Maciej Biedrzycki, the co-founder of Codeminion Development Studios, the developer of the popular marble shooter StoneLoops! of Jurassica, has just posted a disheartening bit of news on his personal blog. According to Biedrzycki, StoneLoops! of Jurassica was pulled from the App Store today at MumboJumbo’s request. If you aren’t familiar, MumboJumbo is the developer of Luxor, one of the most popular marble shooting games of all-time.
It all started about three weeks ago when Biedrzycki learned that MumboJumbo had supplied Apple with a formal complaint and request to have StoneLoops! of Jurassica pulled from the App Store. The reason given was that they were “Infringing Luxor copyright, confusing customers, stealing Luxor’s look & feel and even stealing their source code.” Apple then asked Codeminion Development Studios to issue a formal response. In their response they described how “ungrounded” each claim was and supplied the material to back up their own claims.
One of the claims that wasn’t ungrounded was that when users searched for Luxor in the App Store, StoneLoops! of Jurassica turned up as one of the results. Apparently the reason for this was that the game’s description contained a review by GameZebo that had this quote “more than worthy match for even more established industry goliaths like Zuma and Luxor…” In response, Biedryzycki said that his company was willing to remove the quote if Apple decided that it was in poor taste.
Weeks passed since that time, which gave Biedryzycki hope that Apple had ruled in their favor after hearing their explanations. To his surprise, StoneLoops! of Jurassica was yanked from the App Store early this morning. According to Biedryzycki, the final decision wasn’t even made by Apple but by MumboJumbo. Apple had apparently asked MumboJumbo if Codeminion Development Studios’ response was satisfactory and as you can see from the results, they decided it wasn’t. But what company wouldn’t jump at the chance of having their direct competition removed from the App Store?
To add another odd twist to the story, Codeminion Development Studios had actually considered MumboJumbo as one of their publishers before deciding to go with Playcreek. MumboJumbo had the opportunity to preview the game before it was even released and yet they never expressed any serious concerns about copyright infringement. Well, that is until StoneLoops! of Jurassica became the smashing success that it is… or I should say was.
Codeminion Development Studios hopes this isn’t the end for StoneLoops! of Jurassica for the iPhone and iPod touch. They are going to continue to fight for their beloved marble shooter in hopes that it will someday make it back to the App Store. But in the meantime, if you would still like to play it on other platforms, you sure can. Biedryzycki points out that StoneLoops! of Jurassica has and still does continue to directly compete with Luxor on many other platforms “without any problems whatsoever.”
Wow, thats a real dick move on the part of MumboJumbo. I’ll be sure to avoid their apps in the future.
What a load of crap. I won’t be supporting MumboJumbo’s applications if this is true.
I can’t say I’m all that shocked. Luxor is a piece of crap on the iPhone and Stoneloops just blows it out of the water. If someone made my game better than me I would be a bit ticked also. But still, mumbojumbo lost all my respect when they released luxor so I can’t really say much has changed.
It is ridiculous that Apple would leave the decision up to the MumboJumbo. Just goes to show how well Apple treats it’s devs in the app store.
It’s really not that shocking. It makes a lot more sense for Apple to just remove the game rather than be named in a lawsuit. I’d say I’m a bit more shocked that they gave the stoneloops devs a chance to defend themselves before they yanked it.
Luckily, I already bought it so I got it still
Anyway, this game is the best I have tbh. It’s pretty hard to complete and the replay value is AWESOME. I played the demo for a long time before I actually bought the app. I’m sorry for them :/
Totally sux. will not be supporting Luxor , MumboJumbo is a piece of shit don’t buy. Hopefully, this gets turned around. That is the problem with injunctions and frivolous lawsuits, this is their strategy of using this to make up for Luxor ’s market share. I hope people review this thread. I already own Stoneloops of Jurrasica , but am afraid to update apps…so please let me know if syncing or update removes the game.
oops sorry…no court injunction…Appstore just pulled…the whole story just smells bad. Appstore should let the courts decide on infringment and copyright stuff. Especially with such a poor case. Appstore needs to wake up…
WAHT A LOAD OF CRAPP, THAT GAME IS GREAT IT MADE ME STAY AWAIK IN MY NIGHT SHIFT …NOW WHEREE CAN I GET MY GAMEE I JUST GOT MY IPOD TOUCH SO I CAN PLAY
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ASSS HOLLE’S
I bought this app but I can’t play it anymore WTF!!!! I want a refund dammit!
Yeah I bought it also and just bought a new laptop and iPhone. So now I don’t have it anymore. Where is my refund or my game?