From Peak to Cliff: The legal and ethical saga of video game copycats

Supplied image

The message was simple: illegally downloading copyrighted films is both ethically and legally no different from stealing a car. If you wouldn’t steal a car, then you shouldn’t pirate a film either.

Two decades later, it’s safe to assume that car owners would still prefer you rent a car rather than steal theirs, and that video game developers would rather you play someone else’s game than pirate theirs.

Well, not if you ask Aggro Crab – the co-developers of the hit indie game Peak.

Peak v Cliff

Peak is a co-operative mountain-climbing and survival game released on 16 June 2025 for Windows. Its description on Steam reads:
“Peak is a co-op climbing game where the slightest mistake can spell your doom. Either solo or as a group of lost nature scouts, your only hope of rescue from a mysterious island is to scale the mountain at its centre. Do you have what it takes to reach the Peak?”

It became an overnight sensation among Twitch streamers thanks to its bright, colourful visuals and quirky, physics-based mechanics, amassing a large player base in record time.

Unfortunately, as is often the case with a breakout hit, it wasn’t long before a copycat version appeared on Roblox – a platform that allows users to create and play games made by other users (officially called “Experiences”).

IP Law

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The golden rule of copyright law is that there is no copyright in ideas. Instead, copyright protection is granted to original works – ie. products of the author’s own skill and labour – that have been reduced to material form. In other words, it is the material embodiment of an idea that is protected.

Peak was certainly not the first mountain-climbing game ever made, and its developers cannot stop others from creating a game built on the same general concept. However, when the competing game is nearly identical in its premise, gameplay mechanics, art style, and hub design, the question is no longer whether it was inspired by Peak, but whether it is a replica.

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Cliff, developed by PewStudio, was described on Roblox as follows:
“Cliff is a challenging climbing game where even the smallest mistake can be your downfall. Trapped on a mysterious island, your only way to escape is to reach the top of the towering cliff. Do you have the skill and courage to make it to the summit?”

Sound familiar?

As the name suggests, copyright prevents copying of the work itself. Just like copyright in a musical work won’t prevent others from using the same rhythmics patterns, chord progressions or musical styles, it also won’t prevent game developers from using the same style, storyline or features of an original video game.

In this case though, there was such a striking similarity between the characters and other visual elements of the two games, that one is left in no doubt that these were, at best, closely referenced.

The main distinction between Peak and Cliff was the addition of microtransactions in the latter. Whereas Peak offers a balanced experience with various difficulty options, Cliff pushed users – many of whom are children – toward spending real money to progress.

This combination – slavishly copying the original game while exploiting manipulative monetisation models – culminated in Aggro Crab posting the following to X:

tbh would rather you pirate our game than play this microtransaction-riddled @Roblox slop ripoff pic.twitter.com/ulRShLLGz2

— AGGRO CRAB �� (@AggroCrabGames) August 4, 2025

The public backlash PewStudio received after this post was so severe that the developer attempted to make the game more original by changing its name and other elements, before shutting it down completely less than two weeks later, probably in an attempt to avoid further reputational damage.

Aggro Crab was fortunate enough to resolve the matter with a single social media post. But what options are available to developers who aren’t as lucky?

Dealing with copycat developers

According to its creator terms, Roblox “fosters creativity” while also committing to respect the intellectual property (IP) rights of others (Section 2(b)(vii), Roblox Creator Terms).

These rights are respected by enabling any copyright or trade mark owner (“rights holder”) who believes that their rights are being infringed to submit a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice and have the infringing content taken down.

For the notice to be effective, it must include, amongst other things, a description of:

• the copyright-protected work or other IP right claiming to be infringed; and
  
• the allegedly infringing material and where it is located on the platform.

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Roblox also provides tools for rights holders to detect and manage their IP on the platform. If a rights holder believes that their IP is being used in an Experience, they can either claim the content (allowing the Experience to stay up) or request its removal.

If the content is claimed, the rights holder:

• receives a share of the Robux (the virtual currency used in Roblox) earnings from that Experience, including from virtual items, ads, and engagement payouts;
  
• may access engagement data about that Experience; and
  
• may require that the developer of that Experience comply with additional content standards.

When pursuing one of these avenues, rights holders face one of the biggest challenges right at the outset – proving that they do, in fact, have a right. The Creator Terms are of no assistance in this regard, and guidance must be sought elsewhere.

In South Africa, rights holders are given a helping hand by our copyright legislation. A cinematograph film is broadly defined to include moving images stored on any medium. Our courts have held that this definition is wide enough to include video games even though the video renderings are not fixed but dependent on user choices (Golden China TV Game Centre and others v Nintendo Co Ltd [1996] 4 All SA 667 (A)).

Upon registering the copyright in a cinematograph film, the registration certificate serves, at least on the face of it, as evidence of the subsistence of the copyright in the work and ownership of it. Anyone disputing the copyright will carry the burden of disproving it, and rights holders are able to act easily and quickly against infringers on Roblox or any other platform. The registration process is also straightforward and relatively quick, taking only six to eight months.

An uphill battle

The Peak v Cliff saga is a perfect example of how piracy and copyright infringement have evolved since 2004. Your car may not be stolen exactly, but you shouldn’t be surprised to see the modifications you made to it reproduced on other cars.

Developers looking to avoid an arduous journey to the top of the gaming charts should prepare for the climb by ensuring that they are able to take swift action against copycat games, because while they will remain an unavoidable feature of the modern gaming landscape, they need not be an insurmountable one.