@Armelline said: @Confucius said: The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.
Confucius lived in a low rent times. I've always hated judgemental self-important misanthropists like Confucius - lol (with the logical unsaid corollary to judgemental misanthropy being an unsaid self-aggrandisement).
Sometimes the 'inferior man' just needs to feed his 6 year old daughter.
Confucius' problem was that he only had a dial up speed internet connection.
@onelasttime
Greatpost, I too hope the industry gives us a chance to continue.
As for quotes (quick google), this seems appropriate:
Vince Lombardi:
I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.
@Socks said:
Confucius' problem was that he only had a dial up speed internet connection.
Operated by his slave, probably.
I think that's the secret. If we each pick a slave to make clones for us, we can all get rich. I pick @Socks and it'll be Flappy Bird all the way down.
(I know Confuscius most likely didn't have any slaves (maybe servants) but I really want to make @Socks make Flappy Bird clones as I'm not a nice person.)
I found this article interesting... the practice of cloning has been going on for years and in every industry!
Video games
Movies
Fashion
Recipes
Cybersquatting
Twitter account names
This list could go on forever.
I guess the key items to note are be original, preserve your dignity and be proud of your work. I always say that if someone copies you or your work then take it as a compliment!
Regarding what to do, make the cloning hard to achieve! Reserve some of the similair game names like, free, plus, hd, extra, + etc. I'd also consider putting the word original in the game name.
On top of all that, I made 10 times more money from the shitty apps than my games. And those games took 50x more time to make.
I'm still making games, I was here to make games afterall.. And I am ashamed, I'm not proud of what I'm doing but I need the money. So another x-ray app it is.
I bought your template. I'm gonna clone it and flood the stores with it.
Just kidding! Hahaha!
Just do what you believe is right. Me, I'm taking my time piling up some original games before I take the plunge and buying into GS PRO and Apple Dev. I've signed-up with Android, Amazon and Windows already.
P.S.
Don't be mad if I incorporate the "level select" portion of your template. Saved me time doing that sort.
No offense - which means this comment is probably going to be offensive and you may take offense, but try not to - but how could you state that you wish, "the market for clones wasn't quite so ripe," yet you offer your templates to places like Deep Blue Apps for sale which no doubt will be cloned with a fresh paint of graphics. Perhaps those who sell their source have some idealistic belief that their source code will be used only for "learning purposes", but come on. Let's get real. Cloning and selling your source code to be probably be cloned are not sisters, but they’re very closely related on the semi-ethical family tree, that’s if ethics is even a question which I don’t think it is. Not in game dev.
The market has changed, yet it hasn't. Cloning and copying game mechanics has always happened, it’s just more blatant now. Almost every game is a close or close enough copy of another. Flappy was a copy of Piou Piou, Angry Birds copied Crush The Castle, Farmville copied Farm Town, Pong copied Table Tennis or more like carbon copied it. Again, come on. Complaining about this is like complaining about websites all looking the same since Wordpress started offering themes. Great websites with exquisitely designed themes still stand out, even amongst the sea of Wordpress clones. What cloning does do, in both gaming and general technology sectors, is drive innovation. The need to differentiate from the herd drives others to improve on old methods and models and graphics and gameplay. And that’s a good thing. If we copyrighted everything, what a boring monopolized world it would be.
It’s futile to hope that Apple will clamp down on clones rising to the top of the charts, because then you’re asking for a pseudo philosophical debate, “What is a clone?” Is it only when you copy the same graphics and title, or does it include the gameplay? If it’s just graphics does that mean someone can hold a copyright on certain fonts, styles, graphic styles of logos? Would black and white squares and tiles count as infringement? Or does it boil down to intention? How do you prove or disprove intention without evidence? It’s not always evident. Tiny Goalie (a really awesome GameSalad developed game) was made before Flappy Bird, yet looking at the two you’d think Tiny Goalie ripped off the “look” and “feel” of Flappy. Yet they didn’t. Should we call the Tiny Goalie devs cloners? Are endless runners clones? Should Apple run every endless runner off the charts? I’m sure the Subway Surfer guys would be thrilled about that.
What some of the comments here seems to boil down to is good old Indie Game Dev elitism. "How dare they encroach on our sacred game dev territory and so effortlessly and clock in at $50k a day?!” Have you seen the forums where other Indie Devs look down on debs that use Game Salad and other game creator software? Pffft.
I agree with most of what you said, but with some cognitive dissonance, I also disagree. I am both a game dev and a reskinner. Just because I can develop my own games using actual code and reskin like a boss, doesn’t mean I have any bad feels towards the guys who just clone popular games. This app store game is iterative when it comes to learning and adapting. This is app store evolution, survival of the fittest. The winners in this market (currently) are the ones who can clone the fastest and rock at ASO to get their game to the top of the charts and the ones who rock at having a botfarm marketing budget.
