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[Zaphos]

So, there's a Fez trailer out now, and it's obviously so so awesome, but, predictably, it still gets the occasional "HAY GUYS THIS IS A CRUSH RIPOFF!"

WHICH GOT ME THINKING: people get really protective of any idea that they see as "new," and if a game goes anywhere near that idea it gets dubbed "ripoff".
But once ideas are shared between lots of games, they lose their sense of ownership (we can even plot this loss of ownership as it occurs!), and then no one will shout RIPOFF about the idea anymore, even though this is the place where much more rote copying seems to occur.

On the other hand, if someone does genuinely try to mimic experimental new ideas and 'undercuts' the success of others, well, I do see how there's something negative to that.

Where do you draw the line between "exploring under-explored territory" (perhaps inspired by the efforts of some interesting previous game), vs. accusing people of "idea theft"?

Also, do you think there's a good or proper way to address intellectual debts when designing a game that builds on interesting previous games?  What if a game came with a "Related Work" section ...

DISCUSS.

[deadeye]

I think game design elements are fair game, but once you get into borrowing story elements, cloning characters, or copying art styles then you're heading into ripoff territory.

Adopting game-play mechanics can be a good thing.  If they're good, and unique, I always find myself wishing there were more games like that.  It goes both ways though.  Look at the abundance of forgettable console platformers, or all those boring, run-of-the-mill FPS's.  You have to sift a lot of crap to find games that stand out.

[Alex May]

A rip-off is when you take something, and rip a piece off to use yourself. Or perhaps, rip the entire thing loose from where it's fastened, and use it for your own purposes. Literally, this would mean any infringement of copyright, but conceptually I suppose it includes things like modified game design or use of game design elements or innovations. Nowadays it's a very broad term meaning "any similarity to another product whatsoever" which is slightly unfair I think. There's a pretty large grey area (both in legal and moral terms) between inspiration and copying IMO, but by and large my opinion is that if you're taking something and changing it a bit, as long as your intentions are good then it's fine by me.

[skaldicpoet9]

I usually only consider something a rip-off whenever it is quite obvious that whoever is doing the ripping off is using pre-existing content to make their game. I mostly see this as a matter of style rather then the substance of the game itself due to the fact that most games and any kind of entertainment really, can all be considered "rip-offs" of each other. So when another generic RPG is released with it's own style but the same core mechanics that all other RPGs have beaten into the ground before (see JRPGs) then you see what I am talking about.

Funnily enough when reading Games for Windows recently I spotted this screenshot for Battlefield Heroes 2:



which looks suspiciously close to TF2's look...

But alas, like Haowan said, as long as someone is mainly taking something as a source of inspiration I don't see any harm in it, actually I wholeheartedly endorse people taking pre-existing concepts and improving (hopefully) upon them.

[Alex May]

Everyone is calling BF:H a rip off of TF2. This is not true. They have chosen an art style that is not photorealistic. The character style harks back to the wartime posters of that period. It is very much unlike Team Fortress 2.

I'm quite certain that they would not have chosen to go with such a style had Team Fortress 2 never existed, but that doesn't make it a rip off.

[skaldicpoet9]

That was exactly the point I was trying to make...I wasn't saying that it was a rip-off I was saying that it was a good thing that games like TF2 paved the way for this style direction which a lot of developers seem to think spells doom for "serious" types of games. I actually like the style I was just pointing out that something can be similar and not be a rip-off.

I'm quite certain that they would not have chosen to go with such a style had Team Fortress 2 never existed, but that doesn't make it a rip off.

Yeah, in the article that is pretty much what one of the developers said. He basically said that they had this style in the works before they had even heard of TF2. They were apprehensive about the style at first, however, due to TF2's success he said that they were pretty much convinced that it could be just as popular if they didn't go with the "photo realism" type of look.

[cmspice]

I say ripoffs must be purely explicit. There are very few original ideas and the ones that work out well are few and far in between. But who cares! There is nothing wrong with using a game mechanic that's already been used. I mean seriously the first person genre has been so overly saturated with so called "doom clones" but we don't hold them against the fact that they are the umpteenth first person shooter in existence. This is because each and every new game takes the game mechanic and adds something new to it (this isn't always true unfortunately, but you get the idea) whether it be an awesome storyline or some additional gameplay mechanic. I like to think it's all a matter of how you take an idea and expand on it. Crush takes the 3d 2d thing and uses it to parallel the mind of the protagonist. That's a usage of a gameplay mechanic on storyline and character. Likewise, probably all of the puzzles involve some sort of 2d 3d shifting. Fez on the other hand seems to incorporate the 3d 2d into storyline with a little humor (like the sign for example). On the gameplay side (I have yet to play either game btw) I can imagine the puzzles being drastically different than Crush simply by comparing the character and level size. Fez is definitely a lot more vertical than Crush. So we have two games with the same gameplay mechanic at heart yet are completely different. And even if the creator of Fez saw Crush and said "Oh cool! Imma steal this idea" I don't see how it makes the game ripoff. A game is not about the mechanics but how those mechanics are used.

