This is common. I help develop a small browser MMO game-- 50,000 monthly active users. There were at least three sites that iframe'd our site, put ads on it, and made money off of it. Code was added in to detect this and redirect users.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-...
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Co...
Let the whack-a-mole games begin.
Also, web servers should have rate limits set which would make proxying less viable, even for IP ranges.
The sites this article is describing do copy content from other sites, but only to make it look legitimate at first glance. They aren't trying to get actual users to access the site, but instead using bots for click fraud.
Especially for an online game, it’s probably a win. If you have an ingame store, more people playing = more people buying.
Offline games are more problematic. Piracy is a big deal just because there’s not much incentive to pay for anything. People are lazy and often take the path of least resistance. If your game pops up on piratebay for free, people are less inclined to pay for it.
I keep talking about piracy here because it’s conceptually similar to the iframe hijack thing. They’re “pirating the content” in that sense. But sometimes it’s smart to let piracy happen.
I remember how, as a 10 year old playing Diablo 2, my knowledge of obscure weapon names and adjectives for armour in the English vocabulary was probably much better than that of adults. And we are all the better for it!
I kind of view my hierarchy of needs in terms of gaming. Do I have enough money to buy this or that? And if I don't, then I just tell myself: Well, StarCraft was never fun with the cheats, now was it? Hobbies are also like that, it's like happiness is like hacking a game to be fun for you rather than getting to the end point.
I guess if you start a free play in town and try to sell bus tickets to bring people to town, and I drive my friend there and ask him for money, I am an asshole.
what a world