 Suika Game, the watermelon-merging puzzle game, is coming to iOS, having already enjoyed several months as the Nintendo Switch smash hit of the moment, but not all is as it seems. This innocuous game actually has a murky history of copyright infringement, fraud, and downright theft. The game, published by Aladdin X, seemingly came out of nowhere to become the top downloaded game on Japan's Nintendo eShop in 2023, even beating the Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. As is often the case though, while Suika Game, or Watermelon Game as it is also known, appears to be an overnight sensation, it actually released all the way back in 2021. The game's sudden meteoric rise is not unlike the journey that took among us to the top of the charts in 2020. After lying mostly unobserved on the eShop for two years, the game was picked up by several prominent Twitch streamers. Suika Game quickly became incredibly popular among content creators, leading to a sudden influx of new players. What's notable about the game is that it wasn't developed by a game studio at all. Aladdin X is, instead, the manufacturer of multimedia electronics, and their version of Suika Game started life as a built-in game for their ceiling smart projector, Popin Aladdin. When Suika Game proved to be a big hit among Popin Aladdin users, the company began exploring other options for publishing the title on app stores. Speaking with Nippon TV, a spokesperson for Aladdin X said of their decision, there were other options, such as a smartphone app, but we decided to offer it on the Nintendo eStore because it had a better chance of standing out, rather than being buried amongst a lot of other apps. Aladdin X is very proud of the success they've seen with Suika Game, and the company is apparently eager to protect their copyright from those who would infringe it. When a version of the game appeared on the iOS app store, using Suika Game's art assets and the text description from the Nintendo eShop, Aladdin X was quick to denounce this as an unlicensed copy. In a text on... X. Formerly Twitter. Aladdin X said, We have not developed Suika Game for smartphones, and applications that closely resemble Suika Game posted on the app store are not affiliated with our company in any way. We have also reported this matter to Apple, the company that operates the app store. Please be careful when downloading applications similar to Suika Game developed by our company. Yet while Aladdin X can be protective of the art assets that they created for Suika Game, the company cannot prevent developers from creating copycat games, because Suika Game is itself a copycat game. It could be argued that the reason Aladdin X worried that Suika Game would be buried on a mobile app store is because there were already plenty of identical games on all mobile platforms even in 2021. The original game, whose name translates appropriately as Synthetic Watermelon, was created by a Chinese developer, Wei Umbrella Games, in 2021. Here is where the story gets even more interesting, as the original version of the game is no longer available, following a scandal involving fraudulent advertisements and the theft of unsuspecting players' money. Synthetic Watermelon could well be called the Chinese equivalent of Tetris. It's a simple game which involves falling puzzle pieces. It's fun to play and endlessly addictive, and its transition to markets outside of its home country has been highly controversial. Wei Umbrella Games, a subsidiary of Beijing Mido Technology Company Limited, released their own version of Synthetic Watermelon on 22 January 2021, long before Aladdin X released their version on the pop-in Aladdin. Synthetic Watermelon was played by over 40 million people before it was shut down. It was significant enough that an academic paper was published on the popular science China website, analysing its skinner box mechanics and fundamentally addictive gameplay. The mobile game was available to play for free online, but with one key feature that is missing from the Aladdin X version of the game. In the top right-hand corner of the screen, Synthetic Watermelon featured a present icon which appeared to be integrated as part of the game. Unsuspecting players who tapped this icon were told they had won a 100-USN voucher worth approximately 10 pounds or 15 US dollars. All players needed to do to receive their prize was to provide their personal details and pay 19.9 yuan, approximately 2 pounds or 3 dollars. It's estimated that 1.6 million people were tricked by this alleged scam, losing over 30 million yuan in total. None of these victims received their promised money, and as pressure mounted online around accusations of fraud, the original version of Synthetic Watermelon was removed from the internet. Copycat Watermelon Game clones began popping up across the Chinese-language internet and on various mobile app stores. This was the environment that led Aladdin X to similarly copy Synthetic Watermelon, making their own Watermelon Game, leading to millions of Nintendo eShop download sales. The moral of the story? In the words of a quote often attributed to Pablo Picasso, that was almost certainly not actually said by him, Good Artists Borrow, Great Artist Steel.