10 ms·

Barring actual fraud and wholesale theft of art assets, if your idea is copied so easily and consumers apparently can’t team the difference between your game an

by nkrisc 5y ago

Barring actual fraud and wholesale theft of art assets, if your idea is copied so easily and consumers apparently can’t team the difference between your game and a clone, do you really have a viable product or were you just the first person to think of an easily commoditized idea? Games that endure usually have something unique about then that resonates with consumers, despite the existence of clones. That might be the characters, the story, that intangible touch of the original artist some game clone sweatshop can’t replicate. You can get a burger anywhere, but I bet every city has at least one burger place that just makes it better, the atmosphere is better, the beer menu better, and there’s always a line out the door. Are games really any different? The example at the beginning of the article looks like it’s different art in the same style. But if it’s a game and not an actual scam, so what? This part confused me though: Clones impact small developers in more than one way, but the most direct consequence for Witch Beam was a rise in confused players which in turn can grow into bad PR for the studio and its staff being overwhelmed by demands. "People were going to our website and being confused, thinking that this is part of the sign-up process to play the game through this app that they got, and signing up to our mailing list thinking that they're signing up to play the game," Brier explains. "We were just flooded with mailing list sign-ups, which then brought us up a tier on Mailchimp, for these low-quality subscribers. And they're low quality because they don't want to be subscribers, and they might even mark us as spam if they get our emails. Where were these confused players coming from? Sounds like the site was designed poorly from a UX perspective.

