All GS arcade games have been made available on Amazon?
firemaplegames
Member Posts: 3,211
Hey everyone,
This might be a scam, so I figured I'd report it here.
Over the past few weeks, someone calling themselves GameSalad Arcade has uploaded a lot of the games from the GS Arcade to Amazon.
I know there were some game jams and the GameSalad Arcade channel on Amazon was involved. I'm not sure what the GameSalad Arcade channel is, unless perhaps it is the link I posted below?
Here is a link to all of the apps:
I did not enter my games into the game jams and do not want my games posted on Amazon.
If it is just some mixup, no worries, I just need my games removed as they compete with apps I already have for sale on the marketplace.
Regards,
Joe
Comments
@firemaplegames Joe I noticed they show $0.00 but I don't have an amazon account to see if they are actually priced once signed in. Anyway hope you've been well remember I'm the DeMent connection.
Weird stuff, hope it gets worked out for ya.
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I see a few of mine like Bumps are also on amazon
looks like GS has been hacked into (again).
The selection does not seem to be from the Game Jams, but it does seem official.
They were released in bulk on specific days and include a "From the GameSalad Community" screenshot as well as
A lot of copyright infringing stuff in there, as well as half projects.
As a promotional effort this seems to do more harm than good for the community.
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Those with games uploaded to Amazon without their knowledge, check that you didn't tick the "Allow GameSalad to use my game for promotional purposes on third party sites and app stores." box when publishing to Arcade. I'm not sure if it's ticked by default or not.
It's at the bottom of the Arcade publishing tab.
If that's ticked, they can publish it where they want, really.
Also, is this thread being sunk? My post didn't push it to the top of the forums. Sketchy if so.
Edit: Thread is bumping normally with new posts now.
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@Chaser: of course! I hope you and your family are doing well!
@Armelline: Yeah, I figured it could be something like that checkbox. I published these game to the arcade 5 years ago though, before that checkbox was available.
I'm not sure what to do to uncheck it now, as I was not the one to authorize it.
Hopefully a moderator or someone on the staff can uncheck it for me and remove the games from Amazon or anywhere else they might be?
My games are:
The Secret of Grisly Manor
Stunt Squirrels
Danger Cats
I don't have an issue with my games being on the GS Arcade, I just don't want them on Amazon or any other 3rd party websites.
Not trying to stir a pot or anything, just don't know what steps I need to do to resolve this.
Regards,
Joe
@firemaplegames from what I can see the thread is not being sunk, but maybe it's already been fixed.
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Hey folks,
Just wanted to chime in here and clarify a few things.
You've probably noticed for a while now that we've been doing a lot more promotions with Amazon, and have heard us mention that we are working with them to feature more GS-created content on their store and their devices.
This is a great thing for GS developers, as we are working on things like Fire TV and other new platforms that will bring more options to GS users. Amazon is really excited about promoting the GS community, and we think that's a huge opportunity.
One of the challenges with this is that partners like Amazon love to see a lot of new content at once, so we need to be able to deploy a bunch of content to them in an efficient package. We learned from the Tizen project we did that it's difficult to coordinate a lot of developers via email and wanted to make the process easier for all parties involved, so we've been working on ways to streamline that.
What you're seeing here are some less-than-perfect results of our first attempt at that. It's still a work in progress and it looks like some games we didn't want to be included accidentally were. We're working on getting those removed.
Our apologies for the growing pains here.
Thanks,
Dan
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
@dgackey Something I'm a little confused at, and would like some clarification on....
The games on Amazon, that were published through the Game Jams appear to be available as downloadable apps for Kindle and Android devices....
Im not sure this is what the GameSalad Amazon Channel was promoted to us as, with regards to the Jams. From what I understood, it was going to be a channel that would promote & play the GameSalad Arcade/HTML5 versions of the games... there was no mention of them being available as actual downloadable apps for devices.
As FireMapleGames rightly points out... this puts us at conflict with our own apps if we try to publish them via Kindle... or Android.
So you learned its better to not tell the community your going to do this rather than cordinate with them?
That's definitely streamlining fo shizzle.
It apparently didnt directly affect my 2 games on the arcade. What I have learned here is to not upload games to the arcade that I may sell on Amazon because they maybe given to Amazon for free downloads as well as we shoukd thank a member of the community for letting us know after the fact. How long ago was this done does anyone know? 11:59 on new years eve executive order like? Lol
Woukd love to post a funny image here but still cant do that sort of thing since I got out of jail. Hint hint.
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So yup... i just downloaded a couple of my own games submitted to the Jam along with a couple of others, and they are downloading to the device as standalone apps.
This was not what I understood the GameSalad Amazon channel to be... as specification for the apps was to run in the browser... there was no mention of the games being published as apps.
Also... to make matters worse... theres errors in the downloads...
I downloaded Heli Hero, and the although the icon is correct, it actually downloaded and installed Fleet Defender.... so installed the wrong game.
Also..none of the games close down, when quiting the apps... they continue running and playing audio, whilst doing other things on the device, and can only be properly shut down by going into the device settings, and closing down in the managing applications setting.... which is rather annoying and doesn't look good. @quantumsheep's music from Docking Sequence is really cool in the game... but gets a bit annoying when its still playing even though my device has gone to sleep!
Again though, my main concern is that our games are being published as apps, without our proper consent... I think this needs clarification as to why we weren't told exactly how our submissions were actually going to be made available.
Is this on purpose, or is it by accident?
Now we know who is in charge of GS, figures...
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@dgackey @firemaplegames @DeepBlueApps
Yup.. further testing... and the apps are downloadable as Android apps with some sort of dodgy GameSalad/Amazon wrapper, not just Amazon devices... just installed a couple on my android phone.
