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TIGSource ForumsPlayerGamesblatant clone of a nifflas game on the iphone
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Author Topic: blatant clone of a nifflas game on the iphone  (Read 52018 times)
Craig Stern
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« Reply #120 on: January 28, 2010, 08:10:43 AM »

It was actually T.S. Eliot, I think, who said "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." I don't think he was advocating copyright infringment, though. He was probably talking about his method of cobbling together pieces of already-existing works to create a new, complex work, like he did in The Wasteland.

I'm perfectly okay with that sort of thing--I think it's cool to reference other works in your own work (e.g. the Mario references in Braid). It tells the viewer that you don't have these delusions of total originality, and that you see yourself as part of an evolving artistic tradition.

What these guys did here, though, is something else entirely. Analogy time: if T.S. Eliot's method was to pull together ideas from a million different sources and do something new with it, the Mobile Bros' method is like sitting down in front of a painting and recreating it from scratch. One method is creative and transformative--the other is shameless hackery.
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« Reply #121 on: January 28, 2010, 08:24:51 AM »

Quote
One method is creative and transformative--the other is shameless hackery..
Exactly. I do think there's something like an "art of theft" in art. To keep the music examples going for a bit, DJ Shadow's album "Endtroducing" is entirely composed from samples of existing music, and I've never heard anyone call that "plagiarism" or "unoriginal".

Though this "collage" way of working only works to a certain extent in games, but that's another story.
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team_q
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« Reply #122 on: January 28, 2010, 08:46:02 AM »

@Paul - Labeling people as something that just isn't true is an ad hominum attack, condescending explanations that you are only trying to help them are as well.

@Hayden - At best they are bringing new puzzles for games people who like those puzzle to play. But yeah, they are parasitic, and it's a really depressing that they take a short cut.

I suppose this was the wrong place to dig my back foot in on this issue, there have been too many witch hunts that are unwarranted. Claiming people are blowing it out of proportion isn't meant to be acceptance, going off of the facts as presented, you cannot say the games are an "absolute clone", that is silly.
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« Reply #123 on: January 28, 2010, 08:50:09 AM »

Is there gonna be a conclusion to this thread anytime soon?
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #124 on: January 28, 2010, 08:55:35 AM »

i didn't mean i'm only trying to help them, i was explaining why i think an act such as plagiarism has a lot of defenders on these forums

and i don't think it's condescending, because there's nothing inherently superior about making finer distinctions (if you do that too much, it gets into pedantry); in reality the distinction between tracing a drawing vs copying the idea of a drawing and creating your own version of it is an artificial distinction. nonetheless, it's a useful artificial distinction.
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Alex May
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« Reply #125 on: January 28, 2010, 08:56:17 AM »

I guess people are angry and they all agree about the topic more or less so they're finding other things to argue about instead.

Unless... hands up if you support what Mobile Bros. are doing? If you think it's okay.
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #126 on: January 28, 2010, 08:59:48 AM »

i support what they are doing to a degree. i think it's lazy and unoriginal, but cloning things for new platformers is an age-old tradition that benefits people who want to play an inferior version of something on a platform it doesn't exist on yet. if people didn't do things like that, we wouldn't have popcap, or snood.
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Christian Knudsen
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« Reply #127 on: January 28, 2010, 09:25:35 AM »

You just said that because you like to argue, right? Wink

Making a clone of an old existing game that has no chance of being ported to the platform you want it to be on is nowhere near the same as copying a game that has not yet been released.
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« Reply #128 on: January 28, 2010, 09:27:30 AM »

in reality the distinction between tracing a drawing vs copying the idea of a drawing and creating your own version of it is an artificial distinction. nonetheless, it's a useful artificial distinction.
What the fuck? These are mechanically completely different activities; they don't even completely use the same muscles or parts of the brain. Argh! Specious as hell, yo.
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #129 on: January 28, 2010, 09:33:56 AM »

@kobel: i didn't mean those particular acts, i meant them as stand-ins for a large range or category of activity. insert 'activities like' in front of both parts of that comparison. i could have just as well said that it's an artificial distinction between copying someone's music with a microphone and humming a version of it yourself. i meant that the distinction between direct and indirect copying is artificial (while also being useful).

@chrknudsen: i'm not arguing anything, i'm just saying i can see that this behavior has its good points (and its bad points), and that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. yes plagiarism has bad consequences, and yes plagiarism has good consequences. i'm not equipped to judge which consequences ultimately are the more important consequences (if such a thing can even be judged).
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Problem Machine
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« Reply #130 on: January 28, 2010, 09:39:10 AM »

@kobel: i didn't mean those particular acts, i meant them as stand-ins for a large range or category of activity. insert 'activities like' in front of both parts of that comparison. i could have just as well said that it's an artificial distinction between copying someone's music with a microphone and humming a version of it yourself. i meant that the distinction between direct and indirect copying is artificial (while also being useful).

But how is it artificial if the methodology is completely different? You can make the claim that, given the final product, you have no way of knowing its production methods and therefore such knowledge shouldn't be relevant to a value judgment of the piece in question, but that's not really the same thing.
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Shade Jackrabbit
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« Reply #131 on: January 28, 2010, 09:53:05 AM »

*yawn* Hey guys, just woke up. What'd I miss?

...oh.

Uhhhh... I think, in light of this recent (more like finally presented, sheesh, that took a while) evidence, it's pretty clear these guys are just ripping stuff off. You have my support to go stab him with pitchforks/whatever.
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« Reply #132 on: January 28, 2010, 10:00:28 AM »

@chrknudsen: i'm not arguing anything, i'm just saying i can see that this behavior has its good points (and its bad points), and that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. yes plagiarism has bad consequences, and yes plagiarism has good consequences. i'm not equipped to judge which consequences ultimately are the more important consequences (if such a thing can even be judged).

