Hey peeps, i was just wondering what you guys thought about copying vs being inspired.
I have many great game ideas which I want to bring to light, some ideas were inspired by other games such as fnaf and limbo, but i feel my game ideas are too close to games which already exist and lack originality. I dont want to clone existing games too much like flappy birds is being cloned, but rather take a concept from them and make something new and orignal, but is that the same as copying the game?
Is there a fine line between copying and inspiration.
As a new games developer ( and to unity) just thought id get some opinions from fellow devs, thanks
I like to copy ideas because you’re never lost in your design & implementation since you can always reference the source material. Even some books / tv shows contain great settings and ideas for games.
For games you plan to sell, you might want to copy only combinations of mechanics.
If you’re asking if your game is too similar to another, it probably is. Now, whether or not that matters, well… that’s up to you.
I feel that there are three categories of copying/inspiration:
Shameless clone: Flappy Anything, Anything Bird, AnythingCraft, Clash of Anything… - You get the picture. Copying as much as possible and trying to ride the coattails of another game’s success is the lowest form of developer you could be.
“It’s Game A meets Game B!”, “Basically Game A, but with Feature from Game B!”, or “Like GameA, only multiplayer!” - In this instance, you’re taking what worked in one or more games, and mashing them together to create something kind of original. This is more acceptable only because you put some thought into it, but it’s still not what I’d call original.
“Game A, with a Twist!”, “Drawing inspiration from Game A, Game B, and TV Show C”, or “In the genre of games like A, B, and everyone’s favorite: C” - This one is more commonly called “iteration”, and is an acceptable form of originality as long as you borrow as little as possible from the source material. There’s nothing wrong with making a Metroidvania game, for example, as long as it’s not about slaying Dracula or defeating a space jelly fish.
Truly original ideas are hard as hell to come by. That’s why they’re so rare! As long as you’re putting as much of yourself into something as you can, and not just using someone else’s ideas and proven methods, I think you’re doing your part in being original.
Thanks for the fast response guys, i think ill use aspects of games i like and then add my own original seasoning to the game and hopefully making original games will become easier over time
@ that’s true. Working off an idea that already exists will make it easier to do and build the skills necessary for building your own idea up from scratch.
I think different people will have different views about what is a direct clone and what is inspired from & loosely based on an existing game.
In reality, I think every game will draw from and avoid certain elements from games we have played. That is only normal and completely reasonable I think. Obviously, we will tend to avoid adding things from other games that we disliked. And we will tend to add things from other games that we liked. In fact, I’d say this is often the reason we are making a game to begin with “that game is very good but it would be awesome if it had more of this stuff and less of that stuff.”
I also think we know when we are trying to improve on an existing game to make a game that would be better (at least for us) and we know when we are just out to clone a game to try and cash in on its popularity.
Clone shamelessly. All of the big development companies out there making money do it. Once you find a solution that works then pump out iterations on that solution.
Trying to make a completely original game is a recipe for insanity.
The game market since like atari has been flooded to death with games that “borrowed” similar stuff from existing games. Same goes for movies, almost every story has been told - what makes it special is better quality, and a twist to the existing formula! Obviously asteroids came out a long time ago but that didn’t stop me from making an asteroids style game because I thought it would be fun to innovate on that a little bit. And the innovations I made were already copied probably dozens of times from asteroids before I thought of it haha - so what though! I still added online high scores, and powerups, and more difficult asteroid spawning… Google play achievements and stuff… it was a great learning experience if nothing else.
It’s hard to think of mechanics and objectives that are original because for decades developers before us came up with their own ideas, and these days you’ve really got to brainstorm hard to come up with stuff that’s never been done, and that’s only considering games you’ve tried or heard of!
So I say “borrow” away from what you like, not just games but anything that inspires you, just make it your own, and never violate copyright. If a character inspires you, make similar characters in their likeness, if a game mechanic inspires you, try to perfect that mechanic, look for ways to innovate that mechanic to be more fun. If a graphic style inspires you, well… I wouldn’t say go straight up minecraft clone style, but how about voxels with 64x64 detailed textures on the sides? How about a hexagonal voxels game? Can you make an atomontage engine? These are my thoughts on that subject haha.
I think the best way to do it is base your work off how you remember the game your being inspired by, instead of putting them side by side and going, “Well this is how this game did, so I should do it that way too”
When your basing it off memory and gut instinct, you’re getting the raw, pure extract of why you liked the game so much to begin with and you’re not getting hung-up on irrelevant details. And when you’re done, you’ll probably find that the way you remembered it working isn’t how it was at all (often you actually remember it as better than what it was) and you’re left with a unique design that still has the flavor of that inspirational game
Yeah I find the side by side Check list comparison method to kill any originality, I think its what battlefield and call of duty do to each over. And yeah its an interesting idea to get ideas from other media than games, and I really struggle to clone games, not cause its hard for anything but because i have many ideas i need to flush out of my imagination XD
I think you are onto something. The more time that passes the more I consider, if I ever decided to do this for money, I would stop focusing on building a game that I think is cool (lots of focus on interaction and trying to make it at least somewhat unique) and instead just hammer out what I would normally think of as crap.
It seems like this approach would be just as, if not more, likely to achieve financial success as taking the other approach. Just have fun with it and come up with crazy ideas for games. Basically just the dumbest most immature and perhaps even somewhat controversial crap you can think up. The simpler the better of course. Ideally something you can knock out in 5 hours or less. Then just get to work spamming them out there. Some of them are bound to get some massive negative press sooner or later and then you are golden.
As long as you’re trying to make it different (or “better”) in some way I think go for it. Two people making their own interpretations of the same concept are likely to end up with pretty different end products.
Players don’t give a hoot about the “game” in its strict sense. They care 100% about the experience. Don’t pigeonhole things based on labels.
Plus, originality is overrated. When it comes to highly successful games the well implemented ones are far more dominant than the original ones. There’s a reason for this - people like familiar things. So large scale success in almost any large audience field most often stems from a low* degree of innovation coupled with a high degree of quality.
This means that there is innovation present, but not enough change to make something feel unfamiliar or alien. It does not mean “no degree of innovation”, which it is often confused for!
I’m okay with people cloning, just so long as it’s for learning purposes.
But if someone makes a copy of a game, doesn’t change one single game play element, and releases it in markets, that’s blatant cash grabbing and I loathe that crap.
That said, I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with doing “Game-A meets Game-B” or “It’s like Game-A only (blank)” or “It’s a throw-back to one of my favorite classic games and completely acknowledges the source material”.
I guess the line for me is rather or not you are pretending that the source doesn’t exist and if you are trying to make a game you like or make money.
Thanks for the further replies, its interesting to hear these points of views, especially when alot of games i see on steam greenlight are copies of other games but with changed visuals
Copies with changed visuals are quickly picked up by users and if the copy is the better game, it’ll win, otherwise it’ll flop. There is no point to a copy if it isn’t as good.
