Uncovering Controversy: Hit iOS Game Faces Accusations of Stealing HTML5 Code

When a Game Goes Viral (but Not for the Right Reasons)

VoltekPlay discovered their game, My Baby or Not!, had gained sudden popularity on iOS due to unexpected traffic on their itch.io page. They noticed this spike in visitors was coming from Google searches. To find out more, they added a poll asking players where they found the game. That’s when they learned about some popular TikTok videos featuring their game.

Thanks to comments on TikTok, some users found the real game name—Diapers, Please!—and ended up on the right page. VoltekPlay estimated that a few thousand players made it to them, but they wondered how many more went to the knockoff version instead.

This week, the $2.99 iOS version of My Baby or Not! quickly rose through the iOS paid games charts, racking up around 20,000 downloads, according to Sensor Tower.

Marwane Benyssef’s prior iOS game, Kiosk Food Night Shift, also appears to be a copy of an itch.io title.

The App Store listed My Baby or Not! under Marwane Benyssef, a new developer with no known background in game development. His other iOS game, Kiosk Food Night Shift, released last August, is also seen as a copy. It was based on a pay-what-you-want title called Kiosk, which debuted on itch.io last year and had a full release on Steam this year.

In a Reddit post, VoltekPlay mentioned filing a DMCA copyright claim against My Baby or Not!. Apple informed them that they shared this claim with Benyssef. They also encouraged both sides to resolve the issue directly.

This morning, Ars sought a statement from Apple regarding the incident. While waiting for a reply, it seems they have removed Benyssef’s developer page and all related titles from the iOS App Store.