[In this reprinted #altdevblogaday-opinion piece, WB Games/Kindling Games' Kristen Bornemann says players don't notice and don't care whether or not the game they're playing has cloned another, which is why devs need to strive to be first to market.]
There's been a lot ofdramarecently about the cloning or, more appropriately, the stealing of indie games. I had been thinking a lot lately about where I stand on the issue when I had an interaction with my mom that made me think about things a little differently.
Last week, I went to meet up with my family at a local bar to watch some Rugby World Cup. I almost couldn't believe it when I got to the bar and noticed my mom had her iPad out, playing Crimson: Steam Pirates. I asked her how she found the game, and she said it was in one of the top games lists for the iPad.
I then asked if she had heard of a game called Steambirds and if she knew that this was a direct clone of that game. She replied, "No. This game is really fun though," and kept on playing. Just as simple as that. Even asking my brother, who refers to himself jokingly as a MLG, didn't know about the Steam Pirates/Steambirds or Ridiculous Fishing/Ninja Fishing cloning fiascos.
The Reality
To players, there's no concept of cloning. Everyone outside of the industry does not hear the cries for the blood of those that copied the latest popular indie flash game. All they see is a very fun game with good mechanics. And they buy it. And then they tell their friends. And then it hits top of the list on the app store. It's not a fun reality, but it is reality.
I think the indie community -- and let's face it, the gaming community as a whole -- gets a little wrapped up and fails to see the big picture: most people do not know the news that flies around day to day in the industry. Nor do they care. All they want is a game to play when they have some free time.
The second reality is that there will always be cloners. We need to stop thinking that we can publicly shame cloners into stopping. As long as there's money to be made off of what other's have previously done, then there will be people to take advantage of it.
What now
What can we as indie devs do then with this reality? All we can do at this point is everything in our power to make sure our games are the first ones players see. There's a lot to be said about being first to market. Players won't be convinced into playing a new game with the same mechanics without being alienated by the current game they're playing (bugs, crashes, general unplayability… which doesn't happen with most of the clones I've seen).
Don't spend a year porting your game to iOS if it was a flash hit. It's not worth it. Reap the money off of releasing it right now, and then take a year to polish your next game with those funds. Otherwise, you're just cheating yourself out of money and allowing for the opportunity of someone else to come in and take it from you.
And if, as indie devs, we still can't get to market first and we get cloned and they are more successful than us, then we learn from experience and try again.
[This piece was reprinted from #AltDevBlogADay, a shared blog initiative started by @mike_acton devoted to giving game developers of all disciplines a place to motivate each other to write regularly about their personal game development passions.]
"...says players don't notice and don't care whether or not the game they're playing has cloned another, which is why devs need to strive to be first to market."
While I cannot speak whether this is true or not for the majority of players, I do think that players are aware and do care whether or not a game is a clone of another. On message boards and forums, I have often seen comments along the lines of "This is just game [x] with some extra [y] and a bit of [z]".
Usually, however, only people who have a strong bond with a game will dismiss a clone of that game simply due to the bond, regardless of of the fun factor. For example, Bob may say "I won't play Fortress Craft, just because it's a clone of Minecraft!", something which seems like a mistake to me. However, you also get players who say "This is just like [insert game], but in space!?(which makes almost everything better). Count me in!". In both situations, a player does notice and care that a game is a clone, but their actions differ.
I do agree with most of this, save that one part I mentioned in the beginning. If a game is fun, why not play it?
I think most people care about more than brainless fun - Most people want to do the right thing if they can.
iTunes shows that most would rather pay a tiny amount to feel that they're legally in the right (that they bough the music), rather than carry the baggage of infringing copyrights. I think a lot of software piracy is due to lack of cheap/easy options, not a deep love of piracy. (Little kids might proud of all the music they stole, but adults would rather not bring it up in polite company. History shows us that few people say "I'm a thief. Who wants to hang out with me?" They tend to keep such activities quiet, so they can have friends in the local community.
The problem is that there is no mechanism to inform most people that they're supporting a knock-off. If it appears in top 10 of itunes, there is no easy mechanism to investigate knock-off status. And apple has no incentive to create one (yet?).
Maybe someone should make an app that functions similarly to the app store, but keeps track of knock offs? (can it be done? or is that sensitive purchasing-related power that apple will never give away). I have no loyalty to the App Store, and would be happy to run a similar interface that highlighted reported knockoffs, along with the original.
