So, I just have to ask, since this seems to happen to me more often than I like. I develop a concept for a game and get to developing the actual game, when, a few months later, some AAA studio is releasing pretty much an identical game. By identical, of course, I don’t really mean identical, but close enough that what I am developing will only look like a copycat.
Does this happen to anyone else, or am I just that unlucky?
That’s a drag. I suppose you could look at it philosophically and see it as validation of your concept and your commercial instincts.
Lol. Yes. I did that the first few times. Actually said pretty much the same exact thing to my wife when I would talk to her about it. Now I’m questioning if I really am generating these concepts on my own, or if, subconsciously, I am picking up ideas being published out there, but thinking I have come up with it on my own months or years later.
Maybe none of this is real, and I am actually locked up in a mental ward in a padded cell somewhere, imagining that this is my reality, and the ideas I am coming up with are filtering in to my delusional reality from the real world…
Shutter Island…
(if you’ve seen the movie you know what I am talking about)
No point in that nonsense “is this all a dream” because it wouldn’t matter if it is.
It’s possible that you see and hear things and don’t really react to them immediately and then they germinate in your mind. Don’t feel too bad though, good ideas are not the holdup in game development, it’s the actual work that goes into implementation. Imagine how it would feel to actually make a great game and then see it be overshadowed by a bigger budget version of the same thing.
Certain ideas are floating around the planet I think, then some people who are perceptive enough,
tune in on these forms of energy and do something with it.
I noticed this phenomena too, its perfectly fine the way it is.
Kind regards, Robert
As Robert said, the people who belongs to a “circle” are all synchronised; sometimes one same concept spread instantly… i am a multimedia designer and i saw that a lot of times.
You are just a bit late on the train I guess. I mapped out a full duel guns thing as seen in Halo 2, two years before it and its duel wielding were advertised. Unfortunately I was just a kid in high school so I never got very far on my old limited hardware and limited computer skills with a limited game engine I was working with. Oh well. I wouldn’t worry too much so long as your concept not mechanics are very unique. Look at Call of Duty and Modern Warfare. They are becoming almost 1 in the same at least to someone like me who hasn’t played much of one and none of the other.
Interesting ideas on the idea energy that you can tap into that’s floating around the world. I’m a man of science myself, but its interesting enough that I may just want to test it out for myself ;).
In general, I believe game ideas are a dime a dozen.
Your new and unique idea is the same new and unique idea several thousand other people have. But the vast majority of those people don’t have the means to turn that idea into reality for one reason or another.
Even those who do have the means often mess up during the implementation process.
And then there are those who get pretty far, but get that feature cut by the publisher in order to meet a deadline.
You’ll have many more ideas. And others will have similar ones.
But if you could implement your idea into something that not only actually works, but works well, then you’ll be leaving other people thinking, “That was my idea!”
You’re not thinking weird enough. Take more drugs. 8)
That is bad bro… Its just like making a song and then others copy it and you can’t run and sue them because you’re game is not patented. There are 2 options you can do:
Yes, it pretty much happens to everyone.
We all live in the same world and the random collection of influences that helped give birth to your idea might have done the exact same thing in someone else’s head. Or a concept isn’t viable until something else happens to make it possible, so once it does lots of people appear to simultaneously come up with it.
Games are particularly prone to that because it’s one thing to come up with a concept, it’s a completely different thing to execute on it. (especially as a “triple A” project) Basically any time an innovative clever concept comes out of a major studio you can practically guarantee thousands of people all over the world are going “THAT’S MY EXACT IDEA!”
It sort of sucks but it helps to remember that ideas themselves are just seeds - they don’t mean anything unless you figure out a way to deliver on them.
I feel so much better now. I had this unique idea that I thought was going to make me filthy rich… So I started coding it… 6 months into the project someone else released it as “Morrowind” and apparently they had been working on my “unique” idea for 4 years already… 
Then of course, I realized that there actually are very few original genres out there, though… You can either make a FPS or you can make an RPG or you can make a MMORPG or a racing game or a 3rd person shooter, one of those guitar and dancing “press this color button now” games, a hack and slash, a platformer or a puzzle game like Tetris, Sudoku or match-3.
Just there I felt I had summarized 90% of the games I think most of you are working on as I reckoned 90% of the games that will be released this year will be one of those…
Then they made TGA (which doesn’t fall within my taste so I never played it) and I was so grateful that someone out there is still coming up with unique ideas…
I thought Tenchu was the bomb… Then they released Splinter Cell and I was extatic… then they reelased Tenchu 4 and Splinter Cell 3 and suddenly the unique factor was replaced with “Yeah, in this version you can look at nudie mags and in this one you can hide in a barrel”. If you buy the same game for the 9th time you will be able to light your cigarette… what more could you want in a stealth shooter!?
