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In creative industries, the one who appropriates another's creation and calls it his own quickly earns the ire of those who place value in creativity. The same goes for innovation-driven industries.
The video game industry -- in an ideal sense -- values both creativity as well as innovation. So when an entity sullies those values by plagiarizing or even outright stealing from those who are regarded as creative and innovative, perhaps the wrath against the violator is two-fold.
While not a new debate, the subject of "copycatting" in the games industry gained some traction in recent days when three-person San Diego indie developer NimbleBit released a mocking infographic that pointed out striking similiarities between the studio's hit iPhone game Tiny Tower and a new Zynga Canadian App Store title, Dream Heights.
For all the criticism Zynga had received in the past about "ripping off" others' games, there was finally a game connected to Zynga that was undeniably similar enough to another, and instead of using the term "rip-off," people were using more pointed words like "theft" and "plagiarism."
Amid the heated discussion, Zynga gave Gamasutra an exclusive chance to talk to Zynga's game design chief Brian Reynolds. A true industry veteran, Reynolds has been a game designer for over two decades. His past credits include revered PC strategy games Civilization II, Alpha Centauri and Rise of Nations. His most recent credit? 2010's successful FrontierVille for Zynga.
Zynga would not allow its game design chief to talk specifics about the Tiny Tower situation, but Reynolds, who was not involved in the development of Dream Heights, argues that Zynga does have a culture of innovation, and claims today's environment of copycatting isn't really much different than when Doom launched in the '90s.
 From your perspective, what are you seeing lately in these “copycat” reports and what’s your take on that overall?
Brian Reynolds: Well, I’ve been making games, I’m actually coming up on 21 years [laughs]. So when I put it in perspective, with having been around the game industry a long time, I’m not exactly sure why it’s considered such a big deal right now, or why someone thinks there’s anything really surprising going on.
At Zynga, of course, I feel like we’ve got lots of innovation going on, so I certainly want to talk about that. But I was there in the '90s when Doom came out and then everybody made a shooter, and I was there when Warcraft and Command & Conquer came out in 1997, and then like 50 different [real-time strategy] games launched, and it was the year of the RTS.
And we don’t remember very many of them any more. So when there’s a new genre or a new thing, then everybody gets their game in. And the main thing for us, our goal is to have the highest-quality thing. Obviously it’s competitive, and we may not always end up being the one to have the best thing in every space, but we certainly try to.
One of the subtleties about the social games space is you’re kind of updating and changing a lot, so what you ship when you first launch isn’t always where the game ultimately goes. And there’s certainly something to be said for just kind of getting something up and running in the space, and then you then you keep on innovating it. That’s a little bit more of a web model then a traditional game industry model, but it’s certainly also something that kind of applies.
The vibe that I’m getting is that ... you’ve been making games for a long time and you don't see this as a new trend.
BR: Actually you know, some of the best games ever made, I’ve felt like were actually, the best way to put it -- the most favorable way to put it -- might be a "glorious synthesis" of stuff in previous games. I bought the very first Civilization, I think one of the greatest games really of all time. I felt like, "Hey wow, what a great synthesis between the Empire game from the PC and the Civilization board game, you know? So it was like some of this and some of that, and then some completely new stuff thrown in.
Well, that’s the thing, though. With that example in particular, you've got "some of this" and you've got "some of that" and it’s got some new stuff thrown in. The games in question are games that are being accused of taking too much, and not adding enough.
Like Dream Heights -- it’s being accused of not taking anything from anywhere else, that it’s not taking a little bit from there or a little bit from here or adding new stuff. A lot of people are seeing, "Hey, this is a reskinned Tiny Tower," and I think that’s the difference, though, between the example you gave and what’s happening now.
[PR steered the conversation away from Dream Heights at this point.]
BR: You know, when FarmVille came out there was a lot of [criticism]. We certainly weren’t the first to market and all that. It was a farm game, but there had been several other farm games, and there was My Farm and there was Farm Town, and I felt pretty good about the farm game we came up with, because I just felt like it was the one that was better, that we won because our game was better. It had better art. It had the simplest, most accessible interface, and that’s what it was. It was farm games-meet-mass-market-accessibility, and it had really good simple art.
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What? such a coward approach. Can't believe how someone can "rationalize" such a blantant clone (although he avoids ever actually responding the questions he is asked), I fail to see where there is innovation in something so shamelessly copied. It's beyond me how someone can play both games and not realize how much of a rip-off Dream Heights is.