I wonder if that is more true in the iPhone world as opposed to the Console/PC market. I know numerous people who have iPhones and buy whatever, just because it's available, without doing research, or knowing anything else about what they are buying. On the other hand, console owners I know are more aware of what they're buying, and know if there is an existing copy of that game in the world. Of course, I'm speaking from what I know and have experienced.
This is definitely true, and there are a couple possibilities for this phenomenon:
There is a lot of media and enthusiast press attention paid to the console/PC market, more than the mobile market. Reviews, criticism, competition, etc. all focus on AAA releases rather than, say, Ninja Fishing. This also means the vocabulary for identifying similar games and subgenres is not as well-developed; there's no real consensus on what to call games mechanically similar to Tiny Wings, for instance.
Apple's App Store is aggregate, not personalized: everyone sees the best-sellers, not the next dozen swipe-to-launch games that match their Angry Birds purchase. This is great for creating a common language among iPhone users, and for creating wild iOS success stories, but it is easy to miss clones in the avalanche of shovelware.
This reminds me of a concept (about modern economics in general?) that came up briefly during a rant by the futurist Jaron Lanier.
Basically, that these days it's all about being first to offer something new to the human network. Once someone has a fun app out, it's hard to compete with them directly (better to just differentiate). I guess it sounds like a simple, or old, idea. but. i don't think i'm summarizing it well. (he mentions it is no good to be the second Walmart, or the second Facebook, or the second Comcast. unless you have something new to offer)
There are tons of challenging ideas about how it works, and where it's heading in this rambling talk/transcript:
I remember google saying we should make all books free to protect ourselves from infringement (if everyone can read it, then everyone can cry fowl at the first infringement). But instead, it seems infringement is becoming more and more common, and the audience doesn't really care to call it out.
really creepy development.
but on the other hand, it seems like talent will win out? Louis CK is on the rise, and Dane Cook has vanished? Cook was better at self promotion, and stole CK's jokes directly - but it looks talent is winning out?
... or maybe I just don't see how this really works. ?
being first to market doesn't guarantee squat. all the games Zynga ripped off existed in the market first. so your solution needs to be amended: "be first to the market, with a giant marketing budget and the clout to distract attention from indies to your blatant ripoff".
I agree with this comment: being first to market is far from guaranteeing success. Marketing power is unfortunately what usually makes a game stand out.
And the "problem" is that we cannot blame users for not knowing or caring that there is an identical indie game that existed before the game they are playing at the moment.
And what about the clones that look and play much better than the original? Should users be blamed for preferring the said clone?
Also, the main issue here is that it is hard to define legally what a clone is (what percentage of identical content is required to define a clone?), although it can be obvious to spot a clone (NOVA on iOS, clone of Halo, but after all, Halo is itself a FPS (see Christopher Engler's comment below), the hundreds of Bejeweled clones, etc.). Furthermore, it would probably not be viable if new games could not reuse existing concepts: going down that road, we would end up with no more than one or two games per genre.
On a personal note, I do care and try to avoid games that are blatant copies of other games, as long as they are not more fun to play.
I go to Kindling Games' site and the first thing I see is a Wavespark/Tiny Wings clone, followed by a Diner Dash clone. Hmm.
It's possible to make a game that meaningfully extends an obvious influence. Ninja Fishing and Steam Pirates clearly don't fall into that category, nor do any of Zynga's rip-offs. I'll continue to point out and warn people off buying *cynical* clones.
Yes, Rainbow Rapture is a Tiny Wings clone. Tiny Wings is not yet on the Windows Phone 7 and we're it's a brand new system. Rainbow Rapture was a way for us to explore the new platform (and frankly mobile as a whole). In the same way that FortressCraft brought Minecraft to XBLIG, we brought Tiny Wings (granted with our own flavor) to Window Phone. Full disclaimer: We're not making any money off of this guys. The Windows Phone 7 is a dead platform. It was a way to learn.
Part of game development is the marketing of said game. That's all part of the industry. How many FPS shooters exist today? Do any of them pay a royalty to Wolfenstein or whatever came before it? If they're stealing code, that's one thing, but concepts in and of themselves aren't copyrightable properties.
Indie games are the primary driver of innovation in the industry. It's a shame when a game developer who's spent years honing their craft and months slaving away making a game on a shoestring budget puts that game out, has some success... and immediately finds that clones of the game pop up on every other platform (and even on the same platform), especially when it's being led by big-name companies like Bungie... who should be acting as responsible leaders in this industry and working to make it a healthy ecosystem and one in which innovators are rewarded and encouraged for the contributions they're making in expanding the industry as a whole.
