Mob Entertainment—the studio responsible for the jumpscare-laden survival horror title known as Poppy Playtime—is taking legal action against Google regarding what it describes as “fraudulent” games that are infringing upon the studio’s intellectual property (via Polygon).
The studio initiated the lawsuit earlier this week, asserting that Google has permitted a number of illegal imitation versions of Poppy Playtime to enter the Google Play store. Among these unauthorized (and unofficial) games are Poppy Playtime Chapter 3 and Poppy Playtime Chapter 4, neither of which were developed by Mob Entertainment. Both games—created by a company named Daigo—are still available for download on the Google Play store at the time of writing.
These two titles are particularly troubling for the creators of Poppy Playtime given the episodic nature of the game. Mob Entertainment contends that by allowing counterfeit games to use “Poppy Playtime” in their titles and (claiming that these games represent new episodes), Google is enabling various entities to exploit the Poppy Playtime brand by misleading fans into believing they are playing genuine new chapters of the game.
However, these imitation games appear to not only be capitalizing on the Poppy Playtime name. Mob Entertainment claims that the developers of these copies are unlawfully using screenshots from Poppy Playtime 2, presenting them as if they are gameplay images from the counterfeit games instead.
The developer of Poppy Playtime asserts that the responsibility lies with Google due to its inaction in removing the counterfeit games from its digital app marketplace. Mob Entertainment has stated it has submitted numerous DMCA takedown requests and has approached Google directly regarding the counterfeit versions of Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. The lawsuit claims that while Google did remove both of the imitation chapters from its app store at some point in December, both games resurfaced on the Google Play store.