Recently a lot of arcade webmasters(include myself) have had complaints about Yougame.com, a site that buys “non-exclusive licenses” to the source code of games, then re-compiles the game with their own site logos and mochi-ads and submits this “new game” to newgrounds and many other places as well as a large e-mail distribution list. There’s only one problem — these aren’t new games at all, they are the SAME EXACT GAME that someone else has already published just with Yougame’s links. The thing that makes many developers and sponsors angry is that Yougame.com originally said they mainly needed the source code so they could implement their Facebook API, but then later decided that they would submit everywhere because it looked like a good way to promote the site. Unfortunately most developers don’t read the long contract that gives them the ability to basically do whatever they want with the source code. This, in the eyes of many people in the flash games industry, is an unethical business move — advertising one thing and then doing another. The reaction has been severe from some sites(my own site, funny-games, and some others), enough that the owners have decided to never publisher any Yougame branded games. Much of the industry is still unaware of what Yougame does but thanks to a few discussions at Mochiad forums, more and more of us are catching on. Yougame.com is not the only one that does this. Another site that does this is freeonlinegames.com, which has also earned the scorn of many webmasters(also to their credit freeonlinegames.com does produce many of its own games).

There have been more than a few cases where the developer of a game that already had a primary sponsor or an exclusive sponsor sold the source to Yougame.com thinking that it would only be used on Facebook, but later found out that Yougame had tried to spread their version of the game to as many sites as possible. I have had this problem with my exclusively sponsored game Elite Forces Defense, which Yougame bastardized and made into Elite Corps Defense . Notice that the two games are the exact same thing, except the Yougame version ripped out my logo and replaced it with his. Another example is Global Defense which Yougames took at made into Global Defense 2, which is the same thing except with Yougame’s logo and a ’2′ attached to the end of the title. Since many of these games where exclusively sponsored, you can see why some developers and sponsors would be angry at Yougame for tricking developers into selling the source code under the pretense that they needed it for their Facebook application.

If you are a developer, know that you absolutely cannot sell your source code to Yougame.com or any other site if you already have a primary sponsor or exclusive sponsor for the game. Most of the time the agreement is that you can only sell site-locked licenses to other sites. However, if someone has the source code, they can just remove the lock.

If you are a sponsor, I highly encourage you to make a condition when sponsoring that the source code of the game cannot be sold either exclusively or non-exclusively to any other site. I usually do this now after the fiasco with Elite Forces defense and mention Yougame specifically as someone that they cannot sell to.

A final note to all webmasters, if Yougame submits a game that you find interesting, just search for the game on Newgrounds or Google and you will find the original game. I encourage you to add that version to your library to give due credit to the rightful sponsors and developers.

Tags: decompile, flash games, yougame

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.