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The “article” reads like a drama. The dude has all original code and artwork and a different game engine. The screenshots show a very simplistic thing… you wouldn’t sue someone because their stick figures look too much like yours. If the game was copied that quickly there wasn’t much substance there to begin with imo.
I agree that it’s all original code and art, I would even say that he’s well within his right to post his clone since there doesn’t seem to be any copyright-able IP he could be infringing on.
But I wholly disagree with the notion that “if the game was copied that quickly there wasn’t much substance there to begin with”. There are limitless examples of world changing inventions that were trivial to build, but no one had thought to do it, and the same goes for art. The difficulty of making something isn’t what makes it genius, in fact it’s usually the simplicity of a genius idea that makes people go “damn, why didn’t I think of that, it’s so genius!”
It sounds like this guy accomplished little more than burning the few bridges he had, and dragging his own name through the mud. Just…not a smart move.
- refalo ( @refalo@programming.dev ) 3•4 months ago
no one had thought to do it
Could you please give some examples of this? I’d love to know more.
A lot of stationary: paper clips, staples, pencils, sticky notes
A lot of toys: yoyo, slinky, hula hoop, Play-Doh, crayons
Packaging: cardboard box, plastic bottles, plastic bottles with the lid on the bottom, aluminum cans
You use inventions all the time that you could probably just build from home now that you know what they are. But there’s nothing that says you/we are already aware of every simple invention. Just think about all the simple, yet revolutionary ideas no one has thought of yet…and if you can do that, you’ll be a billionaire.
- refalo ( @refalo@programming.dev ) 1•4 months ago
I wouldn’t consider any of those to be trivial to build though.
Ok.
But games and art aren’t exactly like that. People train by copying great art, and code and games especially are iterative. It’s not like he took a super useful thing and made millions by claiming he invented it. He took a game, made a clone and added features, admitting it was a clone. Like snake and pong and brickbreaker.
Not the person you initially asked, but a good one is Eli Whitney’s cotton gin that made separating the cotton fiber from the seeds much easier. It had traditionally been done by hand, which is very time consuming. Whitney’s invention greatly simplified the process and made cotton farming much more economically viable as an industry, ultimately leading to an extreme expansion in chattel slavery in the Southern United States and serving to solidify a planter aristocracy that would eventually seek to split with the United States in order to create its own slaveholding empire, triggering a Civil War that would decimate a large chunk of the country and kill three quarters of a million people.
- refalo ( @refalo@programming.dev ) 3•4 months ago
I wouldn’t exactly call a cotton gin “trivial” to build…
I mean, this entire discussion hinges on the definition of “trivial,” so…cool.
That’s like saying Tetris had nothing in their game?
Yeah because you are also a taker instead of a creator. If you knew how ideas are born you would also feel disgusted
Ideas are nothing. Everyone has a million daydreams, the most special and creative idea in the world is worthless if you can’t express it.
Execution is everything. Hell, you don’t even need an idea - you can draw random design elements out of a bag and come up with something great
No. I work as a game designer, and I can just straight up tell you that you are dead wrong. Ideas have both quality and value, and they interconnect to make the backbone of interactive experiences
Ideas have both quality and value, and they interconnect to make the backbone of interactive experiences
That’s it exactly. The way the ideas interconnect and the way they’re presented to the player is everything. That’s execution, that’s everything - the ideas are just what’s in your head
No
There’s just no decency in people these days
He told his friend about the game. I don’t think he would have done so if he copied or felt he had “stolen” anything. If he remade the game with this own code and assets then he put a lot of work into it and he can be proud of that (and telling his friend shows that he was). Comparing the game, i do think the clone is better made / more polished. So he really like the game and made a better version of it. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. IP has to be respected (can’t just copy assets or code) but if that’s the case then anything goes and that’s a good thing, it gives us better games.
Think PalWorld, for example, Nintendo, one of the most copyright abusing companies in the world, doesn’t sue them and it’s arguably a better game than anything Nintendo has come up with recently (no new / modern / good / 3D Pokemon games).
I don’t respect ip
I don’t respect the way IP is abused by large companies. I support short-term IP as I think it does help individuals in a net-positive way for everyone.
I could be convinced that short-term IP is bad too, but regardless I think long-term is the the big problem. Games from the 80s should all be public domain by now.
No. I just don’t respect ip.
I respect that.
The only laws I respect are gravity and conservation of momentum, and even those are debatable
And manslaughter
This looks much more egregious than palworld/pokemon. Palword has very distinct gameplay from pokemon and adds many features and gameplay elements that nintendo has never done. It’s much more similar to Ark if anything in terms of gameplay. The only thing it takes from pokemon is the fact that it’s a creature collector game and a couple of the pals look like they were generated by ai trained on a database of creatures from other games, but even that isnt conclusive. It definitely takes inspiration from Zelda, but again thats a few gameplay elements, not the whole game.
If you have any interest in playing a good Pokemon game, Pokemon Legends Arceus is excellent. Palword may be just a bit better, but if you have a lingering nostalgia and a desire for some fresh and well executed mechanics in the Pokemon universe, PLA slaps.
All my games are Foss. honesty if that happened I would be more upset they didn’t want to just collaborate on the same code
I guess my only takeaway is that if I want to protect my IP then anyone who has access to the software should be required to sign a terms & agreement that specifically written to prevent this kind of thing, regardless IANAL, but i’m pretty sure this is all legal according to copyright law. The engine and therefore the code is different, the assets are custom and slightly different. If this were a trademark or patent related case then there might be a something else to go on.
Yeah pretty much. You can’t copyright gameplay mechanics, so there’s nothing illegal about it. It’s just a dick move.
Reminds me of 2048 making a slightly worse clone of Threes and then releasing it for free.
And enormously outperforming the original, too. A shame, I like threes.
That’s disgusting behaviour
aptronymic!