Lugaru

Controversy

Shortly after the release of the Mac App Store in February of 2011, Wolfire Games reported on their blog that an effectively pirated version of Lugaru HD was being sold through Apple's service. While Wolfire already offered the game through the store as "Lugaru HD" for $9.99, the pirated version was listed using the previous title of "Lugaru" by an individual named Michael Latour with the developer iCoder for $0.99 (later being raised to $1.99). When pressed about the issue, iCoder developer Alex Matlin argued that the re-selling of the title qualified as fair-use under the open-source GPL license which the game was released under, despite the license reading: "Wolfire has allowed the data to be freely redistributed for non commercial purposes, but it is forbidden to use in any revenue generating works."

Despite contacting Apple the day that the counterfeit was spotted, the pirated version of the game was not removed from the App Store until over a week later, by which point it had reached #60 on the Store's sales pages. Wolfire was not contacted by Apple in any way, nor were they informed about what would happen to customers who had purchased the pirated version. As a result, they invited anyone who had purchased an illegitimate copy of the game to contact them in order to receive a legitimate copy of the game and a bonus Steam key.

Graphics

On May 2009, a pack with high resolution textures was added by default to the game. This textures were developed by a fan of the game called Tim Soret. Since that addition, the game was renamed as "Lugaru HD".

Release history

Prior to the launch of Overgrowth, Wolfire Games announced to give away copies of Lugaru for free to anyone who joined the Free Lugaru for Overgrowth Fans event on Facebook and became a fan of Overgrowth on the social network.

Information also contributed by MichaelPalin.