It’s not uncommon when we hear news about rips being made from designers and developers, but it’s rare to hear about a case where the organization is like the Olympics, a respectable organization, and not just another big-shot company. To be more accurate, the 2008 Beijing Olympics website hosts a multitude of interactive Flash games geared towards their Olympics, featuring the mascots of the elements of water, forest, earth and water. As the news unfolded, we found out that the company they hired to do the development was Sohu, the same company responsible for attacking Google for infringing on their rights claiming Google plagiarized one of their products. Sohu has apparently downloaded .swf files from other sites to reuse (made via the Flash IDE, .swf files are viewed on the Internet instead of the Flash files itself. While it is hard to download a .swf file and get to the source code, it is doable.) Hypocritical, you may say? Definitely. Not only are we talking about the same type of game, it is the exact same game with changed out graphics here and there. Sohu has stolen the idea, the concept, the execution - the gameplay, the source code and the graphics. That’s a lot of stealing.

And it isn’t only 1 or 2 games, 3 games in total are in question so far. Cadin Batrack, from The Pencil Farm, brought it to the attention of the 2008 Beijing Olympics representatives saying, “At the time Sohu made three requests of Google: that they stop offering the software for download as quickly as possible, that they make an apology, and that they discuss compensation for the offense. I’m currently considering my legal options, but I think these three things sound like reasonable requests to make of Sohu.” They have taken down the stolen game, but it is unknown to the rest of the community whether he has received an apology or compensation. The other 2 games in question originally came from the popular Flash gaming site Orisinal. It’s unknown whether the authors have taken action or not, but the Olympics website still showcases them apparently - I wouldn’t know, I tried visiting the website and got frustrated with its development (loading time, clutter, etc) to even continue further investigating.

The original game “Snow Day” can be played here.



References:
SMH.com
ars technica
Joystiq
The Pencil Farm Blog