Apple approves Canabalt clone

Late last year, the developer who created popular indie game Canabalt released the game's source code under an MIT open source license. This license lets other developers use the underlying game engine to power their own games for either private or commercial distribution. While the underlying engine is free to use, the Canabalt developer clearly states other developers cannot "distribute or redistribute our game code, art or sounds."

Unfortunately, PLD Soft may have violated this open source license by taking the source code, repackaging it with minimal changes and submitting it to the App Store as an app called Free Running. Apple approved this Canabalt clone, and it is now available for free.

While it may prevent the entry of harmful and poorly written applications into the App Store, Apple's approval process is not perfect. Just last week, a Mario clone made its way into the App Store, and now we see the debut of a Canabalt clone. The Mario clone had a limited lifespan and was pulled promptly from the App Store, we will wait and see if Free Running meets the same fate.

[Via Daniel Wood (@loadedwino)]

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Source: http://twitter.com/#!/JaredTA/status/66085428754780160

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Late last year, the developer who created popular indie game Canabalt released the game's source code under an MIT open source...

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ejames429

It is no longer in the Apple App Store.

May 06 2011 at 7:56 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Facchinibr

Refresh the ipa page and look at the description. Even the description is now a copy-pasta thing. It was free, now it costs 99 cents and the "dev" says it is on sale. I lol'd.

May 05 2011 at 2:23 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

hfwbr

There may be only one way to fix this: have several people do the same thing and give the proceeds to the real developer. That ought to get Apple's attention.

Unless and until Apple wises up, developers could even "ghost write" their own software this way. Might not be a bad marketing strategy.

Could be that Canabalt's developer is doing precisely that here. Maybe they had second thoughts about giving the engine away for free.

May 05 2011 at 1:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

toby.g.roberts

Worth actually reading the about page in the game which states that PLD soft is run by the original creators of the free flash game Adam Lambert and Nash who ported it to the iphone.

May 05 2011 at 1:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

freshyill

For what it's worth, I bought the Mario clone game. Holy crap it's bad. Not like lame bad, but unusable, unplaayable bad Clearly it was not thoroughly reviewed.

May 05 2011 at 12:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

professorapple.com

WOW! This has caused so much commotion within TUAW & the App Store reviews. I wonder how this is going to go down...or up?

May 05 2011 at 11:59 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Stan

Why is TUAW criticizing Apple for "approving" this app? It's not Apple's responsibility, nor is it remotely feasible for Apple to screen all potential apps for would-be duplicates. It's ridiculous for TUAW to expect it.

May 05 2011 at 11:50 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Even the description is a rip off of canabalt... they took all the reviews from Canabalt, and just changed the name to "Free Running"... like the Jayisgames review.. they said that about Canabalt, not this ripoff.

May 05 2011 at 11:17 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Gillan

It's 99Â¢..

and I've reported it, people are so shady!

May 05 2011 at 10:25 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Matt

Appears it's currently under "adjustment" which I believe means they're changing it from free to $0.99. An even better violation of the license.

Clicking their iTunes link shows it now costs.

May 05 2011 at 10:17 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Matt's comment

Matt

Edit: It's back to free....

May 05 2011 at 10:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

JKT

It's back to $.99. I was going to try it out if it were free, not to bust on Canabalt to but to see just how similar it was. But darned if I'm going to send any money to the rip off publisher now.

May 05 2011 at 1:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply