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Imangi Studios: Temple Run clones are both 'flattering' and 'frustrating'

Stealing assets is 'completely unacceptable'

Imangi Studios: Temple Run clones are both 'flattering' and 'frustrating'
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| Temple Run

Our sister site PocketGamer.biz recently sat down with the co-founder of indie developer Imangi Studios to discuss - among other things - the news that the firm's excellent endless-runner Temple Run has sprinted past 100 million downloads in its first year on sale.

During the interview, talk quickly switched to the multitude of App Store and Google Play titles that are clearly "inspired" by Imangi's multi-million-selling product.

"It's very flattering that so many people have been inspired by our game, but it can also be quite frustrating at times," Imangi co-founder Keith Shepherd responded.

"What I love to see is when people are actually inspired by our game and create an interesting new game that actually feels unique."

Endless copycats

Taking inspiration from a title is normally considered fair game, but blatantly cloning it or reusing its assets - an issue we've stumbled across numerous times - isn't.

"On the other hand, it's very frustrating when others outright clone our game down to the exact gameplay, screen-by-screen layouts, power-ups, store items, and iconic branding," Shepherd said.

"We've even seen cases where people have outright stolen assets from our game, which is completely unacceptable.

"We take a great deal of time and effort to create games that our fans love and some of the 'inspired games' out there end up disappointing the fans and that hurts everyone."

Anthony Usher
Anthony Usher
Anthony is a Liverpool, UK-based writer who fell in love with gaming while playing Super Mario World on his SNES back in the early '90s. When he isn't busy grooming his beard, you can find him replaying Resident Evil or Final Fantasy VII for the umpteenth time. Aside from gaming, Anthony likes hiking, MMA, and pretending he’s a Viking.