This is not cool... we were not told that the GameSalad Amazon channel meant publishing our games as apps, and especially not available for Android. The implied use was that our games would be available on some sort of HTML5 browser channel.
Thanks @Lovejoy thats what I was looking for.
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Does anyone have or know where I can get a copy of the Game Jams terms and conditions?
Has anyone read in the GameSalad agreements that they own the material on the arcade as thier own? I haven't come across any such thing yet.
http://www.gamesalad.com/stuff-your-stocking-spectacular-2014-official-rules
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I guess they gotcha held by the short and curly there...
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I too did not realize these games would be played on devices I thought it was like a Amazon website, anyway I went back today and added touch controls too all but two games I'll get those later. but none of my games are on this site anyway.
But I did notice when Winter Wonderland was announced that it said they must be playable on devices but was unable to finish my game for that.
Here is a link to another Gamesalad account with more games from the arcade
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_mobile-apps?_encoding=UTF8&field-brandtextbin=GameSalad Jams&node=2350149011
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That doesn't excuse the non-submitted game jam games on arcade to be used or published as stated above. Still looking through to find some information on this issue though. @Tiny_Ideas if you find anything can you share.
Thanks
Yup... the section from the rules does seem to give them the legal framework for doing it... but morally its not right, and is not in the spirit of how the Jam was promoted.
It was presented in a manner that our games would be for use on some sort of HTML5 web portal... not downloaded as apps.
Im pretty sure that Im not the only one, who's been beavering away on updating many of their Game Jam entries, polishing them and improving them for publishing properly. By doing this, GameSalad has pretty much screwed us out of 2 major markets, Amazon and Android.
Also..the way they've been published... as some sort of HTML5 wrapper, rather than straight Android apps presents our work in a poor manner. Theres issues with the games not switching off, when the device is put into sleep mode etc... and Ive seen some issues with lag and crashes. Also, the apps request to have online access enabled on your android devices... which seems a bit suspect, as none of the games I created would need this... so GameSalad are adding this...
Then theres the confusion it builds...as for some people, theres now 2 versions of their game on Amazon... their own published version, and a second, inferior GameSalad published version.
Then theres also the issue of inconsistency... not all entries have been published in this manner. Some people aren't affected, whilst some are...
In so many ways...this is just wrong, and not what I was agreeing to when I submitted my games for the Jams.
Im happy to have my games on the GameSalad Arcade, and on other HTML5 web browsers and portals...but not this...
@Chunkypixels Also keep in mind there are games on there that are not part of the game jams. Also some of the games posted are normally payed games, but now posted as free.
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@Lovejoy yup... its a car wreck on so many levels... not just for the recent Jammers.
Like I mentioned, theres now people with 2 versions of their game on Amazon. Some have their own published version for sale... and now they've got the free, inferior version published by GameSalad sat right next to it... not good.
This surely can't have been what GameSalad meant to do... and must be some sort of cock up...
.
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@Armelline Not all of us are sheep, certain "less-than-perfect results" shouldn't happen in the first place. This isn't a personal attack but c'mob really? that sounds like something my kids would say.
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As much as I would like to think everything runs perfectly, I know mistakes happens. What everyone should really be taking away from this, myself included, is to actually monitor the AppStores for these types of things more closely. Thanks @firemaplegames for alerting GameSalad Staff to this issue.
Wow so GS put the games up on Amazon to keep Amazon happy and in doing so pissed off the lovely hard working developers who have supported you.
We now have a free and a paid for version of the same game, which one do you think the customer is going to get the free one uploaded by GS or the paid one we uploaded to try and earn a living?
We just got screwed over because you wanted to keep your Amazon partner happy so uploaded nearly 800 of our games and took a nice fat paycheck for doing so.
And i say bollocks to the small print what you have done is wrong plain and simple and like @firemaplegames said there was no checkbox when we uploaded these.
Now i have doubts about our 100 templates for sale on your marketplace and wondering when i will see those uploaded or given away for free.
You've lost my trust and FYI if you had even been bothered to check i never uploaded Bumps to Amazon because it wasn't available at the time and a newer version of GS broke the zoom feature in the game so not only have they got my game for free they are probably unhappy with it not working properly.
This is bad news for my team as i'm currently working on Bumps going through each scene fixing the zoom problem with 12.10 ready to upload to google and amazon but you just f**ked that up for us.
We had a big marketing campaign planned and was really hoping it would have similar success on google and amazon (#17 on the US App store for iOS) but I'm not sure it will now you have made it free so thanks for that!
One of the team is looking into legal action as we speak he's so pissed off and i have been in contact with Amazon to get Bumps removed.
I don't think it was a mistake, i just don't buy that excuse, when you got into bed with Amazon you knew what they expected and when they said jump you sold us out.
Any update on progress?
Wow so much hyperbole in this thread.
Talk of lawsuits is absurd. Firstly, you'll have to demonstrate real financial loss, and any money being lost is almost certainly going to be less than the cost of even getting a solicitor(/lawyer) to write a letter. Secondly, I'm really not sure how sensible it is to bite the hand that feeds you over something so relatively minor. Wonder how long an external marketplace would last if the seller was banned from the forums, was restricted from using the GameSalad name or logo, and had their GameSalad account closed (remember the software is moving to a "must be signed in" model).
They screwed up. They quickly admitted it and are taking steps to fix things. Unless they drag their feet or just flat out don't comply, the sensible thing to do would be to give them a chance to make it right and privately seek compensation if you feel actual sales have been lost.
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As much as Darren and i don't get along, I'm going to have to agree with him @DeepBlueApps on this issue. That excuse is pure bullocks and unacceptable, you know dang well they knew what they were doing.
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