Yes, it’s harder to crack the app store and you have to use every trick to try to gain reasonable success in the app store, but it’s not impossible. I got close to 400 000 downloads with a Game Salad template. Over 200 000 with native code. Some games get over 1000 downloads a day, some get 60. I put it down to luck, app store optimization and getting reviews more than anything else. I definitely don’t get low downloads in some games because of the hundreds of clones on the charts. It’s because I neglected my ASO or icon and screenshot duties or just made a crappy game. The only reason I’m earning a living from this is because I have over 80 games, some original, some re-skinned and I benefit from exponential growth in ad revenue. Yes it’s harder, but again, it’s not impossible.
I’m in it for the money and having fun while I do it, but mostly for the money. If you (not you Stormy, the general “you") is in it for the money, then don’t hate, emulate. Put out as many games as you can, build an app network and when you’re earning a good living from it then you can focus on your Great Novel (Game). If you are in it for fun and passion of game development, then just do you and quit worrying about things you can’t control. Those cloners are doing them, just do you, whatever that may be.
@Appz said:
It’s futile to hope that Apple will clamp down on clones rising to the top of the charts, because then you’re asking for a pseudo philosophical debate, “What is a clone?” Is it only when you copy the same graphics and title, or does it include the gameplay? If it’s just graphics does that mean someone can hold a copyright on certain fonts, styles, graphic styles of logos?
I wouldn't say it was that complex, people would simply have to make a judgement based on various factors - if enough elements come together to suggest that the game maker is simply copying another game, without substantially adding to or changing the concept, then you remove that game.
It might seem complex, all the points you mention (gameplay, fonts, styles, graphic styles of logos . . ) and many more like music, animation style, colour palette and so on, seem to suggest it would be an impossibly complex task, but in reality people make these judgements fairly easily and instinctively, you often only need to look at a game for a few seconds to be able to parse all that information and say whether something is a ripoff or not.
@Appz said:
Would black and white squares and tiles count as infringement?
That all depends on context, in combination with other elements it could well be part of argument.
@Appz said:
Or does it boil down to intention? How do you prove or disprove intention without evidence? It’s not always evident.
I suppose ultimately Apple don't need to prove intention or even offer evidence for their decisions, like any system of codified rules they will need to make a judgement - hopefully it will be a reasoned / reasonable judgement - but being their store they wouldn't need (not in a legal sense at least) any rational for their decision.
@Appz said:
What some of the comments here seems to boil down to is good old Indie Game Dev elitism. "How dare they encroach on our sacred game dev territory and so effortlessly and clock in at $50k a day?!”
I'm not so sure about that, while it's true that the debate is multi-faceted, the central theme to me seems to be the idea of someone stealing your work - I certainly don't recognise the idea of any 'sacred territory'. No one is complaining about anyone else encroaching on indie game dev territory . . . after all how would anyone tell if a game that rockets to the top of the charts is the product of an indie game dev or otherwise ? And wouldn't the act of producing a game make you an indie game dev by definition ?
@Appz said:
What cloning does do, in both gaming and general technology sectors, is drive innovation. The need to differentiate from the herd drives others to improve on old methods and models and graphics and gameplay.
That seems like an odd argument, that copying the work of others forces people to differentiate their copied games from other copied games, thus driving innovation ?
I highly suggest this book for anyone who came to Game Salad as a commercial endeavour. It's a simple, approachable, well-reasoned book with lots of citations and anecdotes.
I can see a way that @Appz is right about a hyper-competitive market creating greater need for unique selling propositions. The more information people have to consider before making a choice, the more they give up and put their trust in the herd. If you want to present a clear choice, you need to have an understandable difference. If people can't spot the difference, if it takes effort to see the distinction, they fall back to whatever everyone else is buying. It's a risk aversion, the fear of being wrong. Not considering all the information leads to wrong decisions, and people don't have the time to assess every single competitor.
Pretty much any book on Positioning theory is going to be useful for people worried about how to fight and survive marketplaces this saturated.
@Socks said:
That seems like an odd argument, that copying the work of others forces people to differentiate their copied games from other copied games, thus driving innovation ?
I'd say it has the opposite effect.
That's the way it has always worked take someone else's idea/invention/creation and try to improve on it, that's where innovation comes from. It is almost impossible to come up with a totally original idea. It's nearly always inspired by and uses someone else's work.
A lot of people/businesses will put a coat of paint on it so to speak and flog it for profit, no innovation in that. A lot of others will try and improve/innovate on it and still others will branch of and come up with something new and better/innovating that they wouldn't of happened if not for some else's work.