Hey, Zinga guy, at least have the decency of recognising that this IS a re-skin (and no, this is not a change from Age of empires to Star Wars, that actually changes the whole context of the game).
Tiny tower is not just an undeveloped idea, it doesn't have busted technology or under-developed aesthetics, and it clearly isn't 100% original, but it does innovate in areas that make it that much more adequate to the iOS interface, and it clearly adds quite a bit of its own. Don't even compare your "contribution" to the game with any form of improvement...
just reading how he defuses the very valid accusations fills me with indignation.
I agree, you can have original ideas in similar genres. Hell I would give you reasonable doubt this if this was a sci-fi starship building simulator, or a medieval castle tower builder.. but this? Sorry, I'm not buying this sort of "Innovation".
At least give it the credit it deserves. Repeat after me: "YES, we copied the game because we thought we could make a metric ton of money of it. And now I'm trying to justify our copy by saying the industry has always been taking inspiration from each other, so we're gonna try to bury the original with our monstruous marketing power".
"Keep Innovating?"...so that you can keep stealing? (oh sorry, did I say stealing? I meant getting inspiration)
Shameful
Zynga clearly knows that they're in a position of privilege and that they can do whatever they want without fearing any consequences. As an up-and-coming indie developer, I fear that this will severely affect innovation within the games industry, instead of promoting it. No original idea will be safe, 'cause the "big guys" have the go-ahead to copy any IP they want without having to justify their actions. This must be stopped.
Zynga would get more sympathy if they weren't so cavalier in their ripoffs, as Pincus (allegedly) said:
"copy what [Zynga's competitors] do and do it until you get their numbers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Galactic_Battlegrounds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_Engine
For example: Neighbors. Random animals that show up in your play area that friends to help save them. Buildable decorations that require friends to send you pieces (or money to buy the pieces). Reputations between friends that you can go visit. Gifting as it is currently done on Facebook. Sending welcome gifts to your new friends. "Questing" style tutorial systems. These are all things that Zynga either created or perfected that are now cloned left and right in other games.
Say what you want about Zynga cloning overall game themes and mechanics (which I think is ridiculous) but they do have a working formula that they layer on top, and this is what has made them so successful.
I'll say they are, indirectly.
"Hm, how do I design a game that can't be cloned?"
Adding a list of required features or requested feature is neither innovative nor copycatting. But implenting them in the near identical manner and thus with all features of the original title or competitors is actual plagiarism and needs to be dealed as such. No matter the size of the company. And with Zynga reskinning the title of a 3-person studio almost identical, there's much of rightful anger about it and we shouldnt point our fingers at others developers, should they reuse some features used by Zynga titles. It's the amount and comparability which is questionable and not the single fact at all.
"Dream Heights -- it’s being accused of not taking anything from anywhere else, that it’s not taking a little bit from there or a little bit from here or adding new stuff. A lot of people are seeing, "Hey, this is a reskinned Tiny Tower," and I think that’s the difference, though, between the example you gave and what’s happening now."
And I stopped reading with this reply:
[PR steered the conversation away from Dream Heights at this point.]
Not criticizing Gamasutra, just using snark to criticize Zynga as the measured responses by their design head (and the putting him up for this interview in the first place) is a transparent PR stunt to save face for what is now a publicly traded company where the perception of the company now affects its real stock value.
All that aside though, I can't entirely agree with the spin either. He's entirely right that any popular game will inspire others to try something similar, but there's a difference between inspired by and copying, and in videogames, the difference is this: does your game actually attempt to innovate the gameplay or change the narrative in any meaningful way? Just having better graphics and usability just means you have more money and experience. It may well be that your game is better, but it doesn't mean anyone would really consider it a different game. Imagine taking Doom and remaking it with better graphics and a tutorial, for example. Is it now a better than the original? Sure. Is it a different game though? No.
Thanks at least for the warning, Kris.
If Zynga was around in 94, that is what they would have done.
"It's hard to disagree with the NimbleBit guys on this one, and it's equally difficult to find the "improvement" Zynga claims to have packed into Dream Tower. From where we're sitting, it seems that the main "improvement" that they're seeing is the Zynga dog in the top left corner of the Dream Tower app icon." - Toucharcade
"One former Zynga game designer says that the company's interns were instructed to do "recon" on competitors' games, isolating features that their higher-ups would try to copy. "They would sit and look at competitive products and write down all the features and make it obvious to us," the designer says. One contractor says he was offered freelance work from Zynga, related to mimicking a competitor's application, with explicit instructions: "Copy that game."