Actually, it appears to me that companies acting as actual capitalist enterprises should be acting to maximize profits, inside legality, and nothing else. It IS the reality of the capitalist economic system, is it not? Choosing to go the indie way has its advantages and disadvantages, just as being a corporate thrall comes with its woes and comforts. Just get used to it, and take it or leave it. And I don't intend to mean that the capitalist system is the most fair, or even economically optimal at its limit, but it is the best we have accomplished so far, it would seem.
Thank you for this post. I had written up many of the same points in my own article discussing the Ninja Fishing/ Radical Fishing deal.
There is no reason why we as developers should be complaining about this issue. We should, as this article states, be out there trying to out innovate each other and attempting to be first to market.
Yes, consumers generally don't care about cloning.
But saying not to take the time to polish for example an iOS release is not the way to go. If you've got the magic touch, you will make your own product standout. Sure, sometimes life is not fair, but generally you can feel the original touch of the original developer.
I wasn't saying push out shovelware. If the game was successful on flash then it's obviously not shovelware and it's obviously good enough to push directly to the phone. My heart just aches for those that could push sooner with a little less polish and still be first to market.
It's true, consumers don't care, but how is that news?
Consumers have been buying fossil fuels, stolen goods, sneakers from sweat shops, non-sustainable materials, polluting materials, saudi petrol, animal products from "intensive farming" factories...
They only care about their short-term satisfaction, not about the long-term effects or the effects on other people.
Does that mean we should shut up and watch?
What kind of mentality is that?
Just because some people (consumers and cloners) lack a moral compass and some long-term thinking,
doesn't mean we should just let them do whatever they like.
Hey Kristen Bornemann ,
When your mom does something wrong, you have to explain her that it's wrong,
instead of writing an article telling everybody that they should just accept it and find workarounds.
I'm certainly not saying that we should shut up and watch. I understand the need to draw a line in the sand between ethical and unethical but we can't expect to educate consumers on this point and we, as indie devs, should control what we can control - ship dates and time to market.
There was a thread on this topic recently on TIGSource, and my thoughts are the same here; case by case. You know if you purposefully rip something off as opposed to being inspired by something and expanding on it in a way that enriches your culture. This is ethical instinct. But people are so caught up in their own greed nowadays that they do whatever they want to become rich, then find ways to justify it. There's no point in semantic or ethical debates anymore, everyone is just going to do whatever they want, whatever they can get away with. Life is now a game; no good guys or bad guys, only winners and losers. Any articles trying to justify or condemn an action are not statements of ethics but merely tactical moves to shift cultural perception in said game, toward whatever the player feels is beneficial (PR gains that outweigh the time and calories spent to type said article; same thing for comments). I no longer believe in the concept of maturity or honesty or comradery, as I can't find evidence of any of those things on this planet.
Who cares what players think, just milk them for their money. And players, just pirate games; you weren't going to buy them anyway. Hell, everyone rob a bank if you can get away with it; do whatever the fuck you want, you were going to anyway, and with enough patience and cleverness you can construct English sentences to justify it.
When money is the only measure for success, anything original gets squashed. Forgery, theft, and cloning become the norm. It would be better if the gaming world could label their development cycles as movements. Right now we are in the FPS Modern Warfare Hardcore Movement, so expect clones of that for a while.
When I complain about cloners, it isn't drama or some big wrong in the world I'm trying to right. I'm not trying to inform game players of the status of cloning. I have a blog geared for, and read by, fellow developers.
I totally agree with the premise of this article - people are going to be assholes and there's nothing you can do about it.
What I'm trying to do is raise awareness. Awareness within the development community. I want people to think "Bungie Aerospace" and equate that with "Shaky morals". I want other development studios to know that myself (and several others) will look down on you for teaming up with them.
If your company is willing to walk that thin line between "clone" and "legally distinct," I'd hate to see what kind of legal shenanigans they get up to. I'd rather partner with, or team up with, or work for a company that is comfortable generating their *own ideas*.
Most of all, I want to ensure that the next generation of game devs don't look upon cloning as a totally-fine-and-dandy act. It's still dirty. Legal, but dirty. To promote creativity and advancement of the gaming industry, we need to show people that making unique IP is AWESOME, and passing your game idea by your legal department is REPREHENSIBLE.
