League of Epic Heroes removed from App Store after copyright claim
Attack of the clone
RPG title Legend of Epic Heroes has been taken off the App Store after being handed a copyright infringement notice.
Developed by solo coder Eric Ferraro of Lazy Peon Games, LoEH has been accused by QCF Design of bearing a few too many similarities to its upcoming release, Desktop Dungeons. Ferraro has subsequently removed the title (which had been on sale since October 2010) from the App Store worldwide.
This isn’t the first time the two companies have clashed over the game. QCF noticed LoEH back in November, and attempted to convince Ferraro to either alter the title or stop selling it altogether. Ferraro has even stated before that the main inspiration for his game was Desktop Dungeons.
Danny Day, owner of QCF Design, said on his company's blog that the copyright laws in place for games need revising if cases such as this one are to stop turning up.
“Older media like film and music have rather complex attribution and copying systems in place that work most of the time," Day said. "Concepts like plagiarism and referencing are extremely important to authors and scientists alike. To say that the medium of games can’t have any form of starvation-prevention for the stupid buggers that keep making them doesn’t seem to make much sense.”
If you’re eager to see Desktop Dungeons in action, a pre-release version is available to play on the developer's website. The inevitable iPhone version of the game, however, has not yet received a concrete release date.