didn't mind people copying its game ideas, this one might actually tick them off...
Source: Kotaku
Comments
Re: Stealing from Three Games: Cut The Birds
As EZK pointed out, the only real problem here is that they stole the actual art assets from Angry Birds. I mean, for you to take the attitude you have about the title, I guess you also support Edge Games in their endless lawsuits against people who dare to use the word "edge" in their game titles. And you must be firmly in Bethesda's camp regarding their lawsuit against Mojang over the word "scrolls". As for the gameplay being similar to Fruit Ninja, well... Gaming has this thing called "genres". The core gameplay of two FPSes, or RTSes, or sports games, or whatever, is bound to be pretty similar. Their trappings are what set them apart, and this is an industrywide standard practice. That's how game genres come to be refined and improved. Or would you be happier if Wolfenstein was the only FPS, Dune II was the only RTS, etc?
Re: Stealing from Three Games: Cut The Birds
Why not? That's what James Cameron does to make all his movies!
Re: Stealing from Three Games: Cut The Birds
Sure I can see Rovio getting upset about this, but not because of any game mechanics or idea being ripped off. I see them getting upset because the art assets are rip offs of Angry Birds.
As for the other two elements, the title is a stupid thing to claim to have been ripped off. And I have very clearly expressed my opinions of copying game mechanics before here:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EZacharyKnight/20110816/8207/Copying_Mech...
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
Random Tower: Game News and Commentary
Re: Stealing from Three Games: Cut The Birds
What do you think of 'Angry Fish' on Xbox Live's indie channel?
Yes, it is as utterly shameless as it sounds.
Re: Stealing from Three Games: Cut The Birds
Never heard of it. Afte looking at a gameplay video, yes it is very similar to Angry Birds and the title makes it a bit more 'fishy'. I don't find it to be anything bad in and of itself. Just as I have no issue with Fortresscraft.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
Random Tower: Game News and Commentary