Apple removes several ‘clone’ games from App Store

If you’ve browsed through Apple’s App Store before in search for games, you’re likely already aware that there’s a disturbing amount of “games” in the e-store that are blatant, unapologetic rip-offs of other games on the App Store and/or other platforms.

Thanks to Apple, there are now far less of the clone games on the App Store right now. The company removed 59 clone apps from the App Store today, including such “greats” as Angry Ninja Birds, Plant vs. Zombie, and Temple Jump.

Natalia Luckyanova, co-founder of developer Imangi, is especially excited about Apple’s intervention. Temple Jump was a shameless rip-off of Imangi’s Temple Run, and it actually significantly surpassed the sales of Imangi’s game.

“We’re really happy with how quickly Apple responded to the situation and removed [Temple Jump],” Imangi co-founder Natalia Luckyanova told Gamasutra. “The app was clearly a scam that traded entirely on the popularity of Temple Run and was packaged to confuse users.”

“This was really upsetting to us and damaging to our brand, because we work really hard to put out very high quality polished games and win the love of our fans, and we don’t want them to think that we would put out crap to steal a dollar from them,” she said.

Apple’s move to purge clone apps from the App Store follows a week after Triple Town developer Spry Fox filed a lawsuit against 6waves Lolapps over its suspiciously similar iOS title, Yeti Town.