When I decided that was the ultimate truth behind video games: “You get yourself a basic engine for the genre you are working towards and then just make yours unique in appearance and voila you have a ‘new’ game. If you can add a twist in there somewhere like… my lazer doesn’t fire in a straight line but more in a zagged line like lightning… ohhh… awards await you!!!” , once I realized that ultimate truth, coming up with ‘new’ game ideas suddenly didn’t seem all that important any more…
And then I noticed all the original games coming out on the iPhone this last year or so… I guess I might be wrong about that “absolute truth” of mine 
But seriously, how often do you see major releases that isn’t just a guy with a sword, a guy with a gun or a guy jumping on the heads of anything he sees…? Hell, the world is so sports mad that there are hundreds of football games… each one better than the one before it… even though the rules of the game itself hasn’t changed…
Heck, in the UK these “best ever football game till next year” is so common place that the second hand game stores are begging to give them away but as that is poor business logic they sell it for (literally) pennies… just to make space for the next “best ever football game till next year”…
“Game ideas” are not a dime-a-dozen, I don’t agree with that… I reckon there are 1000 ideas for how to make the next FPS game and 1000 ideas for how to make the next RPG etc etc. Millions of people with 6 original ideas…
The ONLY real difference in my eyes are:
For instance: I cannot stand sports games but the first time I got a demo for Amped I found myself playing that demo until the early morning hours. It was the bomb! Then I got SSX 3 and I was a snowboarding fan! When I tried Amped again the controls felt so rigid and the jumps so “down to Earth” that I never touched it again. then they released SSX 4 and I was foaming at the mouth. I got the next installment of SSX only to find out that the scenery has changed but the game still feels the same… boring as hell now that I have already put over a 100 hours into the previous one…
Am I jaded? Should I be excited about yet another Brother In Arms after the next Call Of Duty following the last 3rd sequel to the other 4 army shooters? Should I buy Need For speed 36 when I already have Juiced 1 - 3, 5 Burnouts and all the expansion packs (and so the list continues)…
The point is, if you have an original game… a TRULY original game… and someone else makes an almost identical game, hell I would love to have 2 to choose from… so please go ahead and do it!!! Release it!
…but if you are complaining about wanting to make the next Quake and just after you started someone else released 6 more Quake and 3 Unreal wannabes and now you are so sad about not wanting to be number 10… I have no comment on that…
Its marketing and the accountants dictating what the new releases of the big studios are. Internally they do a lot of brainstorming on game concepts and producing prototypes. I’ve seen so many awesome game ideas shot down because they’ve not been related to a current blockbuster film, isn’t a franchise or not what another company is having huge success with.
I’ve got a friend that just models/textures stadiums, each year with a higher poly count and textures. I can’t think of anything more demoralising. Don’t need to ask him what he’s doing next year!
I’m not surprised about this, games are extremely expensive to develop and always a financial risk.
Its the employees of these companies that leave, to start up their own studios, are the ones producing the creative and innovative games, mostly.
As for ideas, I think the world around us triggers the same creative ideas in our brain. Chance that someone else has the same triggers from the media, a game they’ve played, book they’ve read, etc I guess is pretty high. I can’t imagine the idea of the Wheel or Fire was conceived by just one person, but a few people apart and at different times.
Marketing:“So where are the Space Zombie Pirates?”
I’m still waiting for a Zombies dating simulator.
I think that in life generally, truly original concepts tend to be niche products at best. The very thing that makes a product popular is the fact that most people have thought of it and were waiting for someone else to make it.
It’s more a matter of risk management than anything else. If you have a great game idea but write the code to be reusable, you may well get beaten to market by someone else. However, at least some of the code you’ve written will probably give you a head start on the next game you write. After a few attempts like this, you will eventually get an idea which is easily realised with the base of code and assets you already have. That’s the game where you are first to market. Also, you may well find that someone releases a game before you, but it is not implemented well enough to cut it. If you follow it with a convincing implementation, it can still be a success.
By the way, if you’re interested in the reasons why ideas work in this way, you may like Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point and also Thomas S Kuhn’s classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
You’ve touched on two redeeming points, Andeeee. First, the game that was released is similar to, but not the same as my idea. I feel like I have a much more robust feature set, so…yay me!
Also, you’re right about code reuse. I’ve enslaved myself to designing reusable code in everything I do, which does slow me down a bit, but, with each new project, I do have a growing library of code that I can bring in at the start.
congrats on 6000 posts andeeee!
Thanks! Not a bad year’s work, I guess 
Winning had the right response… ideas are cheap.
Implementing those ideas is the trick.
Maybe stitching together a couple of good ideas that are not original is the only way to to be original now a days? Look at what works and what can be improved.
Why recreate the wheel if you can make a better performance wheel instead?
I guess what I am also saying is that one shouldn’t let ego get in the way of making a game that lots of people can enjoy… isn’t that the main goal?