Dungeon Masters... again

[PetriH]

Yeah, I know there's not much we could and should do about it. It's good that you let Mr. Bell know about the copyright infringement.

I was worried because it seemed that some folks did not understand the seriousness of this issue. I also wanted to emphasize that supporting these kind of people and buying and endorsing "their products" is wrong and does disservice to the legacy of Dungeon Master and FTL.

[beowuuf]

My secondary worry is always that if serious legal proceedings ever have to be brought up against someone, then it might harm that legal defense if all instances of copyright infringement were not attacked. So even though no one is profitting form the fan community, a blanket cease and desist might be required.

[zoom]

I tried to joke about this issue, this RIP-OFF. That´s what it is.
It is a shame and saddens me while leaving me .. bored?
-maybe I would like to have a DM on iphone but I won´t certainly use this crap.

I cannot believe that Apple itune apps store does approve of this ...incredible..
angers me perhaps I get mildly annoyed also.
Really underwhelming.

You cannot argue "it ´s such an old game" or "hard porting work" can you??!.
PEtriH put it in the right light:
It was the creation of FTL and others and all we could do is feel for FTL staff.
And an apology, I am on the same opinion. (But doubt it will ever happen)

[boyflea]

MARKETPLACE:
FYI : Apple store, Google Play, Windows Marketplace, Blackberry Appworld etc are all rife with counterfeits. The only blanket check I've come across regarding copyrighted content upon submitting to Apple is for the London 2012 games whereby only the Olympics brand was scrupulously checked, in anticipation of overwhelming unofficial apps. Apple have also fast-tracked the submissions from the bad-old days of 2-3 weeks to 2-3 days. So it would not be easy for Apple itself to police content - or any app-store. There is a takedown process, and only one that Apple would pursue in defending it's own position - not that of the original IP holder. But if you are concerned that this seriously could jeapoardise all third-party remakes, homages and fair-use if reported to the original IP guys then that's a worry.

THE APP ITSELF:
FYI - with free software and no jailbreaking, anyone can look at what the app contains (NB: not in any way endorsing copying for profit or sharing to file communties etc. Though this in itself seems a grey-area, but then given the IP and the current discussion what is black and white here? ).
FYI - both the DM and Chaos app contain DM.DAT & CSB.DAT - so the app itself can translate the .DAT file and present it as a game. The codebase would have had to be translated from to fit iOS but the logic must have been grabbed verbatim for this to work.

THE DEVELOPER:
From what I have found, developer states this is an original engine with original content and has previously reacted to negative comments to take-down then re-instate the app.
From looking at the two current market-releases, It looks like they wish to release different 'episodes' of the same app, despite both containing the same files, I would speculate.
To me this is pretty lousy approach, even if all the content was 100% proven to be their own work - imagine changing one element of an app and republishing it again, full-price? Mercenary, in my opinion.

COMMENT:
But I would add it is also a desperate approach as the feedback is heavily negative. Coupled with this major memory issue the developer is looking at an engine overhaul. This is the sort of dev work that occurs at Beta, or about 3-months before launch. Now could be a time to reason with dev to withdraw it, if only to stop their headaches.

And as the savegame itself is a read/write file in filesharing, wihtout jailbreaking - while you cannot change the in-game assets, in theory you can edit the savegame file and adapt to take your data into the app. As the savegame is essentially a mirror of the original .dat file, this means that yes - you can use savegames to post your dungeons to the iphone.

In this 'theoretical' situation, believe any tool that could edit .DAT files (though called .sav files) while retaining the original file-structure - even a basic text-editor could do it.
So in theory, someone could use this alleged 'rip-off' app platform to upload their own custom dungeons to a mobile device, admittedly using someone else's game graphics and being limited to the assets within the first dungeon-master episode. From this you could take some comfort to know that anyone profiteering from this could face one of two situations: a GRIDLEE app situation whereby a MAME emulator is snuck into the marketplace and people buy it up, earning the developer who posts the app a lot of one-off buys, but then all future revenue, eg from updates, is gone as the homebrew market would then take over:- why continue to update the app if the homebrew scene tehn adopt it for themselves?
Or the developer recognises this massive hole in their business plan, tidy-up their act by encrypting future updates and commit to tighten up their app quality to make it something people would want to buy over homebrew releases. [I know which way I'm betting given current form].

Yes, it is wrong for someone to profit at all from this, but at the same time this app is far-far-far away from perfect and really is going to struggle to survive. Seriously. This thing has - inadvertedly - provided a one-off tool to convert basic DM maps to iPhone. I could see 'someone' liking it just for that element for their own personal DM-map-projects which is why have argued that this is of historical interest. This in itself however could also prove any fears that this only worsens homebrew proliferation into the marketplace and threatens the wider DM community further if original IP owners take action.

I am not aligned to the developer of this app and I do love and appreciate this community. I practically live in 8-bit and love old games so would argue that they are perhaps the most valuable games we all have - even if back then they focused on the games rather than protecting themselves against the future with legal teams and large corporate thinking... [sad how this now seems reversed in modern gaming ethos.. ]

I hope this info helps and gives some sense of perspective from an app market-view. I am sorry for any distress this info may have caused, but even if I said nothing the situation will still exist... so hope this info is of help.

thanks again for your time

DAVE GUMBLE

[cowsmanaut]

just to ring in..

