What looks like a Suika Game rip-off set to launch on PlayStation
UPDATE: Aladdin X confirms it has "no affiliation" with game listed on PS Store.
UPDATE 21/12/23: Suica developer Aladdin X has confirmed it is not involved with The Suika Game, which appeared on the PlayStation Store recently.
In a statement sent to Eurogamer, Aladdin X said: "We are aware that [The Suika Game] appeared on the Playstation Store, but we have no affiliation with [The] Suika Game. So, the game has nothing to do with our Suika Game!"
At time of writing, The Suika Game is still listed on the PlayStation Store, as is publisher Gogame Console Publisher's website with HTML code copied from Guerilla Game's website.
ORIGINAL STORY 20/12/23: Suika Game, the hit viral puzzler where you drop fruits into a container and combine them, looks set to be getting a release on PlayStation per a recent product page.
This page has raised some eyebrows, however, as the game is listed there as "The Suika Game" and not "Suika Game". The game's original developer is also not mentioned.
The original Suika Game was developed by Aladdin X and, so far, it has only been released on the Nintendo eShop, though many browser versions and clones on other platforms have since popped up.
From what has been uploaded to the PlayStation Store so far, "The Suika Game" bears a striking resemblance to Suika, reusing the artwork for the fruits and putting different emoji faces on them. No price or release date is listed.
The publisher listed for The Suika Game on PlayStation Store is Gogame Console Publisher Ltd, a company established on 2nd October 2022 in London, as recorded by Companies House, with a sole director - based in Romania.
Gogame's website is also rather bare bones - there are screenshots of a game called Constructor Simulator, but no links to it or any other game it says it has published. "Our company has been in the market for several years now," Gogame writes on its website, despite being incorporated only last year. The Suika Game is not mentioned on Gogame's website at time of writing.
Eurogamer has contacted both Aladdin X and Gogame Console Publisher for confirmation of their involvement with The Suika Game.
Gogame has been potentially linked to Midnight Works (via Nintendo Life), a holding company with apparent links to VG Games, the company behind the knock-off version of The Last of Us which appeared on Switch eShop earlier this year, and Instamarketingandgame, the company behind a PEGI 3+ drink driving simulator also released on the eShop. Both games have since been removed from the eShop.
Out of curiosity, I decided to image search Gogame's logo and found it's similar to this logo used on the website for Goldsmith Chase, which claims to be a family-owned real estate company, just with a change of text. There's little information on Goldsmith Chase's website about where it's registered, so I've been unable to find any public listings for that company so far. The site has many links which don't work and placeholder texts, and looking at the HTML reveals it was generated from a WordPress template. It's unclear where both companies obtained the logo from.
Gogame's website has more copied content, however. Looking through its HTML, I found a number of instances where content has been taken from the website for Guerrilla Games. Gogame contains imports for the Akkurat font from Guerrilla's website, which it has presumably licensed and hosts for use, which have been commented out, but blatantly copied from Guerrilla.
Gogame's website also contains leftover references from Guerrilla's website. In its metadata, the website writes it is "one of Europe's leading game development companies and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe". This is text copied from Guerrilla's website and can be seen on its explore page.
There are several examples of this present on Gogame's website. Plenty of Guerilla's HTML ID tags exist in Gogame's HTML, despite serving no purpose. It looks like Gogame simply copied Guerilla's HTML and didn't bother to fully trim out what it didn't need or remove all references of Guerilla altogether to make it less obvious it had copied code.
Eurogamer has contacted Sony for comment on Gogame claiming it is a "wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe". It seems unlikely this is accurate.
The real version of Suika is now easily accessible on Switch thanks to its global release and language support options and only costs £2.69 / $2.99. If you don't want to spend money you can easily play one of the browser versions (though these are not official and the owners of the sites will receive ad money). Without being melondramatic, anything is better than this apparent rip-off.