Piracy is a tricky topic in the gaming community, as the debate rages on other whether it hurts or helps developers in terms of sales and exposure of their game. Even in that debate, one thing can be agreed upon. Someone else selling a pirated copy of a game is morally wrong, however you look at it. For Butterscotch Shenanigans and their hit game Crashlands (which is available for the iOS, Android, and Steam), they've found that someone tried to take advantage of a pirated copy of their game this morning. As you can see below or at the link here, a copy of Crashlands has shown up on the Amazon App Store.
Thankfully, the guys over at Butterscotch Shenanigans are aware of the issue, and informed Twitter and their followers of the issue via the tweet seen below.
https://twitter.com/BScotchShenani/status/692011887693680640 They have asked Amazon to take down the game in question and are awaiting a response at this time. The game hit the store overnight, and currently has one five star review at the time of writing this news piece. The problem calls into a question a general problem of ownership of apps being sold on the Amazon marketplace and people attempting to make money off a developers hard work.
Crashlands is a mash up of Diablo and Don't Starve like mechanics with a bit of humorous side to it. The game has gotten strong reviews from those who have played the game, noting that the humor is spot on, and there's a lot to do with the crafting and the home building systems. It currently sits as a Very Positive rating on Steam with 318 reviews and only 18 negative reviews, and has a whopping 99 on Metacritic on the IOS/Android version of the game, and a respectable 81 on the PC side of things. The author of this article did a review of the game on his own YouTube channel with a key obtained from the developer, as seen below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfIkIobolnA At this time, there has been no response from Amazon. As the story develops, TechRaptor will provide updates of the situation and update the story accordingly.
Update:
The pirated version has been removed from the Amazon store page. Justice.
https://twitter.com/BScotchShenani/status/692136951789568002 Quick Take
It's rather disgusting that it's so easy to mimic a developer and get onto the application store. This one hits close to home, as I really enjoyed Crashlands for what kind of game it was, and it was clear to me that all the love and effort was put into its development with the little touches that the game had. Hopefully this can be resolved quickly.
What can be done to prevent issues like this in the future on the platforms in question? Is there a really good way to handle it in the long run? Leave your comments below!