Ripoffs have no passion behind them and are really made for purely monetary reasons.

[team_q]

Battlefield:Team Fortess

Seeing as Team Fortess 2 has been been in development since before the Battlefield Series began, I find it hard to believe that they weren't aware of it till release.
Same visual style? -Ok
An FPS - ok
Online Only - uh Alright
TeamBased - Wow cutting close
Same Gun holding and running animation as the Heavy weapons guy with a shotgun? uh, guys?

I mean, there are alot of cool things about the game, I actually LOVE the art style, they really nail those posters, but their timing couldn't be worse.

Oh, and about FEZ, All my friends say its like Paper Mario, BUT it looks far and beyond more interesting.

[deadeye]

Oh, and about FEZ, All my friends say its like Paper Mario, BUT it looks far and beyond more interesting.

Do you mean the new Super Paper Mario?  Superficially maybe, but Fez looks to be more like SPM^2.  I was actually a little disappointed in the scope of Super Paper Mario.  There were a couple clever puzzles that used the 2D/3D switching, but for the most part it was just "hmm, a blank wall (flip) oh gee, there's the door."  Judging from the Fez trailer it's much more in-depth as far as flipping your pov around to seek out the correct path or find secrets.  More balanced too, like the 3D aspect is closely integrated with exploration, whereas in SPM the 3D was largely pointless and annoying (however neat looking).

[StephenAnthony]

I think ripping something off is a lot about the motive. Like previously said, there's a difference between 'expanding on' and just trying to profit from somebody else's idea.

If the goal is to take something you loved and try to add to it and make it better, or just take a different angle on it, I'd call that fair game.

If you made Aquaria starring a birdman in the clouds just because Aquaria has done well, I'd call that a ripoff.

[cmspice]

Oh! Oh! Genius idea!

[carbon]

This topic reminds me of my high school days when I was into bboy culture (hip hop elements, mostly breakdancing). There is a term used in the bboy community called "biting," in which you see someone doing a "cool move" and steal it from them, essentially taking a bite of their own work. If you instead learn from it and improve upon someone else's move by expanding it and putting your own stylish twist to it, it's not look at as a bite but rather your own creation.

In the same way, I think that ripping off of a game is similar to biting another's move. If you take an element of a game and evolve it one step further by adding something new to it or placing your own twist to it, it shouldn't be considered a ripoff. Obviously, if you yank something from a game and there's nothing that defines it as your own, it should be considered a rip.

My worthless 2 cents.

[Shoot-em-upper]

I think game design elements are fair game, but once you get into borrowing story elements, cloning characters, or copying art styles then you're heading into ripoff territory.

by and large my opinion is that if you're taking something and changing it a bit, as long as your intentions are good then it's fine by me.

These only add confusion to a question that has plagued me for months:  Are The Underside's graphics ripped off of Cave Story?  Yes, Arthur said that the resemblance was intentional, and was meant to be an homage of sorts(if I understood his comments correctly), but the overall style is a mixture between Cave Story(the caves, Route 66, the character portraits) and a completely different style(the towns, sky, and character sprites).  When it's a hybrid like that, it makes the Cave Story-esque side seem more like a ripoff and less like an homage.  Which is it?

[/semi-relevant]

[frosty]

I'd call a ripoff something where the "ripper" tries to hide the source of inspiration, while claiming to be original.

For examples in the graphics arts:
http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/

[shinygerbil]

Nobody is truly ever the "first" to do something "new". To borrow carbon's analogy for a second, everybody has been biting each other since day one. (Well, maybe day three or something, but I digress.) As much as people like to see games as these incredible, innovating jumps and bounds of ingenuity, mostly it's just a natural progression of ideas.

Team Fortress 2's style being ripped off? Did Valve invent that graphical style? I'm fairly certain they didn't. You could probably find one comic/cartoon/whatever, which most closely fits the look of TF2 and claim that as inspiration, but in general there will always be art similar to other art. It's an analogue thing, and up to a point, everything is unique, at the same time as everything having similar counterparts. Yes, some things are more unique than others, but it would be very difficult for, say, every single game in existence to have a completely different, highly distinguishable art style.

If people start imposing limits on what is and is not acceptable when it comes to having "similar" art styles, then we're in trouble. It comes down to some kind of fanboi-ism, where people are saying "you can't release that<The Underside> because it's too much like this<Cave Story> that I really like and that game would make this game less unique which is a Bad Thing^TM."

