Glu suing Kill Shot devs: 'They spent months replicating our game'

Glu Mobile, publisher of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, is suing Canada's Hothead Games over Kill Shot, a top-grossing mobile game that it alleges is a clone of its own popular Deer Hunter 2014. "Kill Shot is effectively a complete ripoff of our game Deer Hunter 2014," Glu Mobile president of publishing Chris Akhavan told VentureBeat. "We think they spent months replicating our game," he went on to say. Glu is not alleging that Hothead copied its game code or assets, but instead replicated Deer Hunter 2014's look and feel and core gameplay. Glu provided comparative screenshots showing similarities between the two games to VentureBeat. Determining when a game is a clone is, legally speaking, not that simple; this article by attorney Stephen C. McArthur explains the history of court decisions on clones. While many cloning lawsuits have failed in the past, that doesn't stop companies from filing them: King sued 6waves over two of its games this year, for example. Coincidentally, Glu released its own sniper game today: Contract Killer: Sniper. Hothead was founded in 2006 by industry veterans to develop downloadable games for "lifetime gamers," and created the first two Penny Arcade: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness chapters. Hothead "decided to go 'mobile' or go bust" in 2011, according to the company's "about" page.