I know this is a philosophical argument but I can't help myself
Clones suck, but it's not just them that are the problem. Practically anyone can make a game these days and as a result, the app stores are clogged with utter crap.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the stores should be regulated, like Steam (before crappy Greenlight).
If you can't make a good product, it shouldn't be made available for sale. It's easy to know where to "draw the line". If a game is overly buggy, don't publish it. If it has crappy visuals and design that could have been done by a chimp (seriously, even not using standard fonts is a start!), don't publish it. Steam worked really well until they let the pimply faced public decide what games to support or not - if you don't have the latest AAA FPS, you're screwed!
I'm about to release my racing game, Oversteer. I then have two more games planned, one an action puzzler and the other an adventure game. Both fairly simple and I haven't seen anything like them on the App Store, so I hope to get some decent sales. However, if those games go the way of the rest of my stuff and earn me sweet FA, I'm going to seriously consider developing games for desktop only (Steam) and, believe it or not, old consoles. There aren't many developers making Mega Drive games but there is a massive retro market which will never be infiltrated by the clones, as it's not so simple to write a Mega Drive game, let alone produce a cart! Pier Solar was a massive success and I quite like the ability to charge PROPER money for my games.
As it is, I don't see it getting any easier to make money in the app stores...
@Appz
Good post, no offence taken, you make some very valid points.
I know by selling some templates I drive a little to close to the line on being able to comment guilt free. I do however honestly assume my templates (useful bits of logic) are used for building all manner of original games as most are individual game mechanics, code for psuedo 3d depth, inventories or useful tools. A couple admittedly are full games but they're 4 year old non retina messy projects sold with the assumption that some one might want them for a particular game mechanic to learn from and adapt. (They'd need work to be released with any polish, though you are right admittedly to be free of guilt I need to ditch the 4 year old game projects. . all the work sold is normally left over parts of my own projects that have seised to be.
Defence rests its case ;-)
Eitherway. Evolution or devolution of the app stores. Having the charts full of cloned games all heavilly borrowing from the same original idea still seems a shame.
Cloning is no doubt here to stay, and I'm not sure if I'd trust an app store to filter out the clones from the originals. But with better/different app store design the way in which we search and find games could possibly be improved.
I.e. make the top 100 harder to find and make a bigger edited featured list and a 'you like playing this so try this' front and centre.
One last thing.
The free charts on android are actually pretty fairly spread this evening with only a few black and white tile clones. The rest mostly look to be individual games. . .
@colander said:
That's the way it has always worked take someone else's idea/invention/creation and try to improve on it, that's where innovation comes from.
I think the innovation comes from the people who are making the original games, if we are to avoid infinite regress we have to conclude that at some point someone dreamt up Crush The Castle or Piou Piou or Defender or Space Invaders or Pong or Super Hexagon or Asteroids or Q*bert or Snake or Infiniminer . . . (or a million other original titles), I think the argument that 'everything is a copy' is spurious, it's normally invoked as a justification for cloning, but none of these games I've mentioned took someone else's idea/invention/creation (not that I am aware of at least), at some point you have to abandon the 'all games are developed from prior art' argument unless - like I say - we are arguing for infinite regress.
@colander said:
It is almost impossible to come up with a totally original idea. It's nearly always inspired by and uses someone else's work.
Agreed, I suppose it's a matter of degrees, whereas in some games you can see they've taken their lead from prior games and - like you say - improved on or developed the idea - but I think what developers take issue with is when games are so obviously copying the work of others, lifting the whole look and feel of a game, often down to the font, changing just a few visual elements and altering the name - there's a spectrum going from the most egregious ripoffs to games that proudly wear their influences on their sleeves. Inspiration is great when it inspires something great, something new, whereas someone buying a template of the game you've spent two years working on and simply changes the name and some of the images is pretty disheartening stuff regardless how how some might attempt to sell it to as the status quo.
@colander said:I know this is a philosophical argument but I can't help myself
I don't think it is a philosophical argument, I think the issues are pretty straightforward practical issues.
@POLYGAMe said:
Clones suck, but it's not just them that are the problem. Practically anyone can make a game these days and as a result, the app stores are clogged with utter crap.
True, the quality of some of the games I've downloaded from the AppStore has been shocking ! Seriously I've downloaded games that have made me laugh out loud they've been so awful.
@POLYGAMe said:
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the stores should be regulated, like Steam (before crappy Greenlight).
Well they are regulated, but the standards are pretty loose, but yes, agreed, they should be a lot more discerning.
