Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream sales have got off to a strong start in its first month on the market, so it was only a matter of time before knock-offs started cropping up.
We’re used to seeing all manner of clones on the eShop and other digital storefronts, with their ripped assets usually hidden behind a thinly-veiled key art tweak and title change; what we don’t often come across is something as shameless as the Google Play Store‘s current offerings.
Indeed, a brief search for ‘Tomodachi Life’ on the Android store brings up not one, but two titles that look eerily similar to the real deal — like, identical key art and tongue-trippingly close titles. ‘Tomodachi Life Living Dream‘ and ‘Tomodochi: Live the Dream Life‘ (yep, that’s the real spelling of both) are the prime offenders here, both boasting banner art and screens that appear to be ripped directly from the eShop.
Just take a brief glance at the following screenshot, and you’ll surely see how some might be fooled:
Aside from a host of games with naff AI-generated artwork, ZStronics — the ‘developer’ behind one of the above apps — also has the likes of ‘Batman Legacy of the Dark‘ and ‘Subnautica 2 Mobile‘ listings in its back catalogue, each with similarly misleading cover art. Heck, the ‘Live the Dream Life’ description is even taken word-for-word from various Nintendo news posts published in recent months.
Perhaps most hilariously of all, both apps are rated PEGI 12 for ‘Horror’ and ‘In-game purchases’, in contrast to the real Tomodachi Life, which was awarded a PEGI 3, on account of neither of those being present.
Still, the apps have amassed over 150,000 downloads combined so far, and we can see how people might fall into the trap — particularly a younger audience. We can’t imagine the clones will be around for too long, but as a reminder, you’ll only find the real Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream on Switch for the time being.
What do you make of these obvious rip-offs? Let us know in the comments.