Hey guys. Long time reader here, but decided to post because I wanted to get some of your opinions on this.
Say you have an idea for a game, and its “a cross between X and Y”, and to your knowledge, it’s a bit of a niche idea (something I’m always aiming for). So you throw together a quick prototype and you’re happy with it. Then a while later, you randomly stumble across a game, which is further on down the development road ie. Kickstarter stage, described as “a cross between same X and Y” and both games are nearly identical. Setting and some features are the same but one is protagonist based, and the other is more global-scale, but still very similar.
When I seen this other game, I was a bit disheartened, because both ideas are so specific, and I wouldn’t like to think I was “cloning” something.
That’s why I wanted to ask, have any of you ever experienced this, and if so, what’s your approach to it? Would you continue your “version”?
Evolution of games and game technology is somewhat predictable so it’s not really cloning. I think I’ve had hundreds of different game ideas and I have lived to see most of them created by someone else. More than likely a few different versions were simultanously in development or at least day dreamed about.
If you really like the idea you could wait until the other game is released. Play it thru and make notes of everything that’s wrong and everything which could be better and then finish your own version with extra features.
Thanks Kryger. I know what you mean about it being predictable. First person shooters are a great example, an overall summary like “you are an elite soldier tasked with saving the world from terrorists, with a whole bunch of cool gadgets and customizable weapons etc” and that could be any of them. Or even the DayZ and H1Z1 similarities. Although given how specific the theme is, this scenario feels a bit more like, as an example if it were a shooter, the Tom Clancy universe. One game is like the “Rainbow 6” side, where the focus is on the small few main characters , and the other game more like “Endwar” where those characters are a tiny cog in the bigger picture, but its the same battle.
Although I suppose in this day and age, given that most themes have been done, it can be hard to be completely original!
Years ago, my wife came up with the idea of a squeezable ketchup bottle, long before one appeared on the market. And yet, it was Heinz who’s brilliance took the condiment market by storm! The lesson is - the ‘idea’ matters almost zilch compared to the ability to execute.
Coke/Pepsi, iphone/android, Windows/Mac, Unity/Unreal, Threes/2048, … the world is full of ‘clones’. Until you have a finished product ready to ship, then worrying about clones is a waste of energy. All you have is an ‘idea’, no better than my wife’s.
I think some time ago someone posted a link to a video, in which it was mentioned that the most important feature of any game or software is that it has to ship.
Its funny because ideas are a dime a dozen, but without a unique idea your game is a dime a dozen. So you have to have an idea, be first to market and make sure its actually good, unless you have such high production values that people pay attention.
Is uniqueness the purview of game designers or artistic idealists? Almost none of the titles in the top-100 (aka earning MILLIONS/year) are unique ideas that were first to market: Candy Crush, Farm Heroes Saga, Pandora Radio, Game of War, Hay Day, Slotomania, Boom Beach, Big Fish Casino, Angry Birds, … Make your life easier - take a simple idea, add some elements of uniqueness, and execute well. Save the Magnum Opus for another day.
Or just have each game you make have a little sprinkling of magnum opus that you’re proud of. No need to work on it forever then get run over by a bus.
That’s a good way to put it Gigi, thanks.
I suppose I was sort of thinking along the lines of as Aiursrage just said above, that without a unique idea your game is a dime a dozen, and whether to invest the time in following it up.
You can look at the appstore “dont tap the white tiles” (or whatever its called) it has 250+ clones in the appstore. Now everyone knows putting in another white tiles game is dumb, but I am saying you put in another generic game x there are already 200+ games in the appstore, how are you going to stand out.
Yeah, that’s the way I was thinking. There’s so many clones of games like those, that nobody bats an eyelid when another Temple Run etc comes out, but when it’s a really specific idea, it’s really strange to see even one other version. Like someone saying “Ok, my game is a crossover between Abe’s Odyssey and…Gran Turismo. That hasn’t been done right? Oh wait, what?!”.
Originality is starting to become more and more elusive nowadays!
I think I’ll go for it anyway. This one’s caught my attention enough to want this to be the first one I properly finish.
Yeah you might as well go for something off the wall, weird and wacky because at least you wont have competition. If your making the same old game with nothing unique about it you might as well be cloning a white tiles game
I mainly just want to say: that’s the creative process. So much of creativity isn’t original and most ideas are plucked from the zeitgeist.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t start from the same seed and make something radically different. Spec Ops: The Line, Bioshock Infinite, and The Last of Us all came out in the span of a year and each of them is a violent game telling a story about violence.
Unless your idea was a one trick pony, like combining tetris with peggle, then there should be plenty to make your game different. At the end of the day, 95% of what makes a game good is craftsmanship, not ideas.
In that same article, he also advocated: “Don’t bite off more than you can chew” and “Practice (Make lots of small games)”. That last bit, jives perfectly with the science that great companies use “Bullets Then CanonBalls” (from Jim Collins’ books). So, before (#4) taking that big risk, make sure you’ve (#6) practiced with lots of small games, (#15) Stay Grounded, and (#5) haven’t bitten off more than you can chew ;).
And you could end up with something no one understand and no one talk about. People like to play games of a genre they already know. And the latency you have to innovate are very thin.
Lets suppose you want to make a bowling game - there are already 600 bowling games in the appstore. Whats your goal to simply to make the best bowling game there to compete against everyone else, or is it better to pick something that no one else has done and win by default.
Well that all depends. Your goal was to make a bowling game. Doing something completely different solely for the purpose of avoiding competition might mean that your game sells well but… your goal was to make that bowling game, not to make a game that sells well.
Of course, both would be ideal, but… unless game development is a means to make ends meet, I say make the games you WANT to make (and have the ability to make).
Okay suppose there was no game about basket weaving on the app store. You make it, there is zero competition, you just won by default, rather than having to compete against 600 other people.
