Pirate rabbits burrow into the Mac App Store

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWTxaAj5w-4&fs=1&hl=en_US]

You like violent bunny rabbits, right, right? Want to watch a violent rabbit create a new definition for homicidal? Then do keep an eye on the unfolding drama between the legitimate makers of open source violent rabbit game, Lugaru HD, and the pirate coder who has also introduced an app called Lugaru via the Mac App Store — but using the same code.

That’s right, two apps for one game — the legitimate one costs $12.99, the pirated version just $2.49, and the original developers are incandescent.

“This is a kind of software fraud we’ve never even heard of: a pirate simply downloading the app and resubmitting it to the same distribution channel at a lower price,” the developers say. “We immediately emailed Apple explaining the situation, expecting them to quickly investigate the situation, shut down the fraudulent app, and follow up with us. We started this process a few days ago, and haven’t heard back from Apple yet.”

The developers are naturally furious that Apple’s app store rejections team didn’t spot the similarity between the two games, and suggest the controversy could put developers off making titles available via the Mac App Store.

“However, this incident may make developers much less likely to release the source code to their games. Even if Apple takes the counterfeit game down tomorrow, that is theoretically a week of sales down the drain,” they said, adding, “While Lugaru is a very small title on the App Store, there’s no reason why it couldn’t happen to bigger ones, and that could represent an enormous loss of revenue. While released source code in no way makes it legal to sell someone else’s game, it is apparently enough to make scammers think they could get away with it, and that may be enough to discourage other developers from risking it.”