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[Accidental Rebel]

Sigh. I don't really want to argue so I'll just leave it at that.

[Gimym TILBERT]

And in the industry COPY is the desired skill, it show you have the analytical skills to take a game and understand how it works. And that's just what the industry does, COPY ... Heck I was at a conference where a developer said he was not seeking creative people, but people that can copy other games. Business men in the industry back up people that can copy any other game that have success. Being successful is a better indicator of career than CREATIVITY. This one is left to poor indie and artist. Actually branding yourself as solely a creative person is what kills your career. Copy is much more tangible.

So what do you want, to copy or to create? It will lead your career to widely different path.
 

[Paul Eres]

Eh, technology turns over pretty quickly.  Can't be more than a few years before everyone's on to something else.  So, any major faux pas in some online community quickly becomes ancient history.

that isn't true at all. i still remember your stupid posts on the indiegamer.com message board in 2004 or earlier, and still hold that against you, and i'm sure i'm not alone. people's reputation matters online, even long-term.

similarly, people are not about to forget tim langdell's behavior, or adam coate's, even 10 years from now.

as for the topic itself, i'd say it's a bad idea unless you're going to add something that's a significant improvement over the original. which shouldn't be all that hard to do, since it's such a new genre.

[bvanevery]

Eh, technology turns over pretty quickly.  Can't be more than a few years before everyone's on to something else.  So, any major faux pas in some online community quickly becomes ancient history.

that isn't true at all. i still remember your stupid posts on the indiegamer.com message board in 2004 or earlier, and still hold that against you, and i'm sure i'm not alone. people's reputation matters online, even long-term.

So what?  If you've got the emotional energy to hold onto things from 6 years ago, when I don't have any memory of even speaking to you, that's your problem not mine.  There's always some outlier who holds a grudge about something for years and years and years, who loves to nurse it for some reason.

As for indiegamer.com in general, they're not making me any money, so why should I care about them?  I mean geez, at one level this thread is about careers, haven't you ever moved on from a work situation you didn't like?  Left some irritating associates behind that you don't care to ever work with again?  If you haven't then you're either rather lucky, rather easygoing, or not very old.  People move on from jobs, where you know, they're like paid, lots of money.  People fret about it a lot, they consider it a major life decision, it often embodies deep unhappiness, but frankly people do it and move on.  What hold does some random internet forum have over you?  Sweating about it over the long haul is pretty silly.  That's actually one of the problems of open source communities and the like, their exaggerated sense of self-importance.  When there's money on the table, people are a lot more polite, because they're more interested in the money than the drama.

similarly, people are not about to forget tim langdell's behavior,

Tim Langdell is actually proof of just how much someone can get away with!  If people have to do that much to suffer any kind of consequence, the rest of us mere mortals should hardly worry about giving offense here and there.  Man I wonder how you'd do in business or politics, sounds like you couldn't hang.  There's rougher worlds out there than indie developer forums.

or adam coate's, even 10 years from now.

Adam Coate?  What's your beef with him, that he promoted his Flytrap game?  That's a rhetorical question, as I don't care.  I've interacted by private chat with him plenty of times, and I'd go so far as to call him a chat penpal.  If that lowers anyone's opinion of me then hey fine, bring it on.  I don't respect "bandwagon" people who can't judge a person 1 on 1; the man's never given me any problem.

TIGSource didn't even exist 10 years ago.  Something else will exist 10 years from now.  That's the "inflated sense of importance" problem again.  People sitting around yelling about how much they don't like someone are just people with too much time on their hands.  Life either changes that for them, i.e. they get forced to spend their time on something of real consequence, or life doesn't change it and they persist in their irrelevance indefinitely.  

[C.A. Sinner]

People sitting around yelling about how much they don't like someone or something are just people with too much time on their hands.  Life either changes that for them, i.e. they get forced to spend their time on something of real consequence, or life doesn't change it and they persist in their irrelevance indefinitely.  

Quoted for truth, bro.

