Do you play knock-offs of celebrated indie games?
I've been getting more suggested game trailers on youtube and have been surprised by the number of "knock off" games. I've seen three different versions of Dregde (a game I absolutely adore) and a number that seem to be mimicking Hollow Knight. I don't even mean just like fishing or rogue like games, I mean like full on knock-offs.
I get the niche they fill, but I'm kind of curious about the ethics of it. Like, I would love to play more dredge but it doesn't appear more is on the way. But I also don't really want to support a company that is just completely ripping off everything from mechanics to art. Like this game seemingly took the actual artwork from Dredge. As a developer I think I'd be pretty pissed.
Is this really common and I'm just learning about it now? Is it the video game equivalent of Atlantic Rim? Where do people stand on playing these kind of knock off games?
Oh, that's a good question!
Where is a edge between "knock off" and "inspired by"?
My beloved Fields of Mistria is directly inspired by Stardew Valley but it's more polished and cozy (personal opinion) so in a sense it ruined Stardew Valley for me.
If game is knock off but expanded and devs really cared about it, I see no issues to play it. If it's quick and dirty mess of bugs with ads and a lot of p2w... Yeah... No.
Stardew Valley is itself a "knockoff" of Harvest Moon
Harvest Moon is itself a knockoff of SimFarm!
Nah just kidding. There ain't nothing like SimFarm.
And all first person shooters are knock offs of the legendary indie games DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D.
But there's something about My Time In Portia that feels less iterative from Stardew Valley as Harvest Moon, I'd say.
That said Concerned Ape absolutely said he was making a clone, so I'll eat this paradox of words.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I certainly hate cheap imitations that try to ride on the good name of the original. But if we didn't have derivative work, then many of our favourite games would simply never exist. Look at the many roguelikes and roguelites that ultimately take their inspiration from, as the name implies, Rogue.
One could argue Rimworld is a "knockoff" of Dwarf Fortress, and even the beloved Factorio was made with inspiratation from the Minecraft mod IndustrialCraft (or BuildCraft).
I've had Mistria in the wishlist for a while, but there's so many "Moon-likes" out right now it's hard to pull the trigger without a focused recommendation. I'll check it out!
Please do it, just one point: it's not completely finished. Last patch should be published somewhere this year, so if you want to have a complete game maybe it make sense to wait a bit.
Totally! Like Perfect Dark vs Bond being the first instance I ran into this issue. Usually I'm fine with mechanics being taken and broadened.
I'm not sure why the Dredge knockoff is bugging me so much. It just seems like a money grab I guess, that they took the game - art style, mechanics, tone, hell everything - and released a new one. Like it might as well be Dredge 2. It just seems frustrating that the developers took such a long time figuring out what worked, creating a narrative and recognizable art style, and these folks just grabbed it and ran.
This reminds me of the Threes and 2048 controversy.
Threes is a simple game, released 6 February 2014. 2048 is a derivative of (another derivative of) Threes, released 9 March 2014. 2048 achieved much more popularity, and is free whereas Threes is paid. The Threes developers have called 2048 a rip-off.
Personally, I think ideas (especially simple ones like Threes) should not be protected like IP. I think the only thing that should be protected is likeness, i.e. nobody without permission can make something that could be confused with the original. For example, Notepad++ for Mac was called out by Notepad++, IMO rightfully so. Now they've renamed to Nextpad++, which doesn't absolve their guilt, but I think if they originally stuck with that name and design there'd be no issue.
Instead what should happen, is when a game (or other media) closely resembles an earlier one, then those aware of the later media should be made aware of the earlier media. So people who are aware of 2048 should be aware that Threes executed the concept first (though they can stick with 2048 if they like the gameplay more and don't want to pay). The less resemblance, the less awareness is justified; the more someone likes or invests in something, they more they should know its inspirations.
They're explicitly not protected by copyright or patent laws, and it's well-tread legal territory.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law/resources/landslide/archive/why-videogame-rules-are-not-expression-protected-copyright-law/
Do you have a source on patent law not protecting game mechanics because everything I know points to the contrary..? Though admittedly it's not done very much because it's costly and mechanics have to be proactively patented, vs copyright being implicit.
