Social game developer King, has issued a statement today denying that the studio cloned another developer’s game in 2009. It has also taken down the game in question, Pac-Avoid, for the “avoidance of doubt”.
“King does not clone other peoples’ games,” the statement issued to Polygon reads. “King believes that IP — both our own IP and that of others — is important and should be properly protected. Like any prudent company, we take all appropriate steps to protect our IP in a sensible and fair way. At the same time, we are respectful of the rights and IP of other developers.”
“Before we launch any game, we do a thorough search of other games in the marketplace, as well as a review of trademark filings, to ensure that we are not infringing anyone else’s IP. However, for the avoidance of doubt, in this case, this game — which was coded by a third party developer 5 years ago — has been taken down.”
The statement from King comes in response to Matthew Cox, an indie developer who yesterday accused the company of contracting a third party developer to clone his game Scamperghost in 2009. Cox first posted about the issue in 2010, but brought it back up recently as he felt it was relevant to King’s recent application to trademark the word “candy”.
(via Polygon)