[Paul Eres]

tim langdell got a way with it for a while, that is true, but now the internet exists. in the 80s and early 90s people could do whatever they wanted without fear of it transferring into the future, because there wasn't as permanent a record of the past. now everything is saved. politicians are just beginning to learn this: in the past they could say one thing and then say another, but now in the era of youtube and cell phone cameras and facebook and twitter people hold them accountable to their promises. google is a very powerful tool, and doesn't care all that much if a site about you was written 10 years ago or yesterday (i know it weighs one more heavily, but the old stuff sticks around).

for instance, look up adam coate in google. what do you get? first result: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9905.0 which then links to http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4213/pondering_indie_spirit_derek_yu_.php -- any future employer of his, any future fiance, or whatever, will look up his name in google and see that. he can't get away from it. maybe it won't be the #1 result for all time, but it'll be out there. it also is kind of funny that you're friends with adam coate, but when i read that i thought "suddenly it all makes sense".

of course you're a bit smarter than adam coate in that he used his real name and you use "bvanevery" because nobody would want the kind of stuff you've done and said attached to their real name.

[RCIX]

Take it to PMs guys. This is not what the thread is about.
/thread derailment
What about doing something similar to but different from Epic Win? Like maybe a strategy-game-themed todo list?

[Accidental Rebel]

@RCIX, yeah, after the comments I've received because of this thread, I now have a good plan of where to steer my idea. Basically, I'm gonna review what made EpicWin, uh, epic. And use what I have learned to push the concept further.

A strategy-game-themed todo list seems like a good idea!

[moi]

With the time wasted in this thread you could have earned millions if you were notch.

[bvanevery]

tim langdell got a way with it for a while, that is true, but now the internet exists. in the 80s and early 90s people could do whatever they wanted without fear of it transferring into the future, because there wasn't as permanent a record of the past. now everything is saved. politicians are just beginning to learn this: in the past they could say one thing and then say another, but now in the era of youtube and cell phone cameras and facebook and twitter people hold them accountable to their promises. google is a very powerful tool, and doesn't care all that much if a site about you was written 10 years ago or yesterday (i know it weighs one more heavily, but the old stuff sticks around).

In politics, this might matter more, because a lot of people in the psychological Least Common Denominator are going to be voting for you.  I have my doubts that it's going to matter as much as you think.  It may not be easy for politicians to lie with impunity as they did in the past, but I'm sure that the Art of Spin will remain alive and well indefinitely.  One of the hallmarks of a good social manipulator, is they're better at it than people who think it's "not ok" to do it.  There's a reason that such socially intelligent people get farther ahead in society.  Namely, that this is half of how the human brain evolved, it's one of the major driving factors in human evolution.  No, we didn't just make tools, we used each other as tools.

In private life, the real minefield is "getting into it" with some internet outlier and not moving on.  Internet forums attract all kinds of dysfunction, including people who will outright stalk you, because you represent something "bad" to their own personal demons.  If you realize, however, that internet forums don't actually have any hold over you, that you don't have to interact with any given group of people, and indeed that lots of people in the real business world don't spend any time on internet forums at all, it's easy to put these things in perspective and move on with your life.  There's nothing an indie developer should fundamentally fear about forums, let alone for the mere act of making a game that's derivative of some other game.

for instance, look up adam coate in google. what do you get? first result: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9905.0 which then links to http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4213/pondering_indie_spirit_derek_yu_.php

Oh yeah, that's how I met him!  Thanks for reminding me of that.  Now I know why I'm friends with him, because once upon a time I wasn't an asshole to him.  If you think someone on the internet is being an asshole, you have a couple of options.  You can scream about how he's an asshole, which pretty makes you an asshole as well.  That's pretty much par for the course on the internet.  Or, you can see the good in people, and interact successfully with them.  Some of us have that capacity and others don't, either because we're older and different things are important to us, or psychologically we're just put together differently.  Nothing about Adam Coate ever said to me, "dealbreaker as a human being."  And as you know, I have some long term perspective on where "forum drama" comes from.

-- any future employer of his, any future fiance, or whatever, will look up his name in google and see that. he can't get away from it.