ReactiveJelly 5y ago
I agree, games are the same. The problem is that solo indie doesn't work well in any medium. Everything worth doing benefits from having team members. I think novelists are the closest to still doing things solo, but they still have publishers, editors, beta readers, proofreaders, sensitivity readers, people who check their research if they care about historical accuracy, etc. I think there was a slow-motion bubble from maybe the 1980s until the 2010s where solo indie game dev worked because: - Video games were hard to make - Computers were hard to use - The tools sucked - Almost nobody knew how to program So if you were a smart person who could program half-decently, you had the makings of a game. Now the world is better, and the solo style is left behind. I don't know much about music, but I speculate musicians would say the same. You might be able to play a bunch of instruments, do your own mixing, publish yourself on Bandcamp and whatever, but dollar for dollar most of the industry is singers who don't write their own songs, backup dancers with no names, and session musicians who are in the studio when the recording is done. Calling it "clone culture" misses the point: Games are easy to make now. Indie dev is probably never going to be as hip as when Braid came out. And even Jon Blow didn't do it solo, he bought the music and I think contracted an artist for Braid. Specialization works, scale works.
- wincy 5y ago
  As a counterpoint, there is Stardew Valley. Stardew Valley came entirely out of left field, ConcernedApe released a pixel graphics farming sim of all things, made $35 million dollars because he’d literally done it all himself, even the game engine, and the niche (farming games) he was competing with, including games like Harvest Moon which has teams of developers pumping out absolute crap compared to what he made. Then again he wasn’t necessarily doing it to make money in the first place, it uses “timeless” pixel art, and he spent 6 or so years making the game with no actual time limit to when he could release it (as he had a day job and wasn’t going to run out of money). And the game just has a soul that makes it feel great to play and be in. I just got around to playing it this year and absolutely love it.
  - city41 5y ago
    Are there any other examples of successful games made by one person? I was going to say Fez, but two people created it. Successful single dev games are exceptionally rare
    - adenozine 5y ago
      Minecraft, in the early days. I think single-dev games start, similarly to startups, and gradually pick up small teams as they go. Minecraft fits that bill to a tee, I'm sure there are younger, more informed people here who could point to other examples. The totality of direction that one solo person has over a project isn't actually all that important, in reality. Having one or two or three team members to rely on, delegate to, bounce ideas off, is way more effective towards getting things done, and especially on a schedule.
      - ido 5y ago
        Yeah there are a bunch of 1 person (or more useful, less than 5 people) teams who find a good amount of success still. I personally prefer “band-sized” teams (mid single-digit) over solo, I find it a lot easier to stay motivated and easier to achieve high productivity due to more chances for specializations while still being small enough to maintain an “indie feel”. I believe supercell (hardly an indie) maintain game teams at around 8 during dev and increase up to 17 when live, which is also sorta similar to the size you see in indie teams(f2p/GaaS need a lot more manpower for liveops). They just have a lot of such teams.
bitwize 5y ago
> Barring actual fraud and wholesale theft of art assets, if your idea is copied so easily and consumers apparently can’t team the difference between your game and a clone, do you really have a viable product or were you just the first person to think of an easily commoditized idea? Under U.S. copyright law, game clones infringe copyright. See Atari v. Philips: Philips developed a game, K.C. Munchkin! for the Magnavox Odyssey2, that looked and played like Pac-Man (which Atari had exclusive home console rights to). The sprites were completely different, the maze layout was different, and there were a few different mechanics. Nevertheless the judge determined that K.C. Munchkin! was similar enough to Pac-Man as to be infringing. Another example: Tetris, one of the most heavily defended game IPs of all time. The Tetris Company claims copyright on the concept of a falling-tetromino game with the characreristics of Tetris, and has won court cases (e.g. Tetris Holdings v. Xio) defending that copyright. Writing a Tetris clone is asking for contact from TTC's lawyers. > The example at the beginning of the article looks like it’s different art in the same style. But if it’s a game and not an actual scam, so what? It's "substantially similar" under U.S. copyright law, which may make it infringing.
- the_af 5y ago
  > Another example: Tetris, one of the most heavily defended game IPs of all time. The Tetris Company claims copyright on the concept of a falling-tetromino game with the characreristics of Tetris, and has won court cases (e.g. Tetris Holdings v. Xio) defending that copyright. IANAL and really confused about this, but... how can you claim copyright over a "concept"? That sounds more like a patent to me. You can trademark names, e.g. tetris, and patent a mechanism for falling pieces, but how can you "copyright" a game concept? In my mind, copyright refers to actually copying large portions of the "content", which in tetris case would be... the assets? Are you sure the lawsuit wasn't about patents?
  - Nevermark 5y ago
    A patent protects a means of doing something. It doesn't protect the final form. In this case "concept" has a specific meaning. Not just an "idea", which obviously is not copyrightable. But the general structure of a creative work from the consumers experience. For instance, rewriting a novel with new names, new locations, swapping out details not necessary for the plot with equivalent supporting details, etc. IANAL, so I have no idea what the legalities of copyrighting a "concept" are. But that is what is meant by the concept of a creative work. It is the core of the creative work, and creative works are what copyright was intended to protect/incentivize.
pengaru 5y ago
Burgers are hot food inherently consumed near their origin. Games are software, there's not really much equivalence here. In lieu of software patents, software has no means of preventing clones outside of using high production value (expensive to develop) as a moat. I don't think it's particularly great for indie creators, to implicitly tell them "make your games more expensive to clone (more expensive for you to develop) if you want to actually keep a roof over your head." A fun creative game worth playing isn't necessarily costly to develop, but this situation is strongly discouraging such games from being made. But that's the world we live in now, games are basically yet another starving artist industry. Back on the subject of hot foods, VICE just did a story on a NYC pizzeria clone serving a community increasingly composed of folks who once lived near the original pizzeria. It resulted in mob "meetings" and an unexplained murder of the original pizzeria's owner...