It seems like things that are fuzzy and hard to quantify get pushed to the side and replaced by easy-to-quantify justifications (such as how much money something makes). I don't know if the world was always like this even when I was a kid and didn't know better or if this is a recent trend, but it is very disturbing. Quarterly reports don't factor in precedence (what the future generations will think is ok) or anything regarding ethics aside from legalities.
There's a really interesting ted talk about forgery here - http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bloom_the_origins_of_pleasure.html and why people value authentic work more than copies (clones). But, you were correct in saying that since the mass market isn't aware of these kinds of issues in the industry there's still money to be made. Thus, leaving it as a question of morality.
This is a really interesting topic to me, since I've got this idea that seems amazingly obvious, yet I've not seen it done before. And I think it could be a huge hit. But my enthusiasm for doing it is greatly diminished knowing that the second it got popular it would be cloned. And I don't have money for PR. Of course I WILL make this game at some point, just because I love making games. But I'm sure there are others on the threshold that will observe the cloning process and just say never mind. Which is sad.
So... Is there no way to patent or trademark or some other way to legally protect a game mechanic for some period of time? There must not be.
While I cannot speak whether this is true or not for the majority of players, I do think that players are aware and do care whether or not a game is a clone of another. On message boards and forums, I have often seen comments along the lines of "This is just game [x] with some extra [y] and a bit of [z]".
Usually, however, only people who have a strong bond with a game will dismiss a clone of that game simply due to the bond, regardless of of the fun factor. For example, Bob may say "I won't play Fortress Craft, just because it's a clone of Minecraft!", something which seems like a mistake to me. However, you also get players who say "This is just like [insert game], but in space!?(which makes almost everything better). Count me in!". In both situations, a player does notice and care that a game is a clone, but their actions differ.
I do agree with most of this, save that one part I mentioned in the beginning. If a game is fun, why not play it?
iTunes shows that most would rather pay a tiny amount to feel that they're legally in the right (that they bough the music), rather than carry the baggage of infringing copyrights. I think a lot of software piracy is due to lack of cheap/easy options, not a deep love of piracy. (Little kids might proud of all the music they stole, but adults would rather not bring it up in polite company. History shows us that few people say "I'm a thief. Who wants to hang out with me?" They tend to keep such activities quiet, so they can have friends in the local community.
The problem is that there is no mechanism to inform most people that they're supporting a knock-off. If it appears in top 10 of itunes, there is no easy mechanism to investigate knock-off status. And apple has no incentive to create one (yet?).
Maybe someone should make an app that functions similarly to the app store, but keeps track of knock offs? (can it be done? or is that sensitive purchasing-related power that apple will never give away). I have no loyalty to the App Store, and would be happy to run a similar interface that highlighted reported knockoffs, along with the original.
Price may also be a factor!
That's it. That's my comment. I worked very hard to create it. If you clone it, I'll hunt you down and gut you out like a fish ^_^.
There is a lot of media and enthusiast press attention paid to the console/PC market, more than the mobile market. Reviews, criticism, competition, etc. all focus on AAA releases rather than, say, Ninja Fishing. This also means the vocabulary for identifying similar games and subgenres is not as well-developed; there's no real consensus on what to call games mechanically similar to Tiny Wings, for instance.
Apple's App Store is aggregate, not personalized: everyone sees the best-sellers, not the next dozen swipe-to-launch games that match their Angry Birds purchase. This is great for creating a common language among iPhone users, and for creating wild iOS success stories, but it is easy to miss clones in the avalanche of shovelware.
Resumen:
What can we as indie devs do then with this reality?
We fuck off. :)
Basically, that these days it's all about being first to offer something new to the human network. Once someone has a fun app out, it's hard to compete with them directly (better to just differentiate). I guess it sounds like a simple, or old, idea. but. i don't think i'm summarizing it well. (he mentions it is no good to be the second Walmart, or the second Facebook, or the second Comcast. unless you have something new to offer)
There are tons of challenging ideas about how it works, and where it's heading in this rambling talk/transcript:
http://edge.org/conversation/the-local-global-flip
* Basically,
I remember google saying we should make all books free to protect ourselves from infringement (if everyone can read it, then everyone can cry fowl at the first infringement). But instead, it seems infringement is becoming more and more common, and the audience doesn't really care to call it out.
really creepy development.
but on the other hand, it seems like talent will win out? Louis CK is on the rise, and Dane Cook has vanished? Cook was better at self promotion, and stole CK's jokes directly - but it looks talent is winning out?
