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With Prc on rail to overtake the United states of america in mobile game revenue on iOS in the side by side few years, developers are even more focused on launching their games in that market. However, rampant piracy and copycatting continue to exist a challenge - perhaps becoming fifty-fifty more of a problem since I wrote virtually it terminal year. Here's a await at the problems the industry faces in China at present -- along with strategies for dealing with them.

Chinese Piracy: Fast, Cheap, Out of Control

Clash Royale clones in Chinese app stores

As it happened, I gave a related GDC talk last March right as just about everyone in the industry was watching aghast as Supercell'south blockbuster Clash Royale was cloned for the Communist china market place in less than a week. Just as notable is the price effectiveness of this re-create:

Take a wait at the data in this slide:

Toll to create Clash Royale: Millions. Toll to clone Clash Royale: Thousands.

This info in a higher place is from a colleague who's the CTO of a gaming company in China. After consulting with a few other Asian game developer colleagues, my team ended this was an entirely feasible estimate in terms of numbers.

Yous're reading the numbers correct: It cost a company but $30,000 to build an extremely quick knockoff of Clash Royale, which after it launched, was earning almost a one-half a million a month on Android alone. Cheers to broad pool of well-trained engineers, it's now possible to pay a pittance to quickly create a copycat game that earns dorsum its evolution cost in only a unmarried month.

Chinese Clash Royale clone'southward likely yearly earnings

Practice the math (higher up), and y'all can run across how that revenue adds up. Bold a $1.60 cost per install and a 1% conversion charge per unit on both iOS and Android, nosotros're talking around $6 one thousand thousand a year gross -- so after the app stores take their cut, an ill-gotten profit for the copycatter of over $4 million. Which also shows why copycatting in China is so pervasive -- it's a big concern.

There'southward an even greater cause for business: I tin can say with confidence that at that place's a high likelihood that the knockoff in question has used some or all of Supercell's original source lawmaking -- particularly the advice slice between the server and client. I'm convinced in that location's no manner the copycats could have replicated that smoothness and speed (it'southward very sophisticated tech) without having directly taken the source code.

Copycat vs. Clone vs. Crack: Defining the difference

Before nosotros go whatsoever further, I want to make some distinctions between the different types of potentially infringing apps nosotros encounter on the marketplace. Some developers regard "copycats" as an accepted part of the gaming ecosystem, assertive that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The question is, how far can you take it for something to exist OK? Tin can y'all really say you "own" a item gaming style? Subsequently all, no ane would fence that Tekken, Mortal Kombat, and Street Fighter are copies of each other.

I break down apps into these 3 categories: copycats, clones, and cracks.

Copycats: Endless games, as whatsoever longtime gamer can tell yous, are directly inspired by other games. This does not necessarily involve hacking or other infringing/unethical activity, specially when the copycat comes with substantial tweaks and additions to the original title. For the most part, the game is cocky-adult with its ain code, and in doing then, the developer builds on pinnacle of a known game mechanic or idea and adds his/her own twist to the new game.

Clones: When a copycat involves pervasive imitation in every attribute of the game, and starts to include source code from the original game, nosotros are inbound into the realm of clones. These games are not cocky-developed, and primarily rely on the original source code for the game's algorithms and logic. (Sometimes contrary engineered through recorded gameplay.) Almost of the time. it is a uncomplicated "reskin" of the game, meaning the source code is largely untouched and only the graphics are switched out.

Cracks: Cracks are modified version of the original game that allows yous to cheat, past getting gratis items/gold, assuasive you to bypass restrictions placed by game designers (speed hacks, unlimited lives, etc.), removing ads, and other barriers that may be in place.

On left, Oniix/Game Hive's official game Tap Titans; on correct, its Chinese pirate Tap Tap Heroes

I explored these distinctions in a Gamasutra post last September highlighting the grief my colleagues at Oniix endured when their latest game, Tap Titans, was evidently copied in Red china. After playing the Chinese knockoff, they learned that not only was the surface UI like, discovered, so were the leveling curves, scoring logic, etc. This was not simply an imitation of their games images and UI design -- information technology was about certainly an outright copycat that had too reskinned graphics on top of Tap Titans' source code.

Clash Royale and Tap Titans are not rare examples of the phenomenon -- the trouble is rampant:

Chinese 2048 Android clones every bit far as the eye tin see

We took this screenshot above from a top Android app store in Communist china. Every bit you can see, there'due south not just one knockoff of 2048, but numerous -- I count three dozen on only this ane screencap from just one app store (at that place are thousands in China) solitary.

These issues aren't confined to China, by the mode, but are rapidly being exported overseas -- including and specially into the US. Last month, there a California court posted a ruling on Lilith Games (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. v. uCool, Inc, with Lilith alleging that uCool, a United states of america-based visitor, had copied 240,000 lines of code along with the overall look of the game. According to a legal analyst, Lilith had a loftier chance of winning the lawsuit overall, withal their preliminary injunction was denied. The junction was denied fifty-fifty though many gamers in the public now believed it was Lilith which was the infringer, because uCool's game was released to The states app stores before Lilith could do so itself. Again, this is an example for why it'due south and so important to exist proactive. You can take infringers to courtroom, but past then, it may already be too late -- and the law might not help you plenty to ameliorate the problem.

Cracked apps easily accessible through a Google search

… And this is from a The states-based website that lists all "cracked" apk files for games. At that place are countless sites like this online. If that'southward non a visual to convince y'all to showtime protecting your game now, I don't know what volition.

Now that I've hopefully laid out how serious this problem is, allow'south look at a multi-prong strategy for dealing with it:

Seven point app protection program

Pre-Launch Lawmaking Protection: Memory Hacking Prevention, String & Binary Obfuscation

On the development side, yous want to secure your code confronting multiple varieties of hacking. I explored these in detail in this Gamasutra mail: "Six Strategies for Protecting Your Mobile Games Against Hackers, Crackers & Copycatters". The key is these are pre-launch strategies, reliable only if they're implemented before copies of the game are available to the full general public. If you effort protecting your app after it's already in app stores, information technology's as well late. Subsequently a game's already been released, it can sometimes crave weeks of development fourth dimension to retroactively secure a lawmaking vulnerability. And by and so, as nosotros see in the Clash Royale case and many others, hackers may have already done their worst.

In addition to protection on the code side, there's precautions you tin can accept on the business organisation side:

• Launch worldwide from the beginning: Many publishers hesitate to do this, and often don't have the resources to practise so. But at the very least, create a global rollout programme even before the initial launch, so you're ready to globally expand as quickly every bit yous can -- and kickoff with China. The downside to a launch delay gives Chinese pirates time to put out copycats, build a fanbase, and tarnish your brand.

• Scan the China market place often: Your local partner in China (and we highly recommend having 1) volition probably need to do this, but information technology's not simply well-nigh scanning the Chinese app stores. You too want to search the web, to take hold of unscrupulous copycatters pointing people to their download sites. Equally for Cathay's major app stores, you and your partner should form good relationships with them -- know the key people who can assist y'all immediately, when the inevitable finally happens.

Equally I noted above, my team has counted at to the lowest degree 100+ clones and copycats, and countless "cracks" for Clash Royale. And those are only the ones that are at the top of the leaderboards -- who knows how many lurk below the surface? Any mobile game, regardless of level of success, is a target for hackers. So if you lot're developing games to become worldwide hits, preemptive protection must be an integral part of your plan.

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