- orangecat 5y ago
  I don't think it's particularly great for indie creators Maybe not, but the alternative is worse. I don't want federal judges declaring that Torchlight is illegal because it's too close to Diablo. games are basically yet another starving artist industry Yes, this is the market correctly telling potential game developers that there's an oversupply and they should consider doing something else.
  - pengaru 5y ago
    > Yes, this is the market correctly telling potential game developers that there's an oversupply and they should consider doing something else. Shouldn't the abundance of clones naturally cease in an oversupply scenario, since they'd be unable to garner any returns? I'm no economist, but it doesn't seem to make business sense. Perhaps what's really going on is the act of creating and shipping low-effort clones has become a game unto itself. That doesn't have to be profitable for the "creators"; they're being entertained and paying app store fees so Valve is still happy selling proverbial shovels.
    - leppr 5y ago
CJefferson 5y ago
Developing a fun game takes huge amounts of time -- many ideas are thrown away, you have to worry about balance, length. Most games are an "easily commoditized idea". Coming up with an idea, then balancing a cool new 2D puzzle game might take months, or by a once-in-a-lifetime flash of brilliance. Cloning it will take a decent game dev team a month or two.
telchior 5y ago
I think this burger restaurant metaphor is... really not great. Imagine instead that you've spent two years in a kitchen, working nonstop on a completely new type of food. You've discovered how to make something unprecedented, but it took endless rounds of tweaking ingredients and taste-testing. You open a restaurant to sell your food, and it succeeds massively. ... unfortunately for you, the main ingredients are just flour, eggs, sugar and milk, and for whatever reason, it's pretty easy to reverse-engineer your recipe. Within half a year, a dozen copycat restaurants are all making the same thing, except maybe they sprinkle some powdered sugar or salsa on top. Now, I don't know what you'd do in the restaurant industry to litigate against that. There's probably some viable path, though, because it's obvious that you created something entirely new, and it can't exist without a specific recipe and method. In the video game industry, though, it's pretty difficult. Patents don't work very well. The legal system hasn't been kind to people trying to claim ownership of gameplay types, even if it's blatantly obvious that the described gameplay wouldn't exist without that person. Platforms also really don't give a shit (see the recent thread about Apple allowing through dozens of Wordle clones, but that's only the latest in a very long history of App Store clones). I think it's just a narrow and pretty uncharitable view of game dev that would lead to the thought that it's like opening a restaurant, much less one making some food type that has existed for a century. Creating a new gameplay mechanic is not at all like tossing a new type of pickle on a sandwich.
- booleandilemma 5y ago
  What you describe kinda sorta happened in 2013 NYC with the introduction of the cronut. A baker created a new type of croissant and it exploded in popularity - overnight success. It wasn’t long before Dunkin Donuts was selling their own cronuts (they had to use a different name for them though, the baker had trademarked the original name). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronut
  - nekcihc 5y ago
    As someone who is making food at home and do not visit restaurants(because I have seen other side - how the food is made), I can only see Cronut as a brand development and advertisment of a donut(which is terrible food IMO). People in NYC are probably very bored(just like I am with my food scene here - that's another reason why I am preparing my own food) - that's why they were excited for new thing.
TrianguloY 5y ago
> Games that endure usually have something unique about then that resonates with consumers, despite the existence of clones. But clones have that exact same unique feature, that's why it's called a clone. If you played/hear the original, you'll recognize the clone right away. But if you find the clone first, you'll think that's the one with that unique feature. Maybe later you discover the original, but the damage is already done.
foo_barrio 5y ago
I don't like this take at all. Copying is always easier than creating no? A lot of times the things that make or break or game are fine tuning the mechanics in order to balance difficulty/reward etc. Once this is done it's trivial to copy. Games are more like music than food IMO. It's trivial to copy a song once you hear it. That doesn't somehow mean it's not a worthy song.
- nkrisc 5y ago
  Agreed. It’sa lot of work and it’s easy to copy, so if finely-tuned game mechanics is your only hook for your game, it’ll be hard to compete in the genre since it’s so easily copied. If you’re interested in commercial success for your game, you need value that can’t be so easily copied. Sometimes it’s as basic as having a good community around the game.
aahortwwy 5y ago
> if your idea is copied so easily and consumers apparently can’t team the difference between your game and a clone, do you really have a viable product or were you just the first person to think of an easily commoditized idea? You're diminishing the amount of research and effort that is frequently required to realise an easily commoditized idea. This is why patents exist. Original game ideas are the product of thousands of hours of experimentation and playtesting. All of that time, effort, and creativity produces a fun mechanic which can often be cloned with ease. Would you be saying this if we were talking about a non-entertainment product? What if we were discussing, hypothetically, a novel user interface for medical software which a startup produced after conducting thousands of interviews with doctors across the globe? And then a better funded competitor got their hands on a copy of the software and just replicated the screens in a few weeks? Or an AI research startup that spent years working on an innovative new model, only for a customer to yoink all the parameters/weights/configuration/whatever and release a competing product backed by a large company?
- Buttons840 5y ago
  Are you arguing that patents should be applicable to games? The problem with that is that people will spend thousands of hours on experimentation and playtesting and then the patent system will swoop in the day after release and tell them they aren't actually allowed to release the thing they invented and created themselves.
  - aahortwwy 5y ago
    I wasn't arguing for game mechanic patents, I was using the existence of patents as evidence that we've recognized the problem of "person A invests massively in researching something new, person B just copies them and wins in the market" and tried to solve it. Indeed, copyright and licensing are similar attempts to solve this problem. Indie devs tend to lack the resources to litigate with cloners, though.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  You started with the assumption that patents ought to exist and never proved it because you think its obvious. I disagree.

