Halloween Nightmare, a Vietnamese game copied by the Chinese publisher Atom Boog, is available in the Chinese Windows Phone store. Bach Khoa Game Maker studio has sent a report to the store. — Photos courtesy of BKGM studio

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The Bach Khoa Game Maker (BKGM) studio has accused Chinese game publisher Atom Boog of copying its mobile game - Halloween Nightmare - on the Windows Phones store.

The Chinese firm reportedly erased the Vietnamese studio's splash screen before uploading the game in the Chinese Windows Phone store, with an introduction on the new game publisher and without information on the game developer. It named the game: Halloween Nightmare Adventure.

The studio had discovered the copy on March 14 and immediately sent a report to the store on the same day. It had received a feedback from Windows Phone store, saying the report was submitted to Microsoft and would be reviewed and responded to expeditiously.

Halloween Nightmare's designs on papers.

Halloween Nightmare, developed within a month, was uploaded on the Windows Phone store on November 14, 2014 and is still being updated.

The game was created by young Vietnamese developers, and is based on ideas and graphic designs. It is available on iOS, Android and the Windows Phone operating systems.

As described on the online Windows Phone store, Halloween Nightmare features a weird looking guy chasing his memory through challenging traps and puzzles.

In an interview with Biz Hub today, the studio's game developer Le Viet Ha, said there are many international games that have been cloned by Vietnamese developers and vice versa, such as Nguyen Ha Dong's Flappy Bird.

The game's graphic designs on computers.

Ha said that while the idea of Flappy Bird was lifted to create a similar game, but with different graphic designs, Halloween Nightmare had been copied in its entirety.

"The only thing they did was to insert advertisements in Chinese and upload it on the Chinese store with the game's name, logo and screenshot changed," Ha said. "Meanwhile, we offer the game free on the Windows Phone store without any advertisements."

He said the Apple store had solved the problem of cloned games effectively by erasing all of them, while there were many cloned games still available on the Google Play Store and the Windows Phone Store.

"At the moment, no solution has been devised for solving the issue of copied games except for sending reports to the managers of app stores. They then revise and decide if the game has to be taken out of the store," he said.

The studio was unable to contact Atom Boog because it did not leave any information or contact details on the store. — VNS