[zt]The Olympics stole my game.

Fuwa Fight the Winter Clouds

This is one of the Flash games being featured on theFun PageofThe Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, called ‘Fuwa Fight the Winter Clouds’. [UPDATE 3/10 :The game has been removed from the Olympic site.] The opening screen of this game looks strangely similar to the opening screen of my own game, Snow Day:

Snow Day

Probably just a coincidence though, right? The instruction screen will surely show that this is a completely different game with a unique mechanic.

Fuwa Instruction Screen

Snow Day Instruction Screen

Hmm. They do use the same mechanic. The visual composition of this screen seems remarkably similar to Snow Day as well.

Let’s take a look at the game itself:

Fuwa Game Screen

Snow Day Game Screen

Wow. Justwow.

Flash game theft is nothing new. I’m actually quite used to having my games taken without my permission, and without receiving compensation. The difference here is that this is not some crappy no-name portal. This isThe Olympics.

I’d also like to point out that this is not just a clone of my game. They didn’t see my game and set out to make a similar game. They actuallystolemy game. I’ll say it again:
The Olympics stole my game.
They downloaded the swf file from my site, decompiled it, swapped out the little guy for theFuwa characters, took my name off of it and republished it as their own. I can tell this is what happened because they are still using some of my original art from Snow Day (the clouds and the ice cube are exactly the same). I also took the liberty of decompilingtheirgame and actually found it still contains the sound files from Snow Day, even though they aren’t being used in the Olympic version. It even still has the splash sound effect fromThe Lake(I used the engine from The Lake to make Snow Day and must have forgot to delete this file).

Two of the other games on the Olympic site are obvious rip-offs of Ferry Halim’sOrisinalgames. CompareObstacle Raceon the Olympic site with Ferry’s adorableArctic Blue, andLeap and Leap, a clumsy copy ofWinter Bells. I can’t really tell if these are clones or reskinned versions of Ferry’s files, but those stars in Leap and Leap look pretty damn similar to me.

I did some research and it seems that the web site was created bySohu.com, the company that last year busted Google for plagiarizing from one if its products. At the time Sohu made three requests of Google: that they stop offering the software for download as quickly as possible, that they make an apology, and that they discuss compensation for the offense. I’m currently considering my legal options, but I think these three things sound like reasonable requests to make of Sohu.

The Beijing Olympic Committee has also not been lenient with copyright infringers. Back in October the director of the State Intellectual Property Office, Tian Lipu,pledged to prevent Olympic piracy. Indeed, the Olympic web site even has a page set up where you canreport infringement of intellectual property rights. Evidently, they are slightly less concerned when The Olympics infringes on the rights of others.

I’m sending cease and desist letters to both Sohu and the BOCOG. More news to follow as the story unfolds.

In the meantime:
Click here to play therealSnow Day

* Thanks to Alex atMiniclipfor bringing all of this to my attention.

UPDATE 3/10:The game has been removed from the Olympics site.
Also, read some nice coverage about the ordeal in theSydney Morning Herald. Pretty much the same story as here, but with better writing…

Link| Tags:copyright infringement,games,Olympics,Snow Day,theft