by nkrisc 5y ago

ReactiveJelly 5y ago

I agree, games are the same. The problem is that solo indie doesn't work well in any medium. Everything worth doing benefits from having team members. I think novelists are the closest to still doing things solo, but they still have publishers, editors, beta readers, proofreaders, sensitivity readers, people who check their research if they care about historical accuracy, etc. I think there was a slow-motion bubble from maybe the 1980s until the 2010s where solo indie game dev worked because: - Video games were hard to make - Computers were hard to use - The tools sucked - Almost nobody knew how to program So if you were a smart person who could program half-decently, you had the makings of a game. Now the world is better, and the solo style is left behind. I don't know much about music, but I speculate musicians would say the same. You might be able to play a bunch of instruments, do your own mixing, publish yourself on Bandcamp and whatever, but dollar for dollar most of the industry is singers who don't write their own songs, backup dancers with no names, and session musicians who are in the studio when the recording is done. Calling it "clone culture" misses the point: Games are easy to make now. Indie dev is probably never going to be as hip as when Braid came out. And even Jon Blow didn't do it solo, he bought the music and I think contracted an artist for Braid. Specialization works, scale works.

wincy 5y ago
As a counterpoint, there is Stardew Valley. Stardew Valley came entirely out of left field, ConcernedApe released a pixel graphics farming sim of all things, made $35 million dollars because he’d literally done it all himself, even the game engine, and the niche (farming games) he was competing with, including games like Harvest Moon which has teams of developers pumping out absolute crap compared to what he made. Then again he wasn’t necessarily doing it to make money in the first place, it uses “timeless” pixel art, and he spent 6 or so years making the game with no actual time limit to when he could release it (as he had a day job and wasn’t going to run out of money). And the game just has a soul that makes it feel great to play and be in. I just got around to playing it this year and absolutely love it.
- city41 5y ago
  Are there any other examples of successful games made by one person? I was going to say Fez, but two people created it. Successful single dev games are exceptionally rare
  - adenozine 5y ago
    Minecraft, in the early days. I think single-dev games start, similarly to startups, and gradually pick up small teams as they go. Minecraft fits that bill to a tee, I'm sure there are younger, more informed people here who could point to other examples. The totality of direction that one solo person has over a project isn't actually all that important, in reality. Having one or two or three team members to rely on, delegate to, bounce ideas off, is way more effective towards getting things done, and especially on a schedule.
    - ido 5y ago
      Yeah there are a bunch of 1 person (or more useful, less than 5 people) teams who find a good amount of success still. I personally prefer “band-sized” teams (mid single-digit) over solo, I find it a lot easier to stay motivated and easier to achieve high productivity due to more chances for specializations while still being small enough to maintain an “indie feel”. I believe supercell (hardly an indie) maintain game teams at around 8 during dev and increase up to 17 when live, which is also sorta similar to the size you see in indie teams(f2p/GaaS need a lot more manpower for liveops). They just have a lot of such teams.

