The Roblox Game Cliff shut down recently after copying the popular co-op climbing game Peak. This happened shortly after the Peak developer Aggro Crab criticized it on social media for its monetization methods. It’s far from uncommon for Roblox game developers to create knockoffs and, in some cases, completely copy popular games. You’ll frequently see it with Minecraft where it can sometimes be difficult to see the difference.
It’s a fine line to tread between taking inspiration from a popular game and outright ripping off the original creator, and the users too. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help that Roblox monetization is often rife with manipulative models like gacha or paying for simple features. Which is only made worse when the audience for many of these games can be children.
Early into Cliff’s release, I saw some of those business practices in place. One case was a Fruit Raffle you could pay for a chance at different fruit items. Other microtransactions include a starter kit, a pickaxe, and paying for revives. I won’t argue that free-to-play games can’t have microtransactions, but it’s a tough balance to get down. Especially when you can spend real money to get items that help you win.
This is one of many reasons that microtransactions are controversial, especially when they create a pay-to-win environment. Instead of making a balanced experience or providing difficulty options as Peak does, you can push users toward spending real money to get ahead or catch up.
In the days following Aggro Crab criticizing Cliff, the Cliff developer, PewStudio, began changing the game to try and become more unique. However, it was clearly short-lived as it changed from Cliff to Grotto to Rise, then shutting down on August 12. In the developer’s Discord, it originally stated plans on August 5 to shut down the game. But the developer later edited this message, removing some content. We’ve included the unedited version below,
“Upon the request of you and creators of the games that inspired us, we have decided to shut down our game completely. We are developers who respect everyone’s rights. Our only wish is that those making this request show the same stance toward other inspired games that are played ten times more and resemble the originals ten times more than ours. Thank you all for your support. You will receive your payments back in another game, which I will announce very soon.”
A week later, on August 12, it followed up on the above statement, saying that it had permanently shut down the game originally known as Cliff,
“As announced, the game has been permanently closed and will not reopen. Your purchases will be refunded in another game.”
Any attempts to go to the game page will now redirect to a new game PewStudio made using the same game ID, Deadly Deep Sea. This is likely a way to keep some of the popularity it received from the knockoff. We’ve tried reaching out to Aggro Crab for more information to contribute to our story, but it hasn’t responded. Similarly, we tried reaching out to the developer behind Lethal Company, Zeekerss, since they have a unique perspective as a developer who started on Roblox. We weren’t able to get a response from them either.
With that said, Peak is a cheap game currently priced at $7.99. Making it affordable for many compared to games that can cost as high as $70 or $80 now. One interesting comment I’ve seen from Cliff players is that it gave them a chance to climb on other platforms. Since Roblox is on PC, consoles, mobile, and even VR to an extent, there are more options for playing games than Peak, which is only on PC.
Aggro Crab did, however, respond to a question on Twitter asking if it had any plans to bring it to consoles. The company noted that it wants to, but didn’t confirm any plans, timelines, or potential platforms it would come to.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.