@POLYGAMe said:
I'm about to release my racing game, Oversteer. I then have two more games planned, one an action puzzler and the other an adventure game. Both fairly simple and I haven't seen anything like them on the App Store, so I hope to get some decent sales.
Haha, one of them could be cloned fairly easily, though a GS or Corona template would be difficult as the game requires 3D (it could be faked but in this case it wouldn't work very well)... the other is story-based and would require a lot of decent voice-acting, so not too easy to knock off - though from a coding perspective, it'd be relatively simple.
But yeah, I'm trying to make stuff that isn't so easy to copy, after the Codestorm clone debacle.
@POLYGAMe said:
Haha, one of them could be cloned fairly easily, though a GS or Corona template would be difficult as the game requires 3D (it could be faked but in this case it wouldn't work very well)... the other is story-based and would require a lot of decent voice-acting, so not too easy to knock off - though from a coding perspective, it'd be relatively simple.
But yeah, I'm trying to make stuff that isn't so easy to copy, after the Codestorm clone debacle.
I think that's maybe a way forward, to include elements that are not so easy to copy, not simply as protection - you'd still want these elements to add something worthwhile to your game - but a game that pivots not just on great gameplay but also on fantastic music, great imagery, great voiceover work - and so on - is going to a lot harder to copy.
@Socks said:
but also on fantastic music, great imagery, great voiceover work
Polish. Goes back to what I was saying that there's a potentially exploitable disparity in how much effort one puts into their games when compared to a cloner.
I'm wondering something; when each of you look at the top charts to see your competitors, are you looking at Top Free, Top Paid, or Top Grossing?
Top Free has tonnes of clones, but Top Grossing has barely any (ignoring slots games and self-clones like *.Saga). Top Free and Top Paid are revolving doors of flashes-in-the-pan. Top Grossing are the games that have gained and retained playerbases that employ people to pursue their dreams.
@Moik said:
Polish. Goes back to what I was saying that there's a potentially exploitable disparity in how much effort one puts into their games when compared to a cloner.
Agreed.
@Moik said:
I'm wondering something; when each of you look at the top charts to see your competitors, are you looking at Top Free, Top Paid, or Top Grossing?
I normally check out Top Stolen, Top $15 template ripoffs and Toppy Bird.
@Socks said:
Yep ! That's the price you need to pay !
Unfortunately it doesn't always work. I have seen SOOOO many games that are really nicely done and they get no recognition. Even when I was writing for TA, often a gem of a game would come along, I'd hand out a decent score, it would more often than not still go on to only get a few hundred downloads. It's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, if you ask me. You need a LOT of luck, these days.
@POLYGAMe said:
Unfortunately it doesn't always work.
Agreed, 'payment does not guarantee admission', it's the same deal with any kind of gamble, from putting out an album to selling T-shirts, nothing is guaranteed. But as a strategy it has a decent chance of stymieing the cloners even if it doesn't guarantee sales.
@POLYGAMe said:
It's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, if you ask me. You need a LOT of luck, these days.
Agreed, but when you are lucky enough to find yourself in the right place at the right time you really want to be in possession of a great game that sits above all the clones.
@Socks said:
It might seem complex... I suppose ultimately Apple don't need to prove intention or even offer evidence for their decisions, like any system of codified rules they will need to make a judgement - hopefully it will be a reasoned / reasonable judgement - but being their store they wouldn't need (not in a legal sense at least) any rational for their decision.
That's the point - it is complex - too complex. As for Apple and their review policies, that's a whole other post itself. I could spend days lamenting the mechanics of Apple's wordy-makes-no-effing-sense decisions on what's ready for sale and what isn't.
To your other points regarding copying not driving innovation - I think @colander gets what I'm trying to say. I didn't mean that the ones whose work was cloned need to innovate to stay ahead of the herd - my point was in general, that copying is one of the main drivers of innovation. Original works are used as inspiration to create improved ones. Take the lady Pacman game, two kids copied the original Pacman, were in legal trouble with the makers, until the makers decided that the cloners version was actually better and bought the rights to it. In that case the direct cloning drove innovation of a newer, better, faster lady Pacman.
Take any piece of technology, a TV, the computer you're using, in most cases the original drove innovation. In most cases, the originals and others innovated to further differentiate from the herd of cloners and stay ahead of their game. Apple and Samsung are typical examples of this phenomenon. Each new device brings a host of new features for a reason. Even if their precious technology was cloned, they go ahead and create something better. With regards to gaming, innovators enhance old games. That is a fact.
@Stormy Thanks for your intellectual honesty
I agree that it's a shame that clones have taken over the Top 100 charts (it makes the charts boring and takes a spot from other more deserving games), yet I also understand why that is the case. I guess just because we understand something doesn't mean we have to like it. Like I understand why bubblegum copycat pop dominates the Billboard Top 100...
