You don't buy Pac-Man from namco anymore (I hope they've stopped selling it). So, nobody (much less them) gives a damn if it is being ripped off.
Doodle Jump, on the other hand, is a game that you can (and millions do, every month) buy from the App Store. If you build a clone of it, the Lima Sky guys might lose some customers.
That's why creating a Doodle Jump clone is wrong, but creating a Pac-Mac clone is not.
People do indeed continue to buy Pac-Man from Namco (http://www.amazon.com/Namco-Networks-40406PAC-MAN-PAC-MAN-Do... for instance, put there as recently as 2010), and the general IP is alive and well. (New games, and a new Pac-Man 3D cartoon is already in production for airing in 2013.) Namco has in the past sent cease & desist or DMCA takedown letters to websites hosting clones of their IP (here's a story of but one, again from 2010: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100730/17081510430.shtml), if you bet they don't care you're going to lose that bet. Besides the original by itself there's also lots of collections that are sold fairly often (every year? at least every few years) that Pac-Man comes with.
If you're arguing that "apparent recent interest by the IP owner" is the moral basis (obviously not the legal basis) for ripoffs, then you have to conclude that this Pac-Man clone, too, is wrong.
Thanks a lot for the info. I certainly didn't imagine, even in my wildest dreams, that an ancient game like Pac-Mac could possibly be still alive and a source of revenue for Namco. Pac-Mac game in 2010? 3D cartoon in 2013 (wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man:_The_Adventure_Begins)? I can't believe it.
In that case, I was wrong and this game should also be "condemned" by HN :) Thanks.
You don't buy Pac-Man from namco anymore (I hope they've stopped selling it). So, nobody (much less them) gives a damn if it is being ripped off.
Doodle Jump, on the other hand, is a game that you can (and millions do, every month) buy from the App Store. If you build a clone of it, the Lima Sky guys might lose some customers.
That's why creating a Doodle Jump clone is wrong, but creating a Pac-Mac clone is not.