Does anyone know anything about gamethoughts.com ?

A developer pointed me to their site as yet another one that is attempting to clone Dexterity. Apparently he was right -- it appears they systematically cloned much of our site, including our developer faq, our different levels of publishing deals, and our game submission form. Compare their developer faq at
http://www.gamethoughts.com/developers/publishingfaq.asp
with ours at
http://www.dexterity.com/developer/faq.htm

I don't understand why people do this.... Is it just laziness? Borrowing ideas is one thing, but cloning whole sections of a site seems like such a bad business decision -- advertising to the world that you're either lazy, dishonest, or ignorant of the interconnectedness of the industry.

Not only that but why do so many sites just use the standard setup of phpbb as their forums? its not exactly hard to customise some of the icons, even I have done it. I wouldnt put much faith in a site that didnt take the time to be different, even slightly.

Sheesh, well at least they didn't put up copies of your articles. What do you generally do in these cases?

Hmmm... it appears they copied some of our content word for word. Other parts were clearly taken from our site and then rephrased. Compare their text:

"I am interested in having Game Thoughts publish my game. I hereby authorize Game Thoughts to download and install my game on its computers for the purpose of evaluating it for publishing consideration. I warrant that the game submitted does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party, is free of harmful or destructive code (including worms and viruses) as well as code that would compromise any end user's privacy, and will not damage or corrupt any data or interfere with the otherwise normal operation of any end user's computer. I understand that Game Thoughts is free to reject my game submission for any reason."

with ours:

"I am interested in having Dexterity publish my game. I hereby authorize Dexterity to download and install my game on its computers for the purpose of evaluating it for publishing consideration. I warrant that the game submitted does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party, is free of harmful or destructive code (including worms and viruses) as well as code that would compromise any end user's privacy, and will not damage or corrupt any data or interfere with the otherwise normal operation of any end user's computer. I understand that Dexterity is free to reject my game submission for any reason."

Why on earth would a publisher commit such an obvious act of copyright violation for all the world to see? Once you've lost your integrity in this biz, it's pretty hard to get it back.

I had a situation where a company cloned my site. It was almost a 100% clone, all the way down to my "buy now" buttons. They were Russian and didn't speak English very well, and they said they didn't understand that it was the same. I asked them to change their site, and they did. The game just sort of went away.

On the other hand, Steve, you have experienced success- and have let others know about your success. So copying is pretty much inevitible. That certainly doesn't make it right though.

I noticed this game called "Dweebs", which seemed to be a total Dweep ripoff too. Ever see that one?

Originally posted by Mike Boeh

I noticed this game called "Dweebs", which seemed to be a total Dweep ripoff too. Ever see that one?

The creator of Dweebs has said that the game has nothing to do with Dweep. If you look at the screenshots it's a pretty different game.

Copyright violation of this sort typically happens to us several times a year. I've seen it happen to other developers in the ASP as well, many of them personal friends. It happens to both products and web sites.

Usually in such cases we follow the same procedure other ASP members do. That is ... start by saving a copy of the offending site and contact the owner of the site, pointing out what a horrendously bad business idea it is and how this practice is only going to hurt their business in the long run. People are almost always willing to cooperate once they've been caught. In the rare instances this isn't enough to get immediate action, the next step is to contact their host to get the site shut down until the copyrighted material is removed. Most web hosts have a very strict policy on copyright violation. If this isn't effective (for instance, the web host doesn't care), the next step is to put pressure on the site through other means. For instance, in the case of a publisher, it's helpful to let all their developer partners and other business contacts know about what's going on as well as looking for others potential contacts in various forums. If they belong to any trade associations, those are good places to contact as well. People who commit copyright violation generally don't want all their business associates to know what they did.

The worst case is to get an attorney involved, since the other party would have to be really stubborn to let it go that far. But there's always a possibility that involving an attorney is necessary.

Generally when I see this sort of thing happen, most of all what I experience is disappointment. Why copy someone else's content when it's so much more rewarding to pave your own way?

Dweep and Dweebs are two totally different games that happened to be developed around the same time. I knew nothing of Dweebs while designing Dweep, and I'm pretty certain they knew nothing of Dweep while designing Dweebs. The two games have very different gameplay -- the name similarity is just a coincidence.

From their site:

"Internet honesty is not exactly at a peak"

"All it takes is a single act of dishonesty to tarnish the reputation of a company"

Hmmm...the ironing is delicious :p

Well, at least they didn't copy the section of the Dexterity FAQ entitled "My last publisher went out of business before I saw a dime in royalties. How do I know this won't happen to you? How financially stable is Dexterity?" :)

Looks like they're already working on changing their site, as their previous FAQ that was derived from ours is now gone and has been replaced with something else. That's good to see.

While it's disappointing to encounter things like copyright infringement and piracy on the net, it is encouraging to see more service-oriented improvements spreading through the indie community.

I have had some direct dealings with the guys a gamethoughts. I was emailed y them regarding our game Chicken Little merely hours after posting a screenshot of the game to that crappy Rate My Screenshot website.

I picked up right off that these guys had no real experience or credentials related to game publishing. Their first website was a hing to behold as well. It was ugly and misleading, as they tried desperately to make it out like they had been publishing games for a long time. That's hardly an uncommon practice, especially online, so I didn't think much of it.

Anyways, I've traded emails with Mike Taber a few times. He seems nice enough and is fairly up front in email, and was also pretty helpful. But there's no doubt in anyone's mind that he directly copied the dexterity pages. There was actually a thread about it on GDNet several months ago and Mike freely admitted that he had used another website as a template (other people had pointed out Dexterity directly). Although 'template' might be a kind term really, given the extreme likeness. :)

On the good side, Gamethoughts seems to be more interested in games that Dexterity is not so at least there isn't really a competition-issue so much. They tend to look for large games (20+ meg downloads), multiplayer games, and generally things that probably will make for a difficult time earning money in indie gamer markets. :)

- Air

Wow. Internet time sure is fast. By the time I wake up in these parts of the world the gametoughts page didn't look like Dexterity at all. They are probably monitoring these forums so your crying out aloud, Steve, made them change their course. I can't see any parts that are very similar except for the idea with a FAQ and articles, which really isn't that special.

Nice to see them take a more productive stance.