The Apple charts and search mechanisms are a balls up. Between the devs that pay for labour farm and incentivized reviews and downloads and the rest - I honestly don't know how Apple could deal with this. The Piano Tiles guy was forced to change the title of his cloned game (previously some variant of Don't step on the white tile) - yet he's still #2 on the charts and there are still other clones in the top charts. It'd seem that Apple are aware that they can only use the ban hammer if it's outright copyright infringement with all the boxes ticked and not just gameplay and similar but not the same graphics. The Make It Rain guys just had their game full on cloned by Big Fish Games which is a big company. It seems as if Apple's hands are tied when it comes to this issue. Any decision they make could set a precedent and anger a lot of developers who bring in a lot of money even with cloned games (Zynga for one). But again, this is Apple we're talking about, you just never know.
Google gets it right, mostly; Apple should "emulate" their search and SEO algorithms.
Comments
Or as Dave Grohl said "The artsy cuts don't keep the mansion running."
Yep, this, enjoy what you do and keep doing it.
Confucius lived in a low rent times.
I've always hated judgemental self-important misanthropists like Confucius - lol 
(with the logical unsaid corollary to judgemental misanthropy being an unsaid self-aggrandisement).
Sometimes the 'inferior man' just needs to feed his 6 year old daughter.
Confucius' problem was that he only had a dial up speed internet connection.
@onelasttime
Greatpost, I too hope the industry gives us a chance to continue.
As for quotes (quick google), this seems appropriate:
Vince Lombardi:
I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.
Operated by his slave, probably.
I think that's the secret. If we each pick a slave to make clones for us, we can all get rich. I pick @Socks and it'll be Flappy Bird all the way down.
(I know Confuscius most likely didn't have any slaves (maybe servants) but I really want to make @Socks make Flappy Bird clones as I'm not a nice person.)
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
When do I start ? I won't do more than 22 hours a day and I demand to be hosed down with reasonably clean river water at least twice a year.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/187385/
I found this article interesting... the practice of cloning has been going on for years and in every industry!
Video games
Movies
Fashion
Recipes
Cybersquatting
Twitter account names
This list could go on forever.
I guess the key items to note are be original, preserve your dignity and be proud of your work. I always say that if someone copies you or your work then take it as a compliment!
Regarding what to do, make the cloning hard to achieve! Reserve some of the similair game names like, free, plus, hd, extra, + etc. I'd also consider putting the word original in the game name.
On top of all that, I made 10 times more money from the shitty apps than my games. And those games took 50x more time to make.
I'm still making games, I was here to make games afterall.. And I am ashamed, I'm not proud of what I'm doing but I need the money. So another x-ray app it is.
Hi @StormyStudio!
I bought your template. I'm gonna clone it and flood the stores with it.
Just kidding! Hahaha!
Just do what you believe is right. Me, I'm taking my time piling up some original games before I take the plunge and buying into GS PRO and Apple Dev. I've signed-up with Android, Amazon and Windows already.
P.S.
Don't be mad if I incorporate the "level select" portion of your template. Saved me time doing that sort.
No offense
- which means this comment is probably going to be offensive and you may take offense, but try not to - but how could you state that you wish, "the market for clones wasn't quite so ripe," yet you offer your templates to places like Deep Blue Apps for sale which no doubt will be cloned with a fresh paint of graphics. Perhaps those who sell their source have some idealistic belief that their source code will be used only for "learning purposes", but come on. Let's get real. Cloning and selling your source code to be probably be cloned are not sisters, but they’re very closely related on the semi-ethical family tree, that’s if ethics is even a question which I don’t think it is. Not in game dev.
The market has changed, yet it hasn't. Cloning and copying game mechanics has always happened, it’s just more blatant now. Almost every game is a close or close enough copy of another. Flappy was a copy of Piou Piou, Angry Birds copied Crush The Castle, Farmville copied Farm Town, Pong copied Table Tennis or more like carbon copied it. Again, come on. Complaining about this is like complaining about websites all looking the same since Wordpress started offering themes. Great websites with exquisitely designed themes still stand out, even amongst the sea of Wordpress clones. What cloning does do, in both gaming and general technology sectors, is drive innovation. The need to differentiate from the herd drives others to improve on old methods and models and graphics and gameplay. And that’s a good thing. If we copyrighted everything, what a boring monopolized world it would be.