They still have my work within the engine, I did mainly some interface stuff and the intro artwork.. most of the dungeon artwork was taken from the original game and poorly uprezed as it is, and some was done in povray. Ultimately, the work I did is horrid by my current standards and I cringe to think anyone wants to use it at all.. however, that said, I still don't want to have people selling it. I did invest a fair bit of time, as did Alandale into the work WE ourselves DID do.. and we delivered that for free. I have zero compassion for someone who made a half assed effort at delivering it and claims he needs to recoup some imaginary cost. On top of it all, he appears to be now using dungeon.dat files from the original game as well as the existing game graphics (again from the original game) and presumeably the same sounds too.. This is in fact illegal. He's applied a slight blur, photoshop filters, ripped images from the internet.. and off he goes again trying to charge money for it.. this time more than the first.. His first game was much the same.. faceball I'm told is a rip of another game.. though I have no idea..

I've spoken with the Apple Store people and they directed me to their legal team and I'm just not sure I want to go through the whole dance.. The people there agreed I have a case against them I just need to deal with this other department and they will have it taken down.. I just .... I dunno.. don't have the energy to bother.. I've got far bigger problems in my life than this.. and it seems he's busy digging his own grave as it is.. I just can help but be upset at the questionable ethics..

Hopefully Doug Bell will nip it in the bud.

[Gambit37]

Just a quick update: Doug Bell replied to me saying he wasn't aware of the app, but that the developers had approached him, although he did not give them permission to do anything. He's now making Wayne aware of it as Wayne owns the copyright.

[Lord_BoNes]

And here come the big guns! Hehehe, I can't imagine it'll stay up for very long at all...

[Ameena]

Ha, cool - good that the original devs are now aware of it. I'm sure this stupid stolen-property game will be taken down once more pretty soon and hopefully whomever thought they'd get away with stealing and selling other people's content won't bother trying again in the future. Chances are we'll see an upload of a different game which they've stolen the graphics from instead but I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

[boyflea]

fantastic developments it can only make for a better product and make those responsible more accountable.
fingers crossed. We'd all like to see this game on mobile of course, but in it's present format it is unacceptable.

thanks

DAVE

[cowsmanaut]

yeah.. butt kicking engaged..

On a side note, if someone wants to make a dungeon master clone for ipad FOR ***FREE***.. they can count on my to share my work. Even though I don't have an ipad or iphone and will never play it..

[boyflea]

APOLOGY: on further examination, the maps themselves seem to be handmade copies of originals - they do not match existing .DAT formats so was in error to suggest they are sharing the original DAT files. However there's still a whole lotta wrong in there, just wanted to clarify.

[Seriously Unserious]

Wow! I go away for a few weeks an all hell breaks loose! and from a familiar source too.

IMO there is no possibility of working with the Suse development team as they have no concept of ethics at all. I wouldn't want to try it, no telling who's work would be ripped off, or what legal landmines they would create and probably leave for me to have to deal with. They'd probably try to steal my own work too, as that is the way such people operate.

I hope doug and wayne are successful in getting this cheap, illegal imitation of DM off the market. I also hope this gives them the idea of doing their own legitimate port of DM onto the mobile market.

[Sphenx]

I missed this thread and agree with the admins here.

What's on their facebook page ?

#ChaosStrikesBack is our latest game.

This is ridiculous ..
I won't say more than what has been said ... their process to make a commercial product is wrong from the very beginning.

The rather underwhelmed thread title is my doing.

You make me think to resume work for this : http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vie ... 27&t=28848

[boyflea]

Not that many still care, but this has now been updated again, though pretty-much re-using the original grey tile-set and mirror chars. No still no mention of Bell / Jaros in the copy either. GUI is improved and they've amended the pricing for the game.
In terms of what SUPE have done they are beginning to tackle the GUI issues in porting to mobile. The tap and hold method is quite effective and the buttons and pop-ups now give some user-responsiveness.
FYI-
Finally figured out what the EYE.DAT file was: remake of eye-of-the-beholder is presently sitting within the market-version of this app (in the system files), and can be activated by renaming as a savegame file - though the sprite graphics do not show for in-game items / creatures: Eye of Beholder, can't wait eh?
Terms of action points on this: have contacted developer to ask about this app further though am not getting responses. Have flagged to Apple and got refunded. Have kept you guys up-to-date. Thanks for your time.

PS:
Reviewing the analytics, app has not reached above 150 in adventure charts and 756 in global chart since Jan 7 launch. globally it averages 2 star reviews. price is $1.99 DM, $0.69 for RTC / CSB. Less Subscription and apple's 30% take, I would doubt SUPE is making any real profit from this enterprise at this point (not going into the morals of whether they should be making any money, just passing along stats)


Anyway, have since discovered GRIMROCK, so frankly not too worried - and that's thanks to you guys, cheers

[beowuuf]

Thanks for keeping us informed and taking action. And yes, Grimlock is far worthier of your time! Who knows, if Almost Human keep managing to get decent profit from their games, they may be able to port that to mobile in the future. Or mobile will simply play PC games

[Gambit37]

Lol, I don't think Beowuuf has ever written Grimrock with an R.

[beowuuf]

I have to be really concentrating to remember