To be totally honest, I guess I am OK with ripoffs, up to a point. By that I mean that the margin by which the source must be changed is fairly small; if it doesn't feel like I am actually playing the *same game* then I would say it is OK; if I really enjoy the genre then I would go as far as to welcome any skilfully-executed ripoffs. If The Underside is well-made and well-presented, then I'm sure I'll enjoy it as much as Cave Story. Why should I dismiss The Underside simply because there is another similar game which has gone before? Games should be weighed upon their own merit.

That said, there is a limit. If a game is practically a carbon-copy of another game with some of the names changed, then that is very unoriginal. But if the games were somehow isolated from each other and separately weighed while assuming that each is unique, then which is better? It's always going to be heavily subjective, but I don't like to remove credit from a game for the sole reason that another game *exists*, which is what happens in most cases. Rare is the occasion when a game is so badly ripped off as to be unbearably noticeable.

On a sidenote, does anyone else hate the way that every game these days is described solely in terms of other games? "Yeah, it's like BioShock with some Command and Conquer, also a little Soul Calibur." (OK so I made that up, but I wish people would use the English language to describe things. You don't say "my friend has the same colour hair as my friend Dave, is the same height as my friend Mary, has the same colour eyes as John," and so on, etc.)

[Mitchard]

Which is it?

There is no scientific boundary at which influence becomes theft.

Given the relatively new medium, influence is pretty much inherent to game design. Everything comes from something else and I think you would be hard pressed to find a game, or any creative endeavor, that doesn't lift elements from an earlier one. That's not 'ripping-off', it's progress, building on what those before you have done.

[Al King]

Motive is the only thing I really consider when it comes to dubbing something a rip-off, and 'rip-off' for me generalises to anything which appears to by a cynical cash-in. EA essentially has a bad reputation, and so people, myself included, were quick to assume that the graphical style of BFH2 was the decision of a business executive rather than a designer. Frankly, I think the noise about the Underside is unwarranted. However, motive, by its very nature, can only be judged from what people show externally, so you've got to wonder when someone, as a purely hypothetical example, uses the

as the

.

[deadeye]

Nobody is truly ever the "first" to do something "new". To borrow carbon's analogy for a second, everybody has been biting each other since day one.

I recently watched a Nova special called Ape Genius, about the differences between ape society and human society.  They demonstrated how apes can copy each other, but don't have the faculties for actual teaching.  For instance, if a clever ape invents a spear to stab a monkey, then some of the other apes might pick it up by watching the first ape, but the first ape has no inclination to actually show his invention to other apes with the intent of passing on the knowledge.  Hence, the next generation of apes might have spear-makers, and it might not.  So teaching is an advanced form of teamwork, and lack of it is one of the reasons apes aren't evolving socially.

In contrast, humans are all about teaching and teamwork, and one of the side benefits is the ability to build upon the last generation's ideas.  It's ingrained in our biology to take an idea from our fellow humans and develop it further.  It's a big part of how our society advances.  So yeah, everything pretty much is a ripoff of what came before it.  But if you take an idea and develop it further then that idea has more value.

I think there is a threshold, though, where an idea can become stagnant.  As I mentioned before there are some types of games I wish there were more of.  If people just started making clones of those games that would be fine for a while, but at a certain point the value of the idea would drop significantly due to stagnancy.  To keep the value high there has to be an evolution of the idea rather than just a rehash.  I think this fear of stagnancy and loss of value is what makes people cry "Cave Story ripoff!"

So please, if you're going to rip off someone's game, at least put a new spin on it.

[shinygerbil]

I think there is a threshold, though, where an idea can become stagnant.  As I mentioned before there are some types of games I wish there were more of.  If people just started making clones of those games that would be fine for a while, but at a certain point the value of the idea would drop significantly due to stagnancy.  To keep the value high there has to be an evolution of the idea rather than just a rehash.  I think this fear of stagnancy and loss of value is what makes people cry "Cave Story ripoff!"

This is definitely true, but I'd like to point out that gamers (and other assorted geeks, although gamers pretty much covers it) are much more critical of their chosen medium than, for example, people who listen to mainstream music. It sort of comes with the territory of being a geek - the sort of person who will actually claim that they *dislike* The Lord Of The Rings movie because you could see a glimmer of a car in the distant background for a split second, rather than dismissing it as a triviality.

So in a nutshell, yes you are correct, but with games more than anything else, people are very sensitive to anything which intrudes upon their favourite game in any way, and will almost automatically react with hostility towards it. (Very generally speaking, of course. )

[carbon]

If you take an element of a game and evolve it one step further by adding something new to it or placing your own twist to it, it shouldn't be considered a ripoff.

As much as people like to see games as these incredible, innovating jumps and bounds of ingenuity, mostly it's just a natural progression of ideas.

Everything comes from something else and I think you would be hard pressed to find a game, or any creative endeavor, that doesn't lift elements from an earlier one. That's not 'ripping-off', it's progress, building on what those before you have done.

So please, if you're going to rip off someone's game, at least put a new spin on it.

I think we've basically defined what should be considered as "rip-off".