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/09/zynga_pincus_copy_games.php
http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-09-08/news/farmvillains/
This has the appearance of stealth editorializing by Gamasutra -- expressing an opinion about the content of a story, through the choice of images (flattering/unflattering) or ironic juxtaposition, instead of directly stating those views to readers. If that's the case here, it's disappointing.
(And before anyone springs unnecessarily to Gamasutra's defense, I'll point out that I'm on record as seeing cloners as little better than piratical opportunists who hurt the computer game industry. I have no interest in defending Zynga. This comment is about whether Gamasutra will trust news consumers by communicating straight information -- including interviews -- separately from editorial opinion, or if we need to be wary of covert commentary.)
If the PR handler for the company is going to step in and simply stop parts of the interview from going forward, the journalist providing un-doctored screenshots of the products in question really seems like just the barest, most minimal journalistic responsibility they could possibly exercise.
There's a line here that Gamasutra has to walk, there's no doubt. But there's an issue here about informing as well as trusting. I don't believe that journalism is about simply presenting, without context, the doctored and curated opinions of a large corporation who do have a very specific agenda here.
Without some factual context from the journalist here, we would just have a press release. Even if that means Gamasutra is trusting ME more, it means that I will trust Gamasutra LESS in the future.
All that said, GREAT work, Gamasutra.
I thought this was an appropriate interview, with the PR person's intervention properly and sufficiently noted. I ask about the use and placement of that image because I think the interview (and any news story in general) is stronger without anything that looks like it's quietly nudging the reader toward someone else's conclusions.
I fully endorse editorial commentary... in editorials clearly marked as such.
And the reality that humans can't achieve perfection in anything is not and must never be a justification for not trying to make the best product possible. In serious journalism, which Gamasutra normally does very well, that includes not sneaking opinion-based jabs into otherwise straight factual reporting -- we said this, he said that -- and respecting readers as competent to form their own conclusions.
The focus on "we said this, he said that" is one of the most damaging aspects of American journalism today. It's critically important to get the facts - the statements - right, but it's equally important to present the reality the statements exist in. That reality is that Zynga cloned a game. My main complaint is that Gamasutra didn't push harder when Zynga followed up with such obvious derailing crap.
An interviewer is doing more than regurgitating PR talk is an interviewer doing their job right. Adam's comment nailed it.
(More on why "x said, y said" is failure: http://archive.pressthink.org/2009/04/12/hesaid_shesaid.html , http://pressthink.org/2011/09/we-have-no-idea-whos-right-criticizing-he-s aid-she
-said-journalism-at-npr/ )
The dude is defending himself against alegations of copying. Including the image is actually necessary to clarify the specific alegation that started this. Bit of reading comprehension here friends!
I understand your point about ironic juxtaposition, but the interview was pretty one-note. I'm not sure where a side-by-side comparison would have fit without being ironically juxtaposed.
I found this to be the most interesting part of the interview because Brian is basically saying "Don't worry the best one comes out on top" as if, often, the game being copycatted is the best one. But as other articles have pointed out, Zynga spends hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising, so ostensibly Brian is justifying Zynga's actions with copycatting and putting more marketing behind it.
Just because something is common doesn't make it not deplorable.
Reynolds: "I felt pretty good about the farm game we came up with, because I just felt like it was the one that was better, that we won because our game was better."
I absolutely refuse to believe that he is this naive about how Zynga's operation works. They "won" because they have the most marketing dollars and a priveleged status in the eyes of Facebook execs, who rely on Zynga "winning" to push their own bottom line.
If Reynolds really believes he's just this genius game designer who make all the best games, then his narcissism is out of control and he might consider checking into an asylum.
> It was the first time the concept of quests had been done in social games.
> FrontierVille created the idea of what I call the "neighbor visit replay," where when you go visit somebody’s space -- their farm or frontier or whatever -- and sort of just kind of click and go.
> We also invented the concept of what we call "reputation," which is where you get a heart every time you click on one of your friend's things.
So they took quests from RPGs, increased visualization of social interactions and think they invented reputation. Is he serious? Also, this is just a lie:
> we definitely don’t believe in taking other people’s intellectual property and all that kind of stuff
I'm not buying this one bit. Anyone with half a brain can see tell when a game copies more than it is inspired from.
In today's world, independant bedroom programmers can easily release novel ideas and expect to make some money from them. Unfortunately, by definition, their products will require less resources to produce -- therefore they are sitting ducks for quick turnaround. And there is no convenient practice, or protection to allow them to profit from their innovation.
