Clash Royale mocks knock-off mobile games and offers copycat players a trade-in

Supercell’s Clash Royale has launched a campaign, Copycats Welcome, that pokes fun at the many imitation games built on its formula.

Mobile app stores are full of knock-offs, and successful titles are often copied within months. Oscar Wilde’s line that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” is followed by a less quoted ending, “…that mediocrity can pay to greatness”, and the campaign plays on that idea.

The ad uses the game’s cartoon style. Its characters are pulled into a vortex and land in a “knock off Clash Royale”, surrounded by off-brand versions of themselves in games such as Space Royale and Mismatch Royale. The original characters then use a ray gun to blast the ads for those imitations that float around them.

“They followed us,” one character says. “Who can blame them?” asks another.

Clash Royale, a spin-off of Supercell’s Clash of Clans, is now almost ten years old. Its characters, visuals and mechanics have been copied so widely that the campaign includes a “trade-in” scheme, allowing players of copycat games to exchange their progress for progress in the original.

More than 2 million players have already taken up the offer.