bitwize 5y ago

> Barring actual fraud and wholesale theft of art assets, if your idea is copied so easily and consumers apparently can’t team the difference between your game and a clone, do you really have a viable product or were you just the first person to think of an easily commoditized idea? Under U.S. copyright law, game clones infringe copyright. See Atari v. Philips: Philips developed a game, K.C. Munchkin! for the Magnavox Odyssey2, that looked and played like Pac-Man (which Atari had exclusive home console rights to). The sprites were completely different, the maze layout was different, and there were a few different mechanics. Nevertheless the judge determined that K.C. Munchkin! was similar enough to Pac-Man as to be infringing. Another example: Tetris, one of the most heavily defended game IPs of all time. The Tetris Company claims copyright on the concept of a falling-tetromino game with the characreristics of Tetris, and has won court cases (e.g. Tetris Holdings v. Xio) defending that copyright. Writing a Tetris clone is asking for contact from TTC's lawyers. > The example at the beginning of the article looks like it’s different art in the same style. But if it’s a game and not an actual scam, so what? It's "substantially similar" under U.S. copyright law, which may make it infringing.

the_af 5y ago
> Another example: Tetris, one of the most heavily defended game IPs of all time. The Tetris Company claims copyright on the concept of a falling-tetromino game with the characreristics of Tetris, and has won court cases (e.g. Tetris Holdings v. Xio) defending that copyright. IANAL and really confused about this, but... how can you claim copyright over a "concept"? That sounds more like a patent to me. You can trademark names, e.g. tetris, and patent a mechanism for falling pieces, but how can you "copyright" a game concept? In my mind, copyright refers to actually copying large portions of the "content", which in tetris case would be... the assets? Are you sure the lawsuit wasn't about patents?
- Nevermark 5y ago
  A patent protects a means of doing something. It doesn't protect the final form. In this case "concept" has a specific meaning. Not just an "idea", which obviously is not copyrightable. But the general structure of a creative work from the consumers experience. For instance, rewriting a novel with new names, new locations, swapping out details not necessary for the plot with equivalent supporting details, etc. IANAL, so I have no idea what the legalities of copyrighting a "concept" are. But that is what is meant by the concept of a creative work. It is the core of the creative work, and creative works are what copyright was intended to protect/incentivize.

pengaru 5y ago

Burgers are hot food inherently consumed near their origin. Games are software, there's not really much equivalence here. In lieu of software patents, software has no means of preventing clones outside of using high production value (expensive to develop) as a moat. I don't think it's particularly great for indie creators, to implicitly tell them "make your games more expensive to clone (more expensive for you to develop) if you want to actually keep a roof over your head." A fun creative game worth playing isn't necessarily costly to develop, but this situation is strongly discouraging such games from being made. But that's the world we live in now, games are basically yet another starving artist industry. Back on the subject of hot foods, VICE just did a story on a NYC pizzeria clone serving a community increasingly composed of folks who once lived near the original pizzeria. It resulted in mob "meetings" and an unexplained murder of the original pizzeria's owner...

orangecat 5y ago
I don't think it's particularly great for indie creators Maybe not, but the alternative is worse. I don't want federal judges declaring that Torchlight is illegal because it's too close to Diablo. games are basically yet another starving artist industry Yes, this is the market correctly telling potential game developers that there's an oversupply and they should consider doing something else.
- pengaru 5y ago
  > Yes, this is the market correctly telling potential game developers that there's an oversupply and they should consider doing something else. Shouldn't the abundance of clones naturally cease in an oversupply scenario, since they'd be unable to garner any returns? I'm no economist, but it doesn't seem to make business sense. Perhaps what's really going on is the act of creating and shipping low-effort clones has become a game unto itself. That doesn't have to be profitable for the "creators"; they're being entertained and paying app store fees so Valve is still happy selling proverbial shovels.
  - leppr 5y ago

CJefferson 5y ago

Developing a fun game takes huge amounts of time -- many ideas are thrown away, you have to worry about balance, length. Most games are an "easily commoditized idea". Coming up with an idea, then balancing a cool new 2D puzzle game might take months, or by a once-in-a-lifetime flash of brilliance. Cloning it will take a decent game dev team a month or two.

