I’m new to unity. I must say I’m pretty impressed with what I’ve seen so far.
I’ve started working alone on a game and have found unity to be better than any other free game or graphics engine I’ve tried.
My question actually has very little to do with unity but this community seems the best place to ask it:
Is it legal to copy (i.e. make a game that is similar to) an existing game?
I’m obviously not going to extract actual binary elements from the game, or use its name, just the concept.
If I for example make my own verion of warcraft, will Blizzard come hunt me down?
Depends on how similar it is I think. Does it actually use character names? Are the stats and gameplay literally exactly the same, or is it just a very similar, almost exactly the same, style. If its the latter, I think it should be obvious that this is legal, AAA developers are doing that all the time with the Modern Warfare series. But yeah, copying an existing game but removing all the names and art from that game is still copyright infrigement because its still the same game. That being said, there are fair use laws that state that you can use some characters or titles if it is very small amounts and if it is for the purposes of parody, education or etc. These laws definitely don’t cover full game designs, though.
Well, legal wise, the above answer is pretty good. But do ask yourself what your chances are staying in the field by copying others. Just because AAA teams lack creativity, as far as I am concerned, does not mean you should. At least they have the money to back shitty ideas with.
This is not a rant, and it is not personal in any way. I would, however, suggest making “copies” in a learning attempt.
If you just mean same genre with similar systems and mechanics, then yes, as there are already countless WoW clones out there, and WoW itself is just a shameless ripoff of the MMO’s that came before it (with mechanics borrowed from all of them, jimmyrigged together and polished to perfection).
That said, as KFB said AAA studios can get away with lacking creativity with million dollar art, development and marketing budgets. We indie’s have to rely on clever innovations and doing things differently to get noticed
But it seems a lot of indie dev’s can also catch some attention by creating a game that combines elements from multiple genres; something like: check out my first person shooter online cooperative tower defense game!
AAA studios copy games all the time. See countless call of duty clones.
If you’re indie, copying is ok if you introduce something that makes your game better than the original.
I wouldn’t clone a game 1:1 unless I have something important to add to it that distuingishes it a little from the original product. Otherwise I’d just get inspired by other games, as long as you believe cloning a gameplay mechanic contributes to your otherwise original work so that it’s more fun and of higher quality. In the end it’s all a bit like cooking, there’s very few original things you can do but you can utilize proofen ingredients (mechanics) to make something delicious.
You can clone game mechanics as much as you want. That is not anything that can be protected. If you clone art and design you might run into trouble though
You have to be aware of Patents, IP and Copyright issues. - even something as trivial as a Progress bar is patented by someone, as well as mechanics and how the UI works. Copying isn’t the same as Cloning.
It’s something the big studios have to worry about more than Indies.
Most people seem to be saying “don’t just copy some other game”
My long term goal is to make a MMO, but that’s not a good idea for my first release.
Then I remembered a game from the zx spectrum which would be a good place for me to start.
The mechanics are simple, so there’s very little coding - no AI, single player, large world.
This would make a perfect base for me to build on and add the more complex features - or at very least give me experience.
It definately would not be a 1:1 clone. The concept is the same, but there is so much more I can do without the 48k memory limit.
That said, blindly cloning someone else’s work 1:1 won’t net you much credit, beyond showing you are able to complete a project. Once you know you’re able to finish a project, giving the next ones your own spin is always a good idea. It’s more gratifying to bring some of your own designs in there anyway.
Gameloft does nothing but clones, and they’re doing just fine, it seems. If you make a clone, make one that offers something you can’t find otherwise, on the platform. Like, Power Stone 2 was the Dreamcast’s answer to Super Smash Bros., Halo was the Xbox’s answer to Half-Life, and Dante’s Inferno was the 360’s answer to God of War 3 (hence having to offer extra free content with the PS3 version, to try to stay competitive on that platform). There are plenty of old, awesome games, that are still unique, for whatever reason.
Well i dont know but CoD series are made by two diffrent companies:treyarch ,infinityward.So i think you can copy the game just its needs to be a bit diffrent.
Ivanzu, its not about being different, both companies had the license to use that IP - if you want to use someone else’s anything - art etc - you need permission, and often times if those are commercial things you want to use, permission means paying for that access beyond that, copyright laws are fairly clear. This should help a bit Live Concert Music Copyright Issues | Legal Beagle
beyond that, copyright laws are fairly clear. This should help a bit