... or maybe I just don't see how this really works. ?
And the "problem" is that we cannot blame users for not knowing or caring that there is an identical indie game that existed before the game they are playing at the moment.
And what about the clones that look and play much better than the original? Should users be blamed for preferring the said clone?
Also, the main issue here is that it is hard to define legally what a clone is (what percentage of identical content is required to define a clone?), although it can be obvious to spot a clone (NOVA on iOS, clone of Halo, but after all, Halo is itself a FPS (see Christopher Engler's comment below), the hundreds of Bejeweled clones, etc.). Furthermore, it would probably not be viable if new games could not reuse existing concepts: going down that road, we would end up with no more than one or two games per genre.
On a personal note, I do care and try to avoid games that are blatant copies of other games, as long as they are not more fun to play.
It's possible to make a game that meaningfully extends an obvious influence. Ninja Fishing and Steam Pirates clearly don't fall into that category, nor do any of Zynga's rip-offs. I'll continue to point out and warn people off buying *cynical* clones.
There is no reason why we as developers should be complaining about this issue. We should, as this article states, be out there trying to out innovate each other and attempting to be first to market.
But saying not to take the time to polish for example an iOS release is not the way to go. If you've got the magic touch, you will make your own product standout. Sure, sometimes life is not fair, but generally you can feel the original touch of the original developer.
It's all about the execution.
be the "first to post". The market(s) are flooded with shovelware. If your game doesn't stand out in some way
...it will not do well. I'm not being a jerk...go look at the numbers. Having a "good" game isn't enough...you
need downloadable crack. Once you have downloadable crack you need to plan how you hook your audience.
or
crap out another game that might catch my attention long enough to hit download in an app store...
Consumers have been buying fossil fuels, stolen goods, sneakers from sweat shops, non-sustainable materials, polluting materials, saudi petrol, animal products from "intensive farming" factories...
They only care about their short-term satisfaction, not about the long-term effects or the effects on other people.
Does that mean we should shut up and watch?
What kind of mentality is that?
Just because some people (consumers and cloners) lack a moral compass and some long-term thinking,
doesn't mean we should just let them do whatever they like.
Hey Kristen Bornemann ,
When your mom does something wrong, you have to explain her that it's wrong,
instead of writing an article telling everybody that they should just accept it and find workarounds.
instead of writing an article telling everybody that they should just accept it and find workarounds"
I think the point of this article is to show that her mom isn't doing anything wrong. Her mom found a game she loves playing. That is not wrong.
Who cares what players think, just milk them for their money. And players, just pirate games; you weren't going to buy them anyway. Hell, everyone rob a bank if you can get away with it; do whatever the fuck you want, you were going to anyway, and with enough patience and cleverness you can construct English sentences to justify it.
I totally agree with the premise of this article - people are going to be assholes and there's nothing you can do about it.
What I'm trying to do is raise awareness. Awareness within the development community. I want people to think "Bungie Aerospace" and equate that with "Shaky morals". I want other development studios to know that myself (and several others) will look down on you for teaming up with them.
If your company is willing to walk that thin line between "clone" and "legally distinct," I'd hate to see what kind of legal shenanigans they get up to. I'd rather partner with, or team up with, or work for a company that is comfortable generating their *own ideas*.
Most of all, I want to ensure that the next generation of game devs don't look upon cloning as a totally-fine-and-dandy act. It's still dirty. Legal, but dirty. To promote creativity and advancement of the gaming industry, we need to show people that making unique IP is AWESOME, and passing your game idea by your legal department is REPREHENSIBLE.
It seems like things that are fuzzy and hard to quantify get pushed to the side and replaced by easy-to-quantify justifications (such as how much money something makes). I don't know if the world was always like this even when I was a kid and didn't know better or if this is a recent trend, but it is very disturbing. Quarterly reports don't factor in precedence (what the future generations will think is ok) or anything regarding ethics aside from legalities.
There's a really interesting ted talk about forgery here - http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bloom_the_origins_of_pleasure.html and why people value authentic work more than copies (clones). But, you were correct in saying that since the mass market isn't aware of these kinds of issues in the industry there's still money to be made. Thus, leaving it as a question of morality.
Better to get a black eye and still lose your lunch money than just hand it over. Why? You get to walk away with your self respect.
So... Is there no way to patent or trademark or some other way to legally protect a game mechanic for some period of time? There must not be.