telchior 5y ago

I think this burger restaurant metaphor is... really not great. Imagine instead that you've spent two years in a kitchen, working nonstop on a completely new type of food. You've discovered how to make something unprecedented, but it took endless rounds of tweaking ingredients and taste-testing. You open a restaurant to sell your food, and it succeeds massively. ... unfortunately for you, the main ingredients are just flour, eggs, sugar and milk, and for whatever reason, it's pretty easy to reverse-engineer your recipe. Within half a year, a dozen copycat restaurants are all making the same thing, except maybe they sprinkle some powdered sugar or salsa on top. Now, I don't know what you'd do in the restaurant industry to litigate against that. There's probably some viable path, though, because it's obvious that you created something entirely new, and it can't exist without a specific recipe and method. In the video game industry, though, it's pretty difficult. Patents don't work very well. The legal system hasn't been kind to people trying to claim ownership of gameplay types, even if it's blatantly obvious that the described gameplay wouldn't exist without that person. Platforms also really don't give a shit (see the recent thread about Apple allowing through dozens of Wordle clones, but that's only the latest in a very long history of App Store clones). I think it's just a narrow and pretty uncharitable view of game dev that would lead to the thought that it's like opening a restaurant, much less one making some food type that has existed for a century. Creating a new gameplay mechanic is not at all like tossing a new type of pickle on a sandwich.

booleandilemma 5y ago
What you describe kinda sorta happened in 2013 NYC with the introduction of the cronut. A baker created a new type of croissant and it exploded in popularity - overnight success. It wasn’t long before Dunkin Donuts was selling their own cronuts (they had to use a different name for them though, the baker had trademarked the original name). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronut
- nekcihc 5y ago
  As someone who is making food at home and do not visit restaurants(because I have seen other side - how the food is made), I can only see Cronut as a brand development and advertisment of a donut(which is terrible food IMO). People in NYC are probably very bored(just like I am with my food scene here - that's another reason why I am preparing my own food) - that's why they were excited for new thing.

TrianguloY 5y ago

> Games that endure usually have something unique about then that resonates with consumers, despite the existence of clones. But clones have that exact same unique feature, that's why it's called a clone. If you played/hear the original, you'll recognize the clone right away. But if you find the clone first, you'll think that's the one with that unique feature. Maybe later you discover the original, but the damage is already done.

foo_barrio 5y ago

I don't like this take at all. Copying is always easier than creating no? A lot of times the things that make or break or game are fine tuning the mechanics in order to balance difficulty/reward etc. Once this is done it's trivial to copy. Games are more like music than food IMO. It's trivial to copy a song once you hear it. That doesn't somehow mean it's not a worthy song.

nkrisc 5y ago
Agreed. It’sa lot of work and it’s easy to copy, so if finely-tuned game mechanics is your only hook for your game, it’ll be hard to compete in the genre since it’s so easily copied. If you’re interested in commercial success for your game, you need value that can’t be so easily copied. Sometimes it’s as basic as having a good community around the game.

aahortwwy 5y ago

> if your idea is copied so easily and consumers apparently can’t team the difference between your game and a clone, do you really have a viable product or were you just the first person to think of an easily commoditized idea? You're diminishing the amount of research and effort that is frequently required to realise an easily commoditized idea. This is why patents exist. Original game ideas are the product of thousands of hours of experimentation and playtesting. All of that time, effort, and creativity produces a fun mechanic which can often be cloned with ease. Would you be saying this if we were talking about a non-entertainment product? What if we were discussing, hypothetically, a novel user interface for medical software which a startup produced after conducting thousands of interviews with doctors across the globe? And then a better funded competitor got their hands on a copy of the software and just replicated the screens in a few weeks? Or an AI research startup that spent years working on an innovative new model, only for a customer to yoink all the parameters/weights/configuration/whatever and release a competing product backed by a large company?

Buttons840 5y ago
Are you arguing that patents should be applicable to games? The problem with that is that people will spend thousands of hours on experimentation and playtesting and then the patent system will swoop in the day after release and tell them they aren't actually allowed to release the thing they invented and created themselves.
- aahortwwy 5y ago
  I wasn't arguing for game mechanic patents, I was using the existence of patents as evidence that we've recognized the problem of "person A invests massively in researching something new, person B just copies them and wins in the market" and tried to solve it. Indeed, copyright and licensing are similar attempts to solve this problem. Indie devs tend to lack the resources to litigate with cloners, though.
michaelmrose 5y ago
You started with the assumption that patents ought to exist and never proved it because you think its obvious. I disagree.