I just put in pokemon into the itunes search and found a pokemon yellow game.. Are the people at Apple even reviewing the stuff that goes on the itunes store or what? When good games get put on hold by apple and then this stuff gets let through, makes you wonder who is paying who to get there stuff accepted. P.S. Whats even worse, apparently the app/game doesnt even function.
unbelievable that something like that managed to get through http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/19/oops-counterfeit-pokemon-game-approved-by-apple/
Stuff like this gets through all the time. What's astounding is that people never learn their lesson.
I thought whole point of the approval process was to make sure games are acceptable for release, they way they're going, the approval method is almost pointless.
This'll come of as a prick-head comment, but it's not intended to be; at last not at you. I though the point of the AppStore was to make money by any means!? These scams can always be found on the Appstore. IMO, the AppStore is a true test of the user's intelligence because Apple's review process is shoddy. *Guys, please don't try to buy Nintendo games off the AppStore. **Guys, please don't try to buy Minecraft clones on the AppStore.
Nah, it's not the review process. Apple simply doesn't care about legal/copyright issues. And Apple never checks that. With hundreds of daily released apps, they simply don't have either the time or the knowledge to check if an app contains legal material of other parties. They also don't have knowledge if a third party legally licensed copyright protected material. Apple just checks if the apps meet the development standart of Apple itself. It's the duty of the copyright holders to give Apple a notice about a copyright infringement. The developers of the apps have to protect their stuff on their own, not Apple. For Apple, it would be an impossible task to care about legal or copyright infringements, because that would mean that Apple has to have knowledge about all programs and apps ever written, on all existing platforms.
It'd be quite a bit longer. I'm just saying that everything doesn't get checked, so people should exercise caution. Why would they expect a legitimate Nintendo game to be in the AppStore? Plus, descriptions lie and games, especially scam ones, release with crashes.
As I said, they simply doesn't care. Maybe you should check these guidelines (and take them with a grain of humor ): http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guidelines.pdf These are old guidelines and a lot might have been changed, but the new ones are only accessible to developers. Nonetheless, interesing to read. Especially this one: 8.5: Use of protected 3rd party material (trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, otherwise proprietary content) requires a documented rights check which must be provided upon request They only protect their own stuff: 8.3: Apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected. So, if you're a dev and your game gets copied, you give Apple a notice and they will send the offending party a letter about an "documented rights check" and threaten to take (or simply take) the offending app down. And again: how should Apple know if Nintendo has/hasn't given a licence to a third party? Sure, unlikely, but because they simply can't check all that stuff, everything will go through the review process. In this Pokemon example, look at the end of the app's description. The dev stated that this app just has a gallery "gameplay" mode. If people don't care to read before buying, it's simply their fault. And that's what the dev is expecting: people are buying this immediately on impulse, before checking if this is really a game. Making some quick money before Apple pulls the app.
I'm not so much surprised that things like this end up on the store as I am by the fact that over 1,100 people would blindly purchase this and believe it. The same author had a similar $4.99 app available yesterday as well - the only difference is this one actually said at the end that it was "just the theme song and a gallery, please be aware of what you are purchasing." I'm surprised that one got pulled, since in its case it actually WAS providing the service it claimed - as long as you read far enough to see it! (Oh, wait, it IS still out there - just look for "Pokemon - Pocket Edition." It's just the price has also dropped to $0.99 and now the description that it's just a gallery is the very FIRST line in the description. And it was a different person, meaning that two people were fighting for the same piece of the scam pie at the same time.)
Yeah, this was the app I was talking about. Well, of course it provided the service it claimed. Still, every gallery picture, every friggin' pixel is the property of Nintendo.
True! That's why I said people need to exercise caution and the AppStore is a test of one's intelligence. I've only bought one bad egg, and that was because of completely false advertising. *I'll read over the guidelines a bit later.
How come Nintendo hasn't done anything about these clones. It's their copyright after all and Apple doesn't seem to care (why they are so prompt in removing perfectly functioning emulator apps is beyond me)
True enough. But it's hardly a unique occurance. Every iOS app with Pokemon in the title is arguably in violation of copyright, free or not, whether it's driving a Pokeball through a maze, a strategy guide or a compilation of images. Nintendo can't be bothered to go hunting down the 'small fry' like these, especially because most of them just serve to indirectly advertise the real games. (And it's no coincidence that things like this often appear on long weekends, when everyone is "out of the office," and vanish come Tuesday morning.) The "Pokemon Yellow" app stands out from the crowd because it currently claims to be "just like the original" and doesn't have a disclaimer anywhere in it. Common sense should stop you from believing in it, regardless.
What blows my mind on this particular one isn't the fact that its blatant copyright infringement - it's the fact that apparently it immediately crashes after showing a splash screen. I mean, I don't expect Apple's reviewers to be IP lawyers and have intimate familiarity with every brand on earth (even enormous brands like Pokemon). But c'mon... approving an app that literally does nothing? I have to wonder though - when an app gets pulled due to this kind of issue (and I'm sure it will)... what happens to the money? Do the buyers get refunded and this "developer" never sees a dime? I would certainly hope so.
If it is going to be really bad for the dev, he has to pay more than he ever earned. First he gets 70% of the share, but a refund means getting a minus-sale (100%).