It’s futile to hope that Apple will clamp down on clones rising to the top of the charts, because then you’re asking for a pseudo philosophical debate, “What is a clone?” Is it only when you copy the same graphics and title, or does it include the gameplay? If it’s just graphics does that mean someone can hold a copyright on certain fonts, styles, graphic styles of logos? Would black and white squares and tiles count as infringement? Or does it boil down to intention? How do you prove or disprove intention without evidence? It’s not always evident. Tiny Goalie (a really awesome GameSalad developed game) was made before Flappy Bird, yet looking at the two you’d think Tiny Goalie ripped off the “look” and “feel” of Flappy. Yet they didn’t. Should we call the Tiny Goalie devs cloners? Are endless runners clones? Should Apple run every endless runner off the charts? I’m sure the Subway Surfer guys would be thrilled about that.
What some of the comments here seems to boil down to is good old Indie Game Dev elitism. "How dare they encroach on our sacred game dev territory and so effortlessly and clock in at $50k a day?!” Have you seen the forums where other Indie Devs look down on debs that use Game Salad and other game creator software? Pffft.
I agree with most of what you said, but with some cognitive dissonance, I also disagree. I am both a game dev and a reskinner. Just because I can develop my own games using actual code and reskin like a boss, doesn’t mean I have any bad feels towards the guys who just clone popular games. This app store game is iterative when it comes to learning and adapting. This is app store evolution, survival of the fittest. The winners in this market (currently) are the ones who can clone the fastest and rock at ASO to get their game to the top of the charts and the ones who rock at having a botfarm marketing budget.
Yes, it’s harder to crack the app store and you have to use every trick to try to gain reasonable success in the app store, but it’s not impossible. I got close to 400 000 downloads with a Game Salad template. Over 200 000 with native code. Some games get over 1000 downloads a day, some get 60. I put it down to luck, app store optimization and getting reviews more than anything else. I definitely don’t get low downloads in some games because of the hundreds of clones on the charts. It’s because I neglected my ASO or icon and screenshot duties or just made a crappy game. The only reason I’m earning a living from this is because I have over 80 games, some original, some re-skinned and I benefit from exponential growth in ad revenue. Yes it’s harder, but again, it’s not impossible.
I’m in it for the money and having fun while I do it, but mostly for the money. If you (not you Stormy, the general “you") is in it for the money, then don’t hate, emulate. Put out as many games as you can, build an app network and when you’re earning a good living from it then you can focus on your Great Novel (Game). If you are in it for fun and passion of game development, then just do you and quit worrying about things you can’t control. Those cloners are doing them, just do you, whatever that may be.
May the app force be with you.
Wow, long post, some good points made too.
I wouldn't say it was that complex, people would simply have to make a judgement based on various factors - if enough elements come together to suggest that the game maker is simply copying another game, without substantially adding to or changing the concept, then you remove that game.
It might seem complex, all the points you mention (gameplay, fonts, styles, graphic styles of logos . . ) and many more like music, animation style, colour palette and so on, seem to suggest it would be an impossibly complex task, but in reality people make these judgements fairly easily and instinctively, you often only need to look at a game for a few seconds to be able to parse all that information and say whether something is a ripoff or not.
That all depends on context, in combination with other elements it could well be part of argument.
I suppose ultimately Apple don't need to prove intention or even offer evidence for their decisions, like any system of codified rules they will need to make a judgement - hopefully it will be a reasoned / reasonable judgement - but being their store they wouldn't need (not in a legal sense at least) any rational for their decision.
I'm not so sure about that, while it's true that the debate is multi-faceted, the central theme to me seems to be the idea of someone stealing your work - I certainly don't recognise the idea of any 'sacred territory'. No one is complaining about anyone else encroaching on indie game dev territory . . . after all how would anyone tell if a game that rockets to the top of the charts is the product of an indie game dev or otherwise ? And wouldn't the act of producing a game make you an indie game dev by definition ?
Agreed, people have always been 'inspired' (©the Lawyers) by previous work, often building on and/or improving what has gone before - and more often than not being reasonably careful to steer away from wholesale copying - but as you say it's become blatant, it's part of the culture now.
That seems like an odd argument, that copying the work of others forces people to differentiate their copied games from other copied games, thus driving innovation ?
I'd say it has the opposite effect.
Okay, now we're getting into Marketing theory.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/105146.Differentiate_or_Die
I highly suggest this book for anyone who came to Game Salad as a commercial endeavour. It's a simple, approachable, well-reasoned book with lots of citations and anecdotes.
I can see a way that @Appz is right about a hyper-competitive market creating greater need for unique selling propositions. The more information people have to consider before making a choice, the more they give up and put their trust in the herd. If you want to present a clear choice, you need to have an understandable difference. If people can't spot the difference, if it takes effort to see the distinction, they fall back to whatever everyone else is buying. It's a risk aversion, the fear of being wrong. Not considering all the information leads to wrong decisions, and people don't have the time to assess every single competitor.
