Cease and Desist: Flight Control (iPhone) to Flying Aces (Android) Developers

by Antonio Wells Apr 12, 2010 5:21 PM – 6 Comments

Cool how much we love to compare iPhone and Android. We learned Firemint, developers of the popular iPhone game Flight Control, issued a cease and desist order to StickyCoding, developers of Flying Aces for Android for its striking similarities.

I personally must admit when I review air flight control type games for Android I always compare it to Flight Control; maybe I’m in love with its style and theming. That game truly is awesome, heck they even released an HD 3D version for the iPad… but I digress. Will Logisoft Games receive one too as their Air Control incorporates more similar game features. Here is a snippet of the response to StickyCoding:

“The similarities between Flight Control and Flying Aces are striking. They include but are not limited to the visuals of the game, including but not limited to the airport configuration (the location and intersection of runways and location of helicopter landing site with a big H also defining location), the aircraft types (jets, props and helicopters), the stylistic approach to the games, and the screen designs.

The functional aspects of the games are also strikingly similar, including the games’ premise, the games’ mechanics, the manner in which a pathway tracks the planes to their respective landing locations, the off-screen alerts at the edge of the screens, and the fact that there is accelerated arrival as the game progresses.”

This isn’t the first C&D we’ve seen to Android developers; HTC C&D’ed LevelUp Studios for the beauty in Beautiful Widgets, Google to Android hacker Cyanogen over Google apps, Connect 4 Online is now Four Online, Wixle word game used to be Wuzzle… the list goes on. Hopefully legal spats like this does not get into way innovation and ingenuity.

What’s is your opinion in the matter? Comment Below:

[Via Android Police via This Android Life]

Tags: Air Control, Cease and Desist, Firemint, Flight Control, Flying Aces, StickyCoding

Categorised in: Apps Blog, News

6 Comments

By Matthew on April 12, 2010 at 1:37 pm:

Don’t you need to hold some kind of copyright or ownership over stuff like this to tell someone to stop making a game that is similar?

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By Ryo on April 13, 2010 at 12:37 am:

Then Firemint should release Flight Control for Android or STFU !

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By Ryan Henson Creighton on April 13, 2010 at 5:20 am:

The way i understand it, they may have a valid claim against the visuals, but they’re up a creek when it comes to the play mechanics. They can *try* to patent the mechanics, but it’s a long and difficult road, and it’s seldom done. Best not to mention the way the game plays, because (barring buckets of money) it’s largely unprotectable.

But, as always, it comes down to who has the most money. Firemint can force a war of attrition by suing, and hoping the other guys don’t have the financial wherewithall to fund a defense.

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By influenceuk on April 13, 2010 at 11:11 pm:

Firemint are meant to be releasing Flight Control on Android at some point.

I can see where they are coming from graphically, but flight control was not the first “ATC style game” on a phone. So i doubt that they can do too much to the developers.

It cause they have namco on their site, they think they are the big i am now, so can push all the smaller devs around! mmm, if only they’d look back to when they were just starting out!!

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By influenceuk on April 13, 2010 at 11:14 pm:

Here’s some extra info…

“Namco Networks, a leading publisher and developer of mobile, iPhone and PC games for mass-market casual gamers, today announced a partnership with Firemint, a leading iPhone games studio, to bring Flight Control to mobile. Currently only available on iPhone/iPod touch devices, and launching February 19 on Nintendo DSiWare, the infamous hit is slated to make a smooth landing on Java, Windows Mobile, Brew and Android platforms in July 2010.”

Read more: http://firemint.com/?p=999

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