Big companies copy too. Publisher Lion Studios, which is owned by AppLovin, has published a clone of the hyper-casual game Domino Smash. Everything matches — from mechanics to levels. We talked to Gismart, the developer of the original game, about whether there is any way to combat this practice.
The beginning of the story
On July 19, Gismart launched Domino Smash in a soft launch format. This minimalistic game resembles a mix of billiards and bowling. In it, the player destroys domino mazes by launching balls into them.
As often happens in the mobile games market, the novelty quickly gained followers. On September 13, a Rolling Domino clone game was released in softlonch, which was published a few weeks later by one of the largest hyper-casual publishers – Lion Studios.
The game is easily confused with Domino Smash. The Lion Studios project doesn’t just copy the basic principle or mechanics. Rolling Domino developers have borrowed almost all Gismart solutions. The game has the same playing field and the same obstacles, the same domino patterns and a similar visual style. It’s gotten ridiculous. The developers even copied one of the Domino Smash visual bugs.
Domino Smash and Rolling Domino
The worldwide launch of Domino Smash took place in early October.
A few days later, Lion Studios also arranged a global release for its product. Now they are competing with each other for places in the world’s top most downloaded free games.
Confrontation
Gismart takes the situation philosophically. “We understand that there is extremely high competition here,” says Svetlana Meisak, vice president for Business Development and marketing of the company.
Officially, the company debuted on the hyper-casual games market only in August of this year. Then Gismart had the world start of Cool Goal!. The soccer ball scoring game collected 5 million installs in a week and became the third most downloaded hyper-casual game in the world by the end of September.
Before that, the company had not fully entered the gaming market. Her main niche was music apps. It is thanks to them that Gismart has collected 350 million installations on iOS and Android.
In the new market, the company faced challenges that it had not previously encountered. The competition with Lion Studios is still one of the most serious for Gismart.
Domino Smash and Rolling Domino
Lev is the gaming label of the AppLovin marketing company.
It is the official number three in the mobile advertising market (ahead of only Google and Facebook). By definition, it is difficult to compete with it: this company knows the advertising market from the inside and forms it in many ways.
Now Gismart is taking a hit. According to DataMagic, its Domino Smash overtakes Rolling Domino in total downloads — 7 million vs. 6.6 million. Yes, and in the tops in stores it is higher.
However, it is obvious that without competition with Lion Studios, the downloads of the game (in terms of organics) would most likely be larger.
How to be and what to do
Gismart does not see any sense in solving the situation in the legal field. This is too complex and unhurried process, which will also cost a lot.
“Legally, such issues are never resolved quickly. Protecting the rights to gameplay, design or individual assets in the game is a complex, long and expensive legal process,” Svetlana Meisak told us in an interview.
She also sees no point in turning to platforms. Openly speaking on someone’s side is not in their interests.
“The platforms do not assume the role of a referee, preferring to remain in a neutral position and thereby allowing the two parties to direct claims directly to each other.”
For this reason, it is hardly possible to guarantee insurance. Often, even invisible accounts, with which some companies conduct their soft launches, do not help. The community of publishers who are seriously engaged in hyper-casual games is tight. Leaks cannot be avoided.
Domino Smash and Rolling Domino
So, according to Maysak, it’s better to focus on speed.
“The faster the necessary improvements are made and the right advertising creatives are found, the more chances the game has to gain a large audience and become more successful than a clone.”
Companies that do not have the opportunity to purchase large amounts of advertising have no place in the hyper-casual games market: “If big players have at least a chance to compete after the clone appears, then indie has no such chance in principle — a big publisher will buy all the traffic.”
Significant changes in the market are not expected in the near future. The only thing that may somehow correct the behavior of majors cloning competitors is reputational costs.
According to Meisak, indie developers are hardly ready to offer their projects to those publishers who often resort to copying other people’s projects.
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