Pretty much any book on Positioning theory is going to be useful for people worried about how to fight and survive marketplaces this saturated.
I'd say it has the opposite effect.
That's the way it has always worked take someone else's idea/invention/creation and try to improve on it, that's where innovation comes from. It is almost impossible to come up with a totally original idea. It's nearly always inspired by and uses someone else's work.
A lot of people/businesses will put a coat of paint on it so to speak and flog it for profit, no innovation in that. A lot of others will try and improve/innovate on it and still others will branch of and come up with something new and better/innovating that they wouldn't of happened if not for some else's work.
I know this is a philosophical argument but I can't help myself
Universal Binary Template - Universal Binary Template Instructions Rev 4 (Short) - Custom Score Display Template
Clones suck, but it's not just them that are the problem. Practically anyone can make a game these days and as a result, the app stores are clogged with utter crap.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the stores should be regulated, like Steam (before crappy Greenlight).
If you can't make a good product, it shouldn't be made available for sale. It's easy to know where to "draw the line". If a game is overly buggy, don't publish it. If it has crappy visuals and design that could have been done by a chimp (seriously, even not using standard fonts is a start!), don't publish it. Steam worked really well until they let the pimply faced public decide what games to support or not - if you don't have the latest AAA FPS, you're screwed!
I'm about to release my racing game, Oversteer. I then have two more games planned, one an action puzzler and the other an adventure game. Both fairly simple and I haven't seen anything like them on the App Store, so I hope to get some decent sales. However, if those games go the way of the rest of my stuff and earn me sweet FA, I'm going to seriously consider developing games for desktop only (Steam) and, believe it or not, old consoles. There aren't many developers making Mega Drive games but there is a massive retro market which will never be infiltrated by the clones, as it's not so simple to write a Mega Drive game, let alone produce a cart! Pier Solar was a massive success and I quite like the ability to charge PROPER money for my games.
As it is, I don't see it getting any easier to make money in the app stores...
@Appz
Good post, no offence taken, you make some very valid points.
I know by selling some templates I drive a little to close to the line on being able to comment guilt free. I do however honestly assume my templates (useful bits of logic) are used for building all manner of original games as most are individual game mechanics, code for psuedo 3d depth, inventories or useful tools. A couple admittedly are full games but they're 4 year old non retina messy projects sold with the assumption that some one might want them for a particular game mechanic to learn from and adapt. (They'd need work to be released with any polish, though you are right admittedly to be free of guilt I need to ditch the 4 year old game projects. . all the work sold is normally left over parts of my own projects that have seised to be.
Defence rests its case ;-)
Eitherway. Evolution or devolution of the app stores. Having the charts full of cloned games all heavilly borrowing from the same original idea still seems a shame.
Cloning is no doubt here to stay, and I'm not sure if I'd trust an app store to filter out the clones from the originals. But with better/different app store design the way in which we search and find games could possibly be improved.
I.e. make the top 100 harder to find and make a bigger edited featured list and a 'you like playing this so try this' front and centre.
One last thing.
The free charts on android are actually pretty fairly spread this evening with only a few black and white tile clones. The rest mostly look to be individual games. . .
I think the innovation comes from the people who are making the original games, if we are to avoid infinite regress we have to conclude that at some point someone dreamt up Crush The Castle or Piou Piou or Defender or Space Invaders or Pong or Super Hexagon or Asteroids or Q*bert or Snake or Infiniminer . . . (or a million other original titles), I think the argument that 'everything is a copy' is spurious, it's normally invoked as a justification for cloning, but none of these games I've mentioned took someone else's idea/invention/creation (not that I am aware of at least), at some point you have to abandon the 'all games are developed from prior art' argument unless - like I say - we are arguing for infinite regress.
Agreed, I suppose it's a matter of degrees, whereas in some games you can see they've taken their lead from prior games and - like you say - improved on or developed the idea - but I think what developers take issue with is when games are so obviously copying the work of others, lifting the whole look and feel of a game, often down to the font, changing just a few visual elements and altering the name - there's a spectrum going from the most egregious ripoffs to games that proudly wear their influences on their sleeves. Inspiration is great when it inspires something great, something new, whereas someone buying a template of the game you've spent two years working on and simply changes the name and some of the images is pretty disheartening stuff regardless how how some might attempt to sell it to as the status quo.
I don't think it is a philosophical argument, I think the issues are pretty straightforward practical issues.
True, the quality of some of the games I've downloaded from the AppStore has been shocking !
Seriously I've downloaded games that have made me laugh out loud they've been so awful.
Well they are regulated, but the standards are pretty loose, but yes, agreed, they should be a lot more discerning.
