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[1982]

This sort of stuff is completely unacceptable (if you want to your work to be considered "good" art) in every other artform for obvious reasons, but on gaming forums we have people defending it left and right.

I see now what you meant, developer scene is still quite unorganized and sort of a wild west state. This is actually quite complicated topic for sure...

[leonelc29]

meanwhile...

FortressCraft reach 500K sales! woot!

darn it.

[Geeze]

Has some xbox fanboy ever said that Minecraft is a FortressCraft clone?

[eld]

I think the weird part was that the creator of fortresscraft defending his project that it will be different from minecraft but in reality it will take 2-3 sequels(chapters) all sold individually until he reaches that kind of point.

So he he is selling a limited minecrafts creative mode with the promise that it will be more like a 3d dwarf fortress + minecraft (as long as you actually buy the future chapter that has those features).

The bulletpoint for the project can be summarized as: "minecraft on xbox" and it is the sole reason it sold 500k so far.

Gameloft has been applying the same winning tactic, but do at the very least put some more quality into it.

[leonelc29]

aaaand here's the interview of that dude. heh, proving minecraft can run on xbox got him do this.

judge yourself.

[eld]

Then there's the PR manager of the project: http://twitter.com/#!/DJKEEMSTAR (and the drama surrounding him)

wow nice, marketing pyramid scheme:

[PompiPompi]

Infinimter is a genre defining game. Minecraft is only the second game on this genre. That'a all. Gaming history is full of second place games that took all the glory of unknown genre defining games. Dune2(not the first RTS), BF1942(not the first of it's kind) and so on...
Also, I fail to understand the logic of people who say non artsy games are bad.
If all you care about is art, why do you care about people making games for money?
It implies that making money is less important than art, then why you seem to think only arty games deserve money?
As if, we only care about art, but we care when non art games make money. That's so funny actually.

And yea, maybe everyone were thinking of how to make a 3D DF or something, everyone had the question in their mind, but only the infimiter guy had the solution.
If this was academic research then the infimiter guy would have patented his idea, and Minecraft would have never seen the light.
Now, arn't you happy the clonning is possible in the gaming world and nobody patent the hell of these things?
Of course, there are legal issues such as copyrights and plagmatism(how ever that is spelled). But it's not the case here, as well as it wasn't the case with the hundreds of RPG games, RTS games, diablo like games, and etc etc.

I don't understandf when it comes to someone making money out of games why you become so artistic and furiousa all of a sudden. As if you yourself admit making money is the best measurement of how good is a game, which come in direct contradiction to the concept of art.

[droqen]

As if you yourself admit making money is the best measurement of how good is a game

Yes, that is definitely the best measurement of the quality of a game.


I feel that the desire to have games be 'accepted' as art is often not borne of the desire for games that are, uh, 'artsy'. To oversimplify, let's say that every game aspires to one of two goals (or some combination):

• Goal #1: "I want to sell this game successfully or otherwise make a lot of money off it."
• Goal #2: "I want to make this game as amazing and as interesting and as 'valuable' as possible for [myself/my friends/other people/everyone]."

Just to be clear about 'valuable': Clones are not particularly valuable in terms of games in general. Sometimes a partial clone can help to expand a genre, and many times they can have a lot of value, but a lot of the time a clone is sub-par: in these cases especially I will call them 'not valuable' because a person playing such a game would be 'better off' simply playