Roku Developer Program

[Komag]

I noticed a new game "Dino" by Tech VI that is nothing but a total rip-off of the game "Dino Dodger" by Digital Fairway, Inc. released back on 2018-11-26 which is still available.
This is the same guy that ripped of Marcelo's game recently.

ROKU, wake up, ban Tech VI, sue him, or something!

STOP RELEASING ANY GAMES FROM HIM.

[marcelo_cabral]

"Komag" wrote:
I noticed a new game "Dino" by Tech VI that is nothing but a total rip-off of the game "Dino Dodger" by Digital Fairway, Inc. released back on 2018-11-26 which is still available.
This is the same guy that ripped of Marcelo's game recently.

ROKU, wake up, ban Tech VI, sue him, or something!

STOP RELEASING ANY GAMES FROM HIM.

WOW, that's awful, this guy is a crook! And he is counting on the inertia of the developers to denounce, we need to file DMCA complain, with evidence etc. the burden of proof is on the hands of the person that got the work stolen. 

[marcelo_cabral]

I checked, in this case he did not even changed the graphics, and the screenshots at the store are exactly the same!!

Original game: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/296978/dino

[necrotek]

I had written the author of the original channel "Dino Doger" to let them know.  They said that Tech VI had purchased the right to use the game from them. So Tech Vi may have actually paid money for  marcelo.cabral's stolen games.  The purchaser did not verify the source.  I wonder who the actual developer was who ripped of the code and sold it?  I am curious what was paid?   Not like games on roku are that lucrative... well at least not since roku pulled advertising support. Still look for additional advertising fill.

[marcelo_cabral]

"necrotek" wrote:
I had written the author of the original channel "Dino Doger" to let them know.  They said that Tech VI had purchased the right to use the game from them. So Tech Vi may have actually paid money for  marcelo.cabral's stolen games.  The purchaser did not verify the source.  I wonder who the actual developer was who ripped of the code and sold it?  I am curious what was paid?   Not like games on roku are that lucrative... well at least not since roku pulled advertising support. Still look for additional advertising fill.

I got ZERO money, and when I complained Tech VI offered me a "revenue share", so funny, he publishes MY WORK, and offer to split the money, if I wanted to publish those games I would have years ago, It's very clear in the GitHub repository and in the screens in the game (he defaced) that I never had any intent to earn money with that work.
The Roku legal department got my complaint already about that. Nothing else to say.

[necrotek]

Not defending his actions but, I am not sure if TECH VI knew that the games were stolen and likely did not know they came from your Git repository. He should have definitely removed the games from his channel store listings upon learning that they are based on stolen code. I think that there was another developer in play that took your code and sold it to TECH VI. I use the term developer loosely since no actual development was done just changing art assets.  It is odd that the Original "Dino Doger" is still on the channel store.  At least the games of yours are no longer installable from the Roku channel store. Looking forward to the day when you publish your own games, if that is in your future plans.

[marcelo_cabral]

"necrotek" wrote:
Not defending his actions but, I am not sure if TECH VI knew that the games were stolen and likely did not know they came from your Git repository. He should have definitely removed the games from his channel store listings upon learning that they are based on stolen code. I think that there was another developer in play that took your code and sold it to TECH VI. I use the term developer loosely since no actual development was done just changing art assets.  It is odd that the Original "Dino Doger" is still on the channel store.  At least the games of yours are no longer installable from the Roku channel store. Looking forward to the day when you publish your own games, if that is in your future plans.

I understand your point, he claimed that a 3rd party sold him, but if you google ROKU and any of the games, my github repos are the first result, very unlikely you would release something without even googling if there are "competitors", anyway my point is that the games had very clearly "Developed by TECH VI" so he was claiming authorship, and it was removed from the Channel Store after I submitted a DMCA to Roku.
BTW I already have one game "Quartet" that is an authorized port (from PhotonStorm.com):
https://www.rgcd.co.uk/2019/05/retaliate-dx-commodore-64.html

[2dguy]

"necrotek" wrote:
well at least not since roku pulled advertising support. Still look for additional advertising fill.

Hi, can someone please explain what that means? (roku pulled advertising support). Thank you!

[necrotek]

Forgot about "Quartet", well done.  Point taken about Tech VI being unscrupulous in his activities on Roku. Definitely should be banned form publishing on Roku given their hard stance on piracy. a stolen game is pirated content. 

As for "Roku pulled ad support" I suppose I should have stated "Roku pulled Roku ad support for my channels."  Since April, after a drastic drop in January, I have had no revenue from channels using Roku as a an ad provider.  I am not sure what experience others have had but I know other developers who have had the same thing happen.  The last reason I was given was that ad partners did not want to advertise on games, only streaming video. Previously it was, I don't have enough ad views per month to be worth their time. I think they would rather put their ad supply into the "Roku channel".  What are other small audience content creators experiences with roku as an ad provider? When Roku was providing my channels with ads things were good.  Now with other ad partners I am lucky to see 10% of what I was getting which has kind of killed my spirit for making these games. Yet I still do...  too much time invested and many projects that I would like to finish.  Very few video ad providers will work with any channel with less that 1 million ad views a month.  

[speechles]

What is sad is here you are complain. Yet the fellow who STOLE and is now PROFIT from your game is still there and nothing happened. Just another day they rake in dough. Crazy...

If you were maybe HBO, Hulu, or maybe Netflix they would go oh no no.. *hulk smash*

But in this case the lazy attitude to "FIX THIS SHIP" is quite odd. This SHIP is ridiculous. Hey Roku, fix your SHIP. Get your SHIP together Roku. Start to show some kind of repercussions when dealing with scumbags who pirate apps and rebrand them. Thank you. People who are kind enough to share code with everyone should not be punished with this kind of SHIP. Ya know what I mean? They are nice to spread Roku love and knowledge and now get this kind of SHIP and it might stop them from share code in the future. This hurts everyone. Please help us. Enough SHIP talk. *ship whistle here*