Mmmm . . . . [cranks up the template mill]
Haha, one of them could be cloned fairly easily, though a GS or Corona template would be difficult as the game requires 3D (it could be faked but in this case it wouldn't work very well)... the other is story-based and would require a lot of decent voice-acting, so not too easy to knock off - though from a coding perspective, it'd be relatively simple.
But yeah, I'm trying to make stuff that isn't so easy to copy, after the Codestorm clone debacle.
I think that's maybe a way forward, to include elements that are not so easy to copy, not simply as protection - you'd still want these elements to add something worthwhile to your game - but a game that pivots not just on great gameplay but also on fantastic music, great imagery, great voiceover work - and so on - is going to a lot harder to copy.
And harder to make in the first place! haha.
Polish. Goes back to what I was saying that there's a potentially exploitable disparity in how much effort one puts into their games when compared to a cloner.
I'm wondering something; when each of you look at the top charts to see your competitors, are you looking at Top Free, Top Paid, or Top Grossing?
Top Free has tonnes of clones, but Top Grossing has barely any (ignoring slots games and self-clones like *.Saga). Top Free and Top Paid are revolving doors of flashes-in-the-pan. Top Grossing are the games that have gained and retained playerbases that employ people to pursue their dreams.
Like, look at these guys
http://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/app/shadow-fight-2/
Top 100 Grossing after a year of patching and sticking to it. Polish on polish, growth on growth.
Yep !
That's the price you need to pay !
Agreed.
I normally check out Top Stolen, Top $15 template ripoffs and Toppy Bird.
Waits . . . . silently . . . . for the polish to dry . . . quietly . . . sitting . . . waiting . . . often naked . . . . usually drunk . . . with his withered and grey finger on the template mill button.
Unfortunately it doesn't always work. I have seen SOOOO many games that are really nicely done and they get no recognition. Even when I was writing for TA, often a gem of a game would come along, I'd hand out a decent score, it would more often than not still go on to only get a few hundred downloads. It's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, if you ask me. You need a LOT of luck, these days.
Agreed, 'payment does not guarantee admission', it's the same deal with any kind of gamble, from putting out an album to selling T-shirts, nothing is guaranteed. But as a strategy it has a decent chance of stymieing the cloners even if it doesn't guarantee sales.
Agreed, but when you are lucky enough to find yourself in the right place at the right time you really want to be in possession of a great game that sits above all the clones.
That's the point - it is complex - too complex. As for Apple and their review policies, that's a whole other post itself. I could spend days lamenting the mechanics of Apple's wordy-makes-no-effing-sense decisions on what's ready for sale and what isn't.
To your other points regarding copying not driving innovation - I think @colander gets what I'm trying to say. I didn't mean that the ones whose work was cloned need to innovate to stay ahead of the herd - my point was in general, that copying is one of the main drivers of innovation. Original works are used as inspiration to create improved ones. Take the lady Pacman game, two kids copied the original Pacman, were in legal trouble with the makers, until the makers decided that the cloners version was actually better and bought the rights to it. In that case the direct cloning drove innovation of a newer, better, faster lady Pacman.
Take any piece of technology, a TV, the computer you're using, in most cases the original drove innovation. In most cases, the originals and others innovated to further differentiate from the herd of cloners and stay ahead of their game. Apple and Samsung are typical examples of this phenomenon. Each new device brings a host of new features for a reason. Even if their precious technology was cloned, they go ahead and create something better. With regards to gaming, innovators enhance old games. That is a fact.
@Stormy Thanks for your intellectual honesty
I agree that it's a shame that clones have taken over the Top 100 charts (it makes the charts boring and takes a spot from other more deserving games), yet I also understand why that is the case. I guess just because we understand something doesn't mean we have to like it. Like I understand why bubblegum copycat pop dominates the Billboard Top 100...
The Apple charts and search mechanisms are a balls up. Between the devs that pay for labour farm and incentivized reviews and downloads and the rest - I honestly don't know how Apple could deal with this. The Piano Tiles guy was forced to change the title of his cloned game (previously some variant of Don't step on the white tile) - yet he's still #2 on the charts and there are still other clones in the top charts. It'd seem that Apple are aware that they can only use the ban hammer if it's outright copyright infringement with all the boxes ticked and not just gameplay and similar but not the same graphics. The Make It Rain guys just had their game full on cloned by Big Fish Games which is a big company. It seems as if Apple's hands are tied when it comes to this issue. Any decision they make could set a precedent and anger a lot of developers who bring in a lot of money even with cloned games (Zynga for one). But again, this is Apple we're talking about, you just never know.
Google gets it right, mostly; Apple should "emulate" their search and SEO algorithms.