3 ms·

The entire game industry is built on "rip-offs". Can you imagine the gaming landscape if nobody was allowed to clone Doom, or Street Fighter 2, or Dune 2/Comman

The entire game industry is built on "rip-offs". Can you imagine the gaming landscape if nobody was allowed to clone Doom, or Street Fighter 2, or Dune 2/Command & Conquer. Clone it once, it's a "rip-off". Clone it 10 times in slightly different ways it's a whole new genre (as we have seen with Battle Royales). Blocking developers from building games that copy mechanics, even seemingly verbatim is dangerous territory - I don't think anyone wins in the long term from getting any stricter with IP rights on video games. /However/ imo a line should still be drawn at outright stealing assets - which I believe the creators of Garena Free Fire have actually done in the past, hopefully this lawsuit sticks with that and doesn't attempt to create a stricter precedent. EDIT: I should probably include Warcraft in the early RTS list - seems like Dune 2 set up the conventions of the genre, but I'm not sure whether Warcraft or the first Command & Conquer did more work in popularizing it. Likewise I know Doom wasn't the very first first person shooter, but it definitely popularized the genre to the point that making "clones" was more profitable.

dleslie 5y ago
They're alleging art and other asset rips, which is very different from copying gameplay or themes.
- p1necone 5y ago
  Are they? The article says "game structure and in-game items, equipment, and locations" which doesn't sound like actual asset rips, although I wouldn't be surprised if the reporting on this was innacurate. Do you have other info about the content of the lawsuit?
  - dleslie 5y ago
    I just took a look at the complaint, and looks like I was wrong! They claimed such things were copied, and so I assumed an actual ripping; as that's common. But in the complaint it appears that they mean a more traditional copying by recreating a facsimile. That's greyer. It'll be up to the court to decide if it's flagrant enough of a duplicate to warrant damages.
caf 5y ago
I'm not sure I remember anyone cloning Doom with a setting of a Mars base infested by fireball-throwing demons, a marine as main character, puzzles consisting of brightly-coloured keys opening corresponding doors, the same slate of weapons and a red mist descending over the screen when your die. If they had, I feel like they would have been laughed out of the room in those days. (I don't know if this legal claim has a leg to stand on, but it does seem to be copying different in degree if not in kind from the Doom example). (The Settlers and Syndicate were near-contemporaries of Dune 2 in that genre, perhaps also responsible for some of the genre conventions?)
- p1necone 5y ago
  I can't think of other games set /on mars/ and /with demons/, but the broad weapon archetypes (shitty single shot pistol/rifle, shotgun, bigger shotgun, high fire rate chaingun type thing, 'BFG' esque super weapon) and doors with keys thing were both aped by a lot of games. And there were certainly other FPS games with demonic themes. Regardless, 'Scavenged Present Day Military Equipment on Island' is a much less distinct theme than 'Demons on Mars'. ... I think calling the Settlers and Syndicate RTS games in the same vein as Warcraft or Command and Conquer is a stretch. If you compare the latter two to big RTS titles released even years later (Age of Empires, TA/Supreme Commander, Dawn of War 1 are some examples I can think of that weren't made by the same studios as Dune/C&C/Warcraft) you'll see all the core mechanics are still the same - base building, unit training, economy, UX conventions. The Settlers and Syndicate are lower case real-time strategy games, but they aren't 'Real Time Strategy' games.
  - caf 5y ago
    Didn't Syndicate originate the "unit training" type mechanic in the RTS context, where you upgrade individual units?
distantsounds 5y ago
koonsolo 5y ago
I agree, but legally, there does seem to be a limit on how far you can go about cloning another concept. I remembered the following case, and was able to find it back: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gamesindustry.biz/amp/2012-10-15-spry-fox-wins-ownership-of-yeti-town-as-part-of-triple-town-settlement https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gamesindustry.biz/amp/2012-...
deleted 5y ago
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dleslie 5y ago

They're alleging art and other asset rips, which is very different from copying gameplay or themes.

p1necone 5y ago
Are they? The article says "game structure and in-game items, equipment, and locations" which doesn't sound like actual asset rips, although I wouldn't be surprised if the reporting on this was innacurate. Do you have other info about the content of the lawsuit?
- dleslie 5y ago
  I just took a look at the complaint, and looks like I was wrong! They claimed such things were copied, and so I assumed an actual ripping; as that's common. But in the complaint it appears that they mean a more traditional copying by recreating a facsimile. That's greyer. It'll be up to the court to decide if it's flagrant enough of a duplicate to warrant damages.

caf 5y ago

I'm not sure I remember anyone cloning Doom with a setting of a Mars base infested by fireball-throwing demons, a marine as main character, puzzles consisting of brightly-coloured keys opening corresponding doors, the same slate of weapons and a red mist descending over the screen when your die. If they had, I feel like they would have been laughed out of the room in those days. (I don't know if this legal claim has a leg to stand on, but it does seem to be copying different in degree if not in kind from the Doom example). (The Settlers and Syndicate were near-contemporaries of Dune 2 in that genre, perhaps also responsible for some of the genre conventions?)

p1necone 5y ago
I can't think of other games set /on mars/ and /with demons/, but the broad weapon archetypes (shitty single shot pistol/rifle, shotgun, bigger shotgun, high fire rate chaingun type thing, 'BFG' esque super weapon) and doors with keys thing were both aped by a lot of games. And there were certainly other FPS games with demonic themes. Regardless, 'Scavenged Present Day Military Equipment on Island' is a much less distinct theme than 'Demons on Mars'. ... I think calling the Settlers and Syndicate RTS games in the same vein as Warcraft or Command and Conquer is a stretch. If you compare the latter two to big RTS titles released even years later (Age of Empires, TA/Supreme Commander, Dawn of War 1 are some examples I can think of that weren't made by the same studios as Dune/C&C/Warcraft) you'll see all the core mechanics are still the same - base building, unit training, economy, UX conventions. The Settlers and Syndicate are lower case real-time strategy games, but they aren't 'Real Time Strategy' games.
- caf 5y ago
  Didn't Syndicate originate the "unit training" type mechanic in the RTS context, where you upgrade individual units?

distantsounds 5y ago

koonsolo 5y ago

I agree, but legally, there does seem to be a limit on how far you can go about cloning another concept. I remembered the following case, and was able to find it back: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gamesindustry.biz/amp/2012-10-15-spry-fox-wins-ownership-of-yeti-town-as-part-of-triple-town-settlement https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gamesindustry.biz/amp/2012-...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]