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Robin wrote:Plus if they're not in the same country as you, I don't even know if that would work.

Case in point: chinese clones of games such as Team Fortress. They're almost 1:1 copies (in some places they're a bit different but otherwise identical), but nobody can really do anything about them. Speaking of which, China is a huge and extremely lucrative market but unfortunately one has absolutely no leverage in it. Not only native developers can one-up you in every way that matters, you will also be hugely impeded by local laws about video games.

Until they can create decent/better "ripoffs" than the originals, i wouldn't worry about them pushing stuff on western people, our standards are a tad different. Not that i'm insinuating original content and good content at that, can't come from china. But yeah, the laws there are interesting.

Besides, if some place is not in your range that you market to, why not let them do it for themselves? Chances are, in the past, you wouldn't've even known about it. I myself have a Soviet Bloc-era "yellow SNES" myself, and while that's hardware, i think it still applies. Nowadays though, with the internet semi-globally connecting everyone, it's harder to be left alone. There was a game on steam, Spooky's house of jumpscares... due to a german trademark on a name similar (i.e. not the same even), they needed to change their name after one year.

Robin wrote:

xNick1 wrote:Can't you sue them if they copied your whole product?

I mean, you can, but suing is an expensive and time-consuming process. And even if you win, which isn't guaranteed, you still might not get much out of it. Plus if they're not in the same country as you, I don't even know if that would work.

If somebody copies your product... and makes a lot of money then you might have a case - but even then it would be a long shot.
Moreover, it's much harder to earn money from games so like I said, you have nothing to be afraid of.

Besides, if some place is not in your range that you market to, why not let them do it for themselves? Chances are, in the past, you wouldn't've even known about it. I myself have a Soviet Bloc-era "yellow SNES" myself, and while that's hardware, i think it still applies. Nowadays though, with the internet semi-globally connecting everyone, it's harder to be left alone.

The Soviet bloc used to produce all sorts of clones (Apple II/Pravets, NES/Dendy, etc). Most of these clones were typically produced by government-owned factories and were considered "legal" since those countries didn't have a free market at the time...

Yes, people could legally change your game's name and resell it.

Maybe you should just release the source code as MIT? That way they'd at least have to come up with new assets. Or you could release the assets under a noncommercial CC license or something.