Hello, i've made a game for Android, however to reach more users i made a Web adaptation which i published first in itch.io. After that, i've seen that the number of users has been incrementing a lot in comparision to Android. Doing some research i saw that the game is getting published in several web networks. I felt really frustrated since none of that networks ever contacted me for a permission for publishing the game and/or sharing revenue. I've been trying to contact people from those networks to make business but the requests are so slow or never answered,

Is this something normal in web platform? What would you recommend me to do?

Thanks

You'll want to reach out to a lawyer if you intend on enforcing protection of your IP. I have no idea what agreement has been put in place when you uploaded your game to the itch.io network, and I'm not familiar if they have some fine print somewhere that you agree to 3rd party network distribution upon uploading, ect...

You can reach out to itch.io and confirm if they have indeed distributed your game to 3rd party affiliates. Otherwise, you need to go to each source individually and send them a request to take down your game. You can also follow up with registered mail to prove you've sent notice before contacting a lawyer to enforce your rights. If the site is being hosted somewhere out of your country, you can also contact the web hosting company to report the volition.

Sadly when you publish your APKs online they can be ripped and distributed all over the place. Enforcing protection of your IP isn't cheap either because you have to account for each individual claim, where they're located, ect... The more your app has spread, the more money it will cost to chase after everyone.

I'm not sure what model you have in place, but how are you generating revenue from your application? In app advertising?

I second what Rutin said. A lawyer can help you with this.

The idea of itch was to generate income via donations. Also i was trying to contact the publishers to get the game distrbuited and share revenue or ask for a flat fee, but now is much harder.. I initially did not make any intelectual property contract. I did not though about how easy it was to ripoff an html game in the first place!

I'm trying to contact all publishers where i found the game but i get no response yet. Probably a lawyer would be the best idea.

16 minutes ago, Nicolas Lorusso said:

The idea of itch was to generate income via donations. Also i was trying to contact the publishers to get the game distrbuited and share revenue or ask for a flat fee, but now is much harder.. I initially did not make any intelectual property contract. I did not though about how easy it was to ripoff an html game in the first place!

I'm trying to contact all publishers where i found the game but i get no response yet. Probably a lawyer would be the best idea.

I might have read your initial post wrong, you stated it was an Android game??? Did you convert it to HTML? Yes, an HTML game is very easy to rip off.

I'm not sure what country you're in, but usually when you create something copyright has already been established, registering your copyright is just an added step for more protection. If you have no agreement with the other parties, then clearly they're using and potentially profiting off of your IP without authorization. I would suggest trying the cheaper methods first, but yes, a lawyer will be able to help you more than anyone else.

Best of luck.

I'm going to go against the grain and recommend that you rejoice that people think highly enough of the game you made to redistribute it for you. In fact, you should explicitly grant people permission to do so and actively encourage it. Then take advantage of it; add a donation link to the game, put in ads, use it to promote some other money-making venture, or what have you.

18 minutes ago, JulieMaru-chan said:

I'm going to go against the grain and recommend that you rejoice that people think highly enough of the game you made to redistribute it for you. In fact, you should explicitly grant people permission to do so and actively encourage it. Then take advantage of it; add a donation link to the game, put in ads, use it to promote some other money-making venture, or what have you.

There is a slight problem with this. The game itself if ran in a web-browser depends on the donation link some where on the same page. If the game has been ripped and placed on another page that brings a lot of active users, the 3rd party source can put up their own ads, or donation button and the initial developer @Nicolas Lorusso will get zero. The source code can also be easily edited to remove any initial advertising or links to the developer.

If we assume this isn't just an HTML problem but a problem with an Android application, the APK itself will not self update (assuming a feature hasn't been coded to update content in real-time), therefore he cannot just add in advertisements to the application and have it auto update at every source listed.

18 minutes ago, JulieMaru-chan said:

rejoice that people think highly enough of the game you made to redistribute it for you

I highly doubt these people are redistributing the game in the goodness of their hearts, but because they feel enough users will visit the page to play the game and generate their own revenue either through ads or a donation button.

At the end of the day if the 3rd party sites did not reach out to @Nicolas Lorusso, then it's safe to say that all revenue they earn from using his IP will not be shared.

22 minutes ago, JulieMaru-chan said:

rejoice that people think highly enough of the game you made to redistribute it for you.

Those people just see content they can rip off and add to their game aggregator sites, for their own benefit. They don't scour the web looking for quality - they just look for stuff it's easy to steal.

54 minutes ago, Rutin said:

There is a slight problem with this. The game itself if ran in a web-browser depends on the donation link some where on the same page. If the game has been ripped and placed on another page that brings a lot of active users, the 3rd party source can put up their own ads, or donation button and the initial developer @Nicolas Lorusso will get zero. The source code can also be easily edited to remove any initial advertising or links to the developer.

If we assume this isn't just an HTML problem but a problem with an Android application, the APK itself will not self update (assuming a feature hasn't been coded to update content in real-time), therefore he cannot just add in advertisements to the application and have it auto update at every source listed.

I highly doubt these people are redistributing the game in the goodness of their hearts, but because they feel enough users will visit the page to play the game and generate their own revenue either through ads or a donation button.

At the end of the day if the 3rd party sites did not reach out to @Nicolas Lorusso, then it's safe to say that all revenue they earn from using his IP will not be shared.

That is exactly what is happening. The game is getting published in other pages which some of them does not have donation links or even credits. I could think about updating the game to add internal links but i do not have access for that, since i only self published it on itch.. so the only way would be contacting the network and ask them to update the game to the last version i provide.. but i get no response either. So the networks shows their own ads and take all the revenue to their selves.

The sad thing is that is getting distribuited on known/important networks which makes me change my judge about them.

I mentioned Android because the game was made mainly for that platform. But i made a free public HTML (WebGL) adaptation and there is when problems began. So the HTML adaptation is getting distribuited, not the APK (i hope so lol).

If you're upset that people are actually playing your game because someone else decided to promote them for you, using their infrastructure, then by all means censor your own game with copyright law. But I think that is absurd. I would love for my games to be redistributed en masse without me having to do any work, and I never want my work censored.

Furthermore, what exactly do you expect is going to happen when you censor the copies of the game that people are actually playing? You would be a fool to think they would just flock to the official version. No, they would simply stop playing and move on to something else.