Alex May asked if anybody support what Mobile Bros are doing (i.e. copying games) and you said that you support it to a certain degree. I just can't understand how you can support ripping off another game, even just to a certain degree...
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #133 on: January 28, 2010, 10:03:58 AM »

But how is it artificial if the methodology is completely different? You can make the claim that, given the final product, you have no way of knowing its production methods and therefore such knowledge shouldn't be relevant to a value judgment of the piece in question, but that's not really the same thing.

what i meant was more like this: there are an infinite number of ways and degrees to copy something. for our own purposes, we separate those infinite ways and degrees into two groups: ways which are 'inspired by' and ways which are 'rip-offs'. the distinction between those two groups is artificial, even though the distinction between any given types of methods isn't.

as an example, fps's used to be called doom clones, and now they're called first person shooters; before they were considered rip-offs of doom, now it's considered a genre.

@chrknudse: as i said, there are some benefits. a big one is that a lot of people will get to play something that feels like night game, but isn't, when they otherwise would not have been able to play it. maybe some of them will learn of night game from the rip off and enjoy the original even more. as an example, popcap ripped off puzz loop with zuma, but if they had not done that, i would never have heard of puzz loop. and i enjoyed zuma.



http://www.tigsource.com/articles/2007/06/26/popcap-on-the-topic-of-creativity
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Christian Knudsen
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« Reply #134 on: January 28, 2010, 10:26:37 AM »

@chrknudse: as i said, there are some benefits. a big one is that a lot of people will get to play something that feels like night game, but isn't, when they otherwise would not have been able to play it.

So you know for a fact that NightSky would never have been ported to the iPhone? And how would they not have been able to play it? Just because they own an iPhone doesn't mean they wouldn't be able to play it like everybody else on another platform...
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« Reply #135 on: January 28, 2010, 10:34:34 AM »

But how is it artificial if the methodology is completely different? You can make the claim that, given the final product, you have no way of knowing its production methods and therefore such knowledge shouldn't be relevant to a value judgment of the piece in question, but that's not really the same thing.

what i meant was more like this: there are an infinite number of ways and degrees to copy something. for our own purposes, we separate those infinite ways and degrees into two groups: ways which are 'inspired by' and ways which are 'rip-offs'. the distinction between those two groups is artificial, even though the distinction between any given types of methods isn't.

as an example, fps's used to be called doom clones, and now they're called first person shooters; before they were considered rip-offs of doom, now it's considered a genre.

In some cases, though, there are very clear and obvious differences. If someone gets a decompiler and copies out source code and steals graphics assets from games, that is an obvious quantifiable and qualitative difference between the methodologies and moralities of the product in question. Saying that there are situations where there's no clear division is certainly something I would agree with, but using that to imply that it's impossible to make a value judgment about this sort of thing because there's NEVER a difference doesn't follow.

In short, for every example that's 'inspired by' or 'ripped off from,' there's also 'plagiarized.' Pretending these are equivalent actions is an insult to anyone who is legitimately trying to use someone else's work as a springboard for their own creativity.
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #136 on: January 28, 2010, 11:04:15 AM »

i didn't mean to say that it's impossible to make a value judgement because there's never a difference, though -- all i said earlier was that that distinction has to be taught to people, that people aren't always able to distinguish between the two categories. and that the inability to make that distinction may be why so many people are defending this game instead of recognizing it as having gone beyond 'inspiration' territory into 'rip off' territory

anyway, to repeat my position, i think this game is probably a clone of night game, every bit as much as zuma is of puzz loop, but that even blatant clones can sometimes produce some positive benefits (like maybe more people will find out about night game through this game), so i'm not gonna condemn it totally; and sometimes a game can both be a rip off and worth playing, like that giana sisters game
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Christian Knudsen
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« Reply #137 on: January 28, 2010, 11:17:09 AM »

and sometimes a game can both be a rip off and worth playing, like that giana sisters game

Sure, if you ripoff a good game, you're likely to get a good game. No argument there. But does that justify ripping it off? In my mind, no. And here's why: you could have made an equally good game without ripping off another one (it would just have taken more effort). Wink
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« Reply #138 on: January 28, 2010, 11:30:34 AM »

sure, but sometimes effort is limited, by time constraints or personality constraints. maybe rip-off games are all this guy knows how to make, or all he's capable of. if so, better a rip-off game than no game. so i'm not prepared to say that if he would have tried to make an original game instead it would have been as good, or even whether he would have finished the game. i don't think it's as easy as it seems to answer questions like "should he have made an original game instead?" maybe he's not a very good game designer, and cloning is the one skill he does well. if so, maybe it'd be best (for him) to keep to his strengths.

going back to a less nebulous topic, moi expressed the thought earlier on that nicilas should have just finished night game first, and that they're taking too slow. but when i read that i thought: first, that it's harder to create a game than to clone one, and second, that the things that make a game good (level design and balancing and so on) often take a long time to do well, even though they don't take very long to do poorly or even adequately. or maybe night game is a lot bigger than this clone, with ten times the world size. or maybe nicalis/nifflas don't have a very good wii programmer whereas this guy is an excellent iphone programmer; design and development are different skills, and nifflas always struck me as an excellent designer who was only average in development/programming skill.
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Christian Knudsen
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« Reply #139 on: January 28, 2010, 11:46:09 AM »

Trying to put even an ounce of blame on Nicklas is preposterous and I hope that was partly in jest on moi's part...
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