Hey if I had money I'd hire him.  And yes he can get away from it.  He already did, as an indie game developer.  You really expect Indies to respond to this kind of social gloom and doom?  Indies do what they jolly well please.  Sometimes it's pretty amazing to see people thinking about Indies as some kind of social club, where they gotta fit in.  They don't!  That's the point!

of course you're a bit smarter than adam coate in that he used his real name and you use "bvanevery" because nobody would want the kind of stuff you've done and said attached to their real name.

Brandon Van Every is my real name.  It's been signed on any mailing list where signing emails is customary.  What exactly do you think I'm hiding?  Here, you are demonstrating that we are very different kinds of people, socially speaking.  You are very much afraid of things that clearly I am not afraid of.  You find people gravely offensive that I clearly do not.  I could steer you towards all sorts of psychological tests and managerial theories about this sort of thing, but I'm sure right now that would be lost on you, and you're capable of doing your own research anyways.

[Paul Eres]

to quote kermit the frog, what you just said is 100% wrong, e.g. i'm known for being a vocal opponent of the indie social club and for saying crazy things that everyone objects to.

but in any case yes RCIX we seem to be getting off topic. but this topic is relevant to this topic in this way: does doing immoral things like stealing someone's ideas catch up with you? or can you make money and be successful despite being an awful person? the answer is of course "yes" (to both). you can be successful despite a bad rep, but it is always a hinderance and does always catch up with you in little ways which make your life harder.

just look at zynga: yes they're making a ton of money, but yes they are suffering some consequences for their actions too -- for instance, many people advise their friends not to work at zynga, so they're losing out on a lot of good people who would otherwise have worked for them.

also, re "There's nothing an indie developer should fundamentally fear about forums" i could point out many cases where an indie has said something bad about a publisher or sponsor on a forum only to have it come back to them. there exist secret forums for indies away from the public eye to avoid exactly that problem.

[bvanevery]

Take it to PMs guys.

No no no no no God no don't do that.  Last guy who PMed me about how irritated he was with me, he couldn't gracefully let go even when I was polite with him.  I had to put him on my Ignorelist.

This is not what the thread is about.
/thread derailment

Apologies for the long windedness. The points are:

• The vast majority of game developers clone games.
• Regardless, it doesn't matter what people in forums think of you.
• Your career is your own, not some social committee's.  It will change as you change, there's nothing permanent about it.
• So stop living in fear and make your game already.  Nothing bad will happen.  Really.

[RCIX]

Regardless, it doesn't matter what people in forums think of you.

Which is why you're acting so rude?

[bvanevery]

does doing immoral things like stealing someone's ideas catch up with you?

This is also a false premise.  Most game ideas aren't owned by anyone, as gamedom is mostly a history of copying.  Even if someone has a genuinely original idea, ideas are not protected under Copyright law, only their concrete expression.  The "immorality" that you suggest here is totally in the realm of the perceived, and is a lot like getting worked up over skinny dipping.  My advice is to get over the headspace and get on with making your game.

just look at zynga: yes they're making a ton of money, but yes they are suffering some consequences for their actions too -- for instance, many people advise their friends not to work at zynga, so they're losing out on a lot of good people who would otherwise have worked for them.

Man if that's the metric, I'm going to advise you not to work much of anywhere in the game industry.  Too much work for too low pay, worker exploitation is rampant, and you rarely get the creative freedom you were hoping to get.  Why bother?  If it's going to turn into a dull job, at least get paid a lot of money for what you're doing, so that you have the personal bankroll to go do your own Indie thing yourself.

also, re "There's nothing an indie developer should fundamentally fear about forums" i could point out many cases where an indie has said something bad about a publisher or sponsor on a forum only to have it come back to them.

Go ahead and point them out then.  Otherwise, don't expect people to fear a cabal.

[bvanevery]

Regardless, it doesn't matter what people in forums think of you.

Which is why you're acting so rude?

If someone makes personal attacks, I make it expensive for them.  I never take them lying down.  I never make personal attacks either.  Go over this thread and ask yourself where the trouble started.