How to deal with rip-off of your game? Someone reverse engineered our game and put it on store :(

[MasterKelli]

Hello!

I have a suprising problem at my hands. Someone reverse-engineered our game Hopping Penguin, changed it's name, filled it with advertisements and uploaded it to Windows Phone store as a new game.

Original Game (Hopping Penguin) :
https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...hopping-penguin%2F9wzdncrfj4tz&token=P2YmhqSm

Reverse engineered rip-off (Penguin Adventure):
https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...nguin-adventure%2F9wzdncrd919l&token=iTdMnoA1

They changed the game title and removed in-apps as well. Analytics are showing from the fake-app to our analytics system...

I reported about misleading app through my Windows Phone but I don't think it's enough. I will probably try to contact Microsoft directly.

I didn't even know this kind of reverse-engineering was possible.

 

[shishu1]

Reported the fake one to microsoft.

 

[WanderingTraveler]

Reported the fake one to microsoft.

Given how the store is still clogged with GBA games in emulators, I doubt that it'll help a lot, but I also reported it.

 

[MasterKelli]

Thank you for reporting!

We found out this through our analytics, because we had more new users showing up than we had on Windows Phone Store dashboard.

It seems there was another rip-off couple of months ago but it has been taken down:
https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...lationId%3DOHA6qfmNB0Cr5RqY.15&token=_Cnsqx6L

The sad thing is that those fakes have been download tens of thousands of times so the hacker is getting some money from these.

 

[KarmaEcrivain94]

Thank you for reporting!

We found out this through our analytics, because we had more new users showing up than we had on Windows Phone Store dashboard.

It seems there was another rip-off couple of months ago but it has been taken down:
https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...lationId%3D8Wyao3xm5UyTCxnc.15&token=CiK-6MFD

The sad thing is that those fakes have been download tens of thousands of times so the hacker is getting some money from these.

This might sound stupid, but try sending a letter to Microsoft. They are way more likely to respond.

 

[MasterKelli]

We filled the Copyright Infringement form that Microsoft had on their site so here's hoping they will respond.

Sad to see the rip-off having over 5000 daily downloads and being top 5 on all games in Italy

 

[KarmaEcrivain94]

We filled the Copyright Infringement form that Microsoft had on their site so here's hoping they will respond.

Sad to see the rip-off having over 5000 daily downloads and being top 5 on all games in Italy

That must suck :/ the problem comes from the windows desktop installation. By changing a few security settings, you can access almost all the code of any installed app. That's the only way they could have managed, because .appx files are signed and impossible to crack open.

 

[noersetiawan]

Have you try to make a thread in Microsoft Answer and directly contact Microsoft? This is a serious problem and been there since the beginning of Store, but MS seems like always overlook it.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[MasterKelli]

Seems Microsoft took action rather quickly. The rip-off has been taken down today.

Thank you everyone!

 

[KarmaEcrivain94]

Seems Microsoft took action rather quickly. The rip-off has been taken down today.

Thank you everyone!

Awesome!