Game mechanics can't be patented, but game rules and terms can, which is a crucial distinction. The example that always comes up for me is Magic the Gathering calls turning a card sideways "Tap", "tapping", "tapped", etc. They can (and do) have a protection on the phrase tap to reference that, which is why every other card game uses "exhaust" or "exert" or some other term. But the idea of turning a card sideways to signify it being used is not patentable/copywriteable, which is why those games can do that.
So you could have your own card game, have your dudes get expended, and ready on your turn, and its all fine, but if you call them getting "tapped" or "untapped" you could end up in trouble.
Video games have extra layers of complexity, since you can be dealing with specific software and hardware manipulations (like the other person posted), but the core is still you can't patent or copyright a general mechanic. Of course, patents are like any human system, flawed, and occasionally a big name with a lot of leverage might get something through (like the fairly recent Nintendo patenting Battling with Monsters), but even then it is usually challenged and defeated (I'm not up to date, but last I heard the aforementioned Nintendo patent was on its way to being tossed).
I'm less aware of how patents work, but my understanding is that there's a level of specificity that's expected, and it's still specific to implementation. But the reality is companies file all sorts of things, and it's all down to lawyer slap-fights whether they stick.
Like there was a famous Namco patent (now expired) that covered loading screen minigames. It doesn't just say "we put a game on a loading screen, now you can't." That would not cover the requirements of a patent to be something describing an implementation, rather than just a vague idea.
The patent, in its vast description, dances around that idea and describes a complex process of how multiple sets of code are kept on a storage medium and how one replaces the other as one is loaded from the slower medium, with all kinds of diagrams of low level computer components. It amounts to saying "you can't have a minigame while the game loads," but they had to develop a whole architecture on paper to get to that point.
Since it specifies a "recording medium," it also might not apply to something loaded over the internet.
Game mechanics or styles of game are the definition of vague ideas. They're just a collection of rules, not an actual mechanism. They shouldn't be patentable under the standing law, but that doesn't mean that doesn't effectively happen.
There's an interesting story about Sega parenting a directional arrow in a driving game as well. Crazy Taxi used the mechanic for years and I believe that Simpsons Hit and Run ran into trouble for copying it.
I think the question is not whether the later game is similar to an earlier one, but simply whether it can provide a superior or different experience to the player. 'Knock off' is perjorative and implies a case where it doesn't (e.g. copying the same assets, story, systems, etc wholesale), but just being similar to / inspired by another game might not necessarily be a bad thing - e.g.
Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley are the same game at their core, but the latter is giving you a broader, deeper range of systems, areas, items, characters, events and so on.
Mario Maker and Mario romhacks are using literally the same system as the 2D Mario games, but they're offering you a different experience with levels you won't see in the actual Mario games - e.g. kaizou levels.
I wouldn't play a game that completely copies another to the point where I'm essentially just playing the original game (or a worse version), but I'd be willing to at least check out a game which offered something new / better.
I play Cribbish, a variant of Balatro. I'm not learning jackshit about real Cribbage but it's a fun distraction from WoW.
Generally only on mobile.
Two examples:
Pixel Dungeon is a loving homage to PC's Brogue, probably my favorite roguelike. But Brogue isn't available on mobile and PD is the next best thing.
Triple Town was great but is no longer available for android. I'll play a different merge-three game that's almost as good when I'm in the mood.
I don't play many "rip-off" or "heavily inspired by" games due to the fact that I am a console gamer. When I do, though, I have typically already played the original game. So it's not like I am taking business from the original creators.
I don't really mind when a game takes concepts from other games in the genre and expands it. Look at all of your first-person horror games. Dead By Daylight and all of its offspring are just reskinned Left 4 Dead versus-mode, but with cupboards and without guns.
LORT is a pretty loose copy of Risk of Rain 2 that I've been enjoying! RoR2 was never 'user friendly' with their visual representations of powerups and objectives, whereas LORT has more simplified and distinct visuals that appeal to me more and allow people to casually pick it up more easily. It's a bit 'early access' at the moment, but it's been a blast for what's there so far!
We've had knock-offs as long as we've had games. The good ones improve on the original in some meaningful way that people enjoy. The bad ones get relentlessly mocked and die off pretty quickly with bad reviews. Without the ability to create knock-offs I don't think gaming would continue to evolve as remarkably as it has!