Indie dev baffled after acquaintance clones his game, puts it on Steam, and acts like it's no big deal: 'Happens every day homie'
Indie dev baffled after acquaintance clones his game, puts it on Steam, and acts like it's no big deal: 'Happens every day homie'
Dire Decks creator kindanice is at a loss after a fellow indie dev remade his game and refuses to take it down.
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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.
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.
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.
I wouldn't consider any of those to be trivial to build though.
Ok.
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.
I wouldn't exactly call a cotton gin "trivial" to build...
I mean, this entire discussion hinges on the definition of "trivial," so...cool.
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The entire design is a copy, down to the art style and color scheme...
I feel like it matters that he's not selling it though... He liked the idea, added features he liked and is sharing what he made. He also mentions that it's a clone. He sounds like a jerk, but like...
In a way, it's kindaworse he's making it free. He's not profiting from it, he's just screwing the other guy for no reason.
Guess I just don't understand how it screws the other guy
Ok, so imagine that you're hungry and you come across a sandwich shop that has your favorite sandwich for $15, but the shop next door has the exact same sandwich for free. Which sandwich are you gonna eat?
No, wait, that's not important. Most people are gonna eat the free sandwich, so even if you eat the $15 sandwich, you're statistically irrelevant.
Yeah, maybe some people that weren't hungry are gonna get a free sandwich, but the people who were hungry are also getting free sandwiches, which means that the guy trying to make a living selling $15 sandwiches is gonna have to close shop unless he starts lacing his sandwiches with cocaine.
Maybe I'm bad at itch.io but it looks like they are both free. Lemme offer another analogy.
Your and your friend have sandwhich parties and one day you compare notes. Your friend's sandwich is really good, so you make it yourself and add some things. Now you really like the sandwich so you throw a sandwhcih party with the new sandwich and tell everyone it's based on your friend's sandwich.
Then your friend asks why you coppied his sandwich and you're a jerk about.
That's how this reads to me
I didn't realize he wasn't trying to sell his game, so I guess we need a different analogy.
Ok, imagine you and your brother are making a website where friends can post about their lives and keep up with each other during and after college. You're pretty open with your project and then one day the one weird guy in your friend group launches your project without consulting you. The project takes off and makes billions of dollars. You sue the weirdo and he gives you some money, but you're still pissed about it. Did you get Zucked?
No one's making billions of dollars. No one's making a single dollar. Both games have absolutely no monetization.
Exactly. It feels more like making a snake clone with fun features. Second guy learned some stuff, but was a dick about it. Ultimately no one was hurt tho and this doesn't seem like a big deal
Your analogies just sounds like general consequences of market competition.
and there is no good-guy when it comes to the story of facebook.
Your analogy just sounds like general consequences of market competition.
Because he didn't make the idea or hone it into a game. So much of a game design is just trial and error
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