We are about to release a game in which a friend of mine and me have been working for four months. Today, I found that the game concept is exactly the same as two other games that have been recently released. Both of them look really good, better than our own game (or so I feel).
I won’t mention them… I just wanted to share my frustration What would you do? Would you release your game even if it seems a blatant, although unwanted clone of another game? We have been working on this for many months…
Well, we are not afraid of not selling our game. It’s more an ‘honor’ thing: someone will say ‘that’s a clone’. And we have worked quite hard on this one We are a small group (just two friends) and we have no budget for marketing, so that’s just out of the question.
What is done is done. I guess we can’t do anything against this situation but decide whether to publish or not
If the other 2 games have been “recently” released then there is no way you could have made a clone so quickly so don’t worry about it. How many “doodle”,“snake”, etc games are there? Maybe you’ll ride the wave on the App Store front page with “Best Whatever Game Idea You Had” top 100.
People on this forum have said things were clones that were obviously not clones.
There seems to be a tendency in the current generation to think their ideas (which they stole from previous generations without knowing it) are being ripped off.
For instance, a bunch of people think Apple stole the idea of the bookshelf in iBooks from Delicious Library! (This is an absurd notion, as I know of dozens of products using the bookshelf metaphor going back decades before Delicious Library.)
As you know, it took months to develop your game. Every game is different, even when you are trying to clone another game. So buy the two games that are similar in concept, and play them. See what works and what doesn’t work and update your game a little bit and then release it.
Ideas are not that original and when it is time for a concept it is time.
ReplayTV and TiVo did not clone each other, they just had the idea for a hard drive based VCR around the same time. I did too, and independently.
Ideas are cheap. They are not some unique precious resource.
Implementation and execution are what matters.
Make your game the best game it can be and release it. I can pretty much guarantee that I will be able to name several games you’ve never heard of that your game (and those “clones”) are “copies of”.
Making the game is what counts.
I have more game ideas than I could possibly do, even if I had unlimited funds. Ideas are not precious.
Also, be proud of this game you worked on for many months. If anyone ever says anything just say "yeah, it seems we had similar ideas… ". May be worth it to find other games of the genre and point out that few games are completely original and that all games build on previous games concepts and ideas.
Or just ignore the haters. Haters will always be hating. Look at the last 20 years of people saying Apple sucked, and Apple proving them wrong, as a good example.
Just release it for your own pride and sense of completion.
If it’s not a clone then people who say it is are wrong! For yourselves you know that, for the tiny minority who throw mud, ignore them they’re wrong. For the majority of the gaming public, in all honesty they won’t know or care.
I agree, pretty much every game on the planet has been cloned in one way or another. If these other games were only just released then you have as good a chance as them to get some market share.
I only want say, that this is a really good tip (when not a important rule). To know your directly Competitors and her product(s) is a important thing in this Business. On the first side to make the own games better and the second to make better promotion for the own one (look what your game have and the other game not have and make more promotion for that part - one example). And you better can answer players questions of what is better in your game than in the other, makes a more prof impression.
What would you do? Would you release your game even if it seems a blatant, although unwanted clone of another game? We have been working on this for many months…
