Astronomically popular casual clicker game Clicker Heroes was expunged from Apple’s app store after a Chinese company demanded its removal.
The free-to-download highly rated clicker RPG first debuted on the iOS platform in 2015, but it has since been removed from the platform and there is currently no information regarding when it will come back, if ever.
Possessing a “very positive” rating on Steam with a colossal 47,000 reviews, the title also reigned over the App Store for almost four years until Chinese company Shenzhen Lingyou Technology Co., Ltd. trademarked its name and demanded Apple remove the original.
The developer, Playsaurus, is in possession of the trademark for Clicker Heroes in both the US and Europe, but apparently, this is not enough proof to have ownership of the title in those regions as Apple has expunged the game from the App Store worldwide.
The co-founder and CEO of Playsaurus explained in a Reddit thread that they were using the name first as indicated by a Chinese web portal from 2014, but due to not filing the trademark locally, Shenzhen Lingyou Technology was able to steal the name three months after Clicker Heroes debuted as a flash game:
“Despite explaining this as clear as I could to Apple and the 3rd party, Apple sided with the cloners and took my game down. We don’t have the resources to fight a legal trademark battle in China so I guess that’s the end of our game.”
Others in the Reddit thread suggested the developer sue Apple and make them re-release the title everywhere other than China, but Playsaurus demonstrated doubt over the idea and insisted that they could not afford such a move:
“It looks like we can’t challenge it. It appears that China’s trademark/IP laws are completely different from any Western countries [sic], and Apple just has to do what they say.
If you make a game, unless you have ridiculous resources to spend on registering properly in China in advance, you just have to accept China to be a loss. Someone there will steal it.”
Glad to see China taking piracy seriously. Heh.
Apple: Being China’s Bitch, because where else can they find factories to manufacture their trash products AND provide suicide nets?
Protip: most Silicon Valley companies are owned by the Chinese, and have been for quite some time.
Sankaku Complex: because no one else calls China out like they do
Look up the Youtube channel “China Uncensored”
Because everybody else is too scared, oblivious, or normalized by it.
I’d just call it WTP Heroes