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[nikki]

If my posts appear to be some kind of personal attacks, i sincerly apologize, and assure you their not  .

But for me their would only be a trouble in this case if some business found the source-code and art-assets of someone's game, compiled it and made massive amounts of money with it.

Since that's not the case at all, i think you should take a broader perspective on things, and try to understand that some kind of moral justement on the act of 'taking something and changing it and making more' implies alot more then people are willing to acknowledge.
One could argue over how much you'd need to change, but thats a not so interresting discussion i think, because it'll mostly be on subjective points.

well anyway, i wish nifflas all the strength he needs, and much love and understanding from over here

fake brands and replicas in fashion.

EDIT: btw, thos analogies are just as easy in the greater view of culture, but i'll not say it out loud because that might seem personal on my part.

[Mipe]

Piracy is copying copyrighted content.
Plagiarism is copying ideas.

Are ideas copyrighted? Quite often not. Indie game developers aren't like Microsoft, who patents every single idea they come up with.

Also, what is an idea exactly? The concept (silhouette setting - nighttime, blob rolling over silhouettes)? Or the implementation of concept itself?

If the implementation is similar, we can talk about a carbon copy. If the implementation is different - you have a tumbling robot instead of blob and cranes instead of windmills - then I guess it is different enough not to be considered similar, otherwise we could call 90% of platform games copies of each other.

[s0]

Totally agree. He could have made the exact same game with different graphics and no one would have said a thing.

[Rumrusher]

so a crossover between the two games is out of the question?

[Gnarf]

yeah, but that was exactly my point. we don't know. that's why i neither condemn things like this nor promote them, because it's impossible to know whether more positive than negative came out of it, or vice versa.

what i mean is: every decision we make has an infinitude of negative and positive consequences, far beyond our imagining. and this particular issue has much good and much bad coming from it.

Oh man. I was gonna post on the forum. But that has an infinitude of unknowable good and bad consequences. If only there was something that made me capable of acting, then that something would also make me capable of judging the acts committed by myself and others.

that's still only a negative for the developer of crayon physics. it's not necessarily a negative for the general population (perhaps it's even a positive, since they can enjoy the game without paying for it by playing its clones).

Lol, right, the general population. So a bunch of random nobodies leaves you incapable of forming opinions. Meta meta meta. Oh shit fuck infinite loop.

[Craig Stern]

Are ideas copyrighted? Quite often not.

More than "quite often not," actually. Ideas can never be copyrighted--only expression is protected. (At least, that's how we do it in the U.S.) That, combined with the fact that copyrighted works eventually pass into the public domain, is how Congress chose to balance the respective interests of authors and the public.

Here's something else to keep in mind: games contain assets that are separately subject to copyright. Visual art is subject to copyright. Music is subject to copyright. So if all the Mobile Bros did was copy the in-game artwork from Night Sky, or copy one of the songs off the soundtrack, it wouldn't matter that they'd designed unique levels or tweaked the gameplay physics--they could still face an injunction and possible damages for copyright infringement.

[Problem Machine]

what i mean is: every decision we make has an infinitude of negative and positive consequences, far beyond our imagining. and this particular issue has much good and much bad coming from it.

Exactly; after all, you never know if that adorable little boy is going to grow up to be the next Hitler. This is why child murder should be legal.

[Gnarf]

But it is unknowable if Hitlers are more bad than good or more good than bad.

[s0]

Hitler was a vegetarian.

[Problem Machine]

But it is unknowable if Hitlers are more bad than good or more good than bad.

That's true. One of those Jews he killed might have been the next Hitler!!!

[Hangedman]

I am amused by the number of people blaming Nicalis for this by saying they took too long, and therefore cloning is justified.

Look. It's basically the same game, probably without the Nicalis charm.
I'd be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe, if all their other games weren't highly suspicious ripoffs as well.

In other words: you're not pissed because it didn't happen to you, but if it did, you would be livid. So don't trivialize shit like this too much or it will just keep happening.

[Plasticware]

The game's been temporarily pulled from the App Store, by the way, since they claim they're reworking the main character to bear less of a resemblance to Nifflas'.

Why not change all the graphics altogether, then, while they're at it?

[Shade Jackrabbit]

I am amused by the number of people blaming Nicalis for this by saying they took too long, and therefore cloning is justified.

I think that was maybe 2 people at best.

Look. It's basically the same game, probably without the Nicalis charm.

We all agree on this.

I'd be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe, if all their other games weren't highly suspicious ripoffs as well.

No need to explain, we all agree.

In other words: you're not pissed because it didn't happen to you, but if it did, you would be livid. So don't trivialize shit like this too much or it will just keep happening.

Again, I think there's only a few people who did this, and currently maybe three or four.

Just pay attention to people's shifting or static attitudes. 

[Lon]

@ Plasticware Nightmare, interesting, thanks for the update.

Yeah I'm thinking it's maybe time for a mod to lock this. Anyone?

Agreed, this thread is captious which is quite unbecoming this community.  

This is turning in to the piracy thread. I'm out.

Piracy thread here for those wanting to discuss piracy.
Count me out till this thread improves.

[Martin 2BAM]

The morale of all this is:
Don't show your stuff until it's near-release.

Showing stuff early on can build up a lot of hype
... that get's harvested by someone that does the same thing but ends earlier.

[Jrsquee]

it's rude to use someone else's work without attribution
attribution can be as simple as
i was inspired by <<<Developer>>>
or whatever!
in this case, however
a lot of nifflas' work (graphic design, gameplay concept/execution) was used as the basis for this
without attribution
that's rude
this is a rude game and a rude developer

[moi]

Nifflas should patent gradients

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Hey guys... it's Nicalis, not Nifflas

[Jolli]

i c... talking about a rip of a gam is more interesting than talking about the original one

[falsion]

The same people have also made blatant clones of other games as well, so this definitely isn't mere coincidence.

For example, this is so not

(no, not at all):




Also, here is a game that so doesn't resemble Auditorium at all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdFe9FFZNj0

As you can see, they have no alibi. This is purely intentional through and through. I'm surprised these people get away with this, and continue to do so. With a track record like that, how is it that they haven't been sued yet?