If larger publishers would license the ideas, or offer to purchase the developer, etc. All would be happy...but presently, there's no motivation when they can cherry pick for free.
We must find a way to rectify this, as the larger publishers did, or indie developers will never prosper -- the more successful you are, the more likely your game will be stolen and trumped! What a reward...
eiyukabe at gmail if anyone wants to network, or just be updated on our progress.
"Zynga's growth has flatlined in the past three quarters. The company is also only profitable because of an accounting gimmick: It changed the rate at which it amortizes previously booked sales as revenue. Why on earth should a company like that trade at more than 8X revenue? Answer: It shouldn't. And the fact that it's still trading at close to that valuation means that investors are still valuing it very generously, perhaps on the assumption that Zynga will now release a bunch more hit games that will re-accelerate the company's growth." - Business Insider (http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-19/tech/30533215_1_zynga-ipo-market-
ipo-price)
Zynga NEEDS a bunch more hit games to re-accelerate their stagnating growth and to stave off the slide of the current stock price which is over-valued. My prediction is that need will be filled with risk-adverse clones of already successful games (which they'll call mere genres), and things are about to get a whole lot uglier with shameless cloning. Expect more PR spin from them in the future; I just hope Gamasutra features doesn't become the conduit for it.
I actually feel sorry for him. He was cornered into a very uncomfortable situation, and didn't really know how to give straight and clear answers. I don't think he would have approved himself the design of DreamHeights if he was in charge of it. He shouldn't be Zynga's scapegoat, but that's what this article makes him look like
My method of qualifying one or the other is to use the phrase "It's like [x] only ...", where you list something added to the genre.
Example:
Minecraft is like Infiniminer, only it's non-competitive and open world.
But the best I can come up with for Dream Heights is
Dream Heights is like Tiny Tower only it's got bubblier graphics.
This is where the issue rises. Many doom clones had 'something' that differentiated them on a gameplay level, where it may have been more enemies, different types of weapons, slower gameplay, powerups, etc.. they were distinct in some way.
If you see a game, and don't see anything to add/change to it in any way, you are not inspired, you are ripping off.
So yes, it's a bit of a cop-out to legislate this away, but my impression is that the system isn't working as intended. Presumably someone did some work somewhere along the line and expects to be compensated for it. I suppose it then comes down to an argument of where exactly the "work" is--is it in the design, the art, the marketing, or something else?
There's certainly "work" in implementing a copy, but I personally feel like it violates the spirit of innovation. That is, if you rely on copying the work of others, you're not advancing the field. Perhaps the thing that saddens me most about this is seeing a skilled designer like My. Reynolds working under a model which doesn't reward innovation, so his talents are effectively going to waste.
Does anyone here wonder what Zynga's business will be like if it drives the social gaming industry into a homogeneous, indistinguishable blob of re-skinned games?
I mean, stealing is bad and all, but even for Zynga's sake, I hope they learn their lesson, and fast.
P.S. I think this was a very courageous attempt to squeeze out an honest answer from a company with a reputation in jeopardy. Thanks for the article!
Mark Pincus, Zynga CEO: "I don't want f*cking innovation. You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers." 'nuff said.
Companies like Zynga are the worst thing of this industry. Hope they go broke (and their employees get to work in another company that really wants to make games).
Source: http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/02/02/156248/leaked-zynga-memo-justifies-copy
cat-strategy
It's not "copying" it's "competing", it's not a "rip off" it's "inspired by". Keep telling yourself that, Brian, whatever lets you sleep at night!
Since Zynga apparently has all this innovation going on, I would have liked seeing a small line of questioning towards how Zynga credits/promotes its individual developers responsible for these innovations, what Brian would like Zynga to do in that vein in the future, and how he would feel about this recognition leveraged in marketing so "Sid Meier's XYZ" would be joined by "Brian Reynolds' XYZVille" in the future. :-)
I can't muster much outrage for what Zynga is doing. It's just a code factory diluting the market by cloning dull games and non-games into more dull games and non-games, and getting away with it without customer backlash because their target audience consists of people nearly indifferent to game quality and completely oblivious to the development ethics. Inevitable, really. Protecting game mechanics / designs with law (beyond trademark / product identification issues and copyright for specific assets) just to stop Zynga and its ilk would be a terrible idea. When real developers are able to improve upon the best ideas of other real developers, quality moves forward.