Swing Copters Clones Slam Play Store, Knock Down Game's Ranking

Swing Copters, the latest game from Flappy Birds creator Dong Nguyen, has already spawned hundreds of knock-off apps, and Google has been busy purging them from the Play Store. These games were released ahead of the official app, being created on what Nguyen revealed in the game's teaser video.

While annoying to the average user looking for the real-deal, Nguyen and his .Gears studio suffered as a result of the clones — the official game came in at #63 when a user searched for "Swing Copters" in the Play Store.

Some of the clones were poorly-functioning apps slapped together, while others have fooled gamers into thinking they have the official version. Google has been cracking down on this, and according to The Guardian, it has taken down all of the cloned apps, boosting the official Swing Copters game up to the #1 slot in the search rankings where it belongs.

Despite this, the overall ranking is still suffering as a result. While the game is ranked near the top of the free apps chart for iOS, it is still ranking very low on the free apps chart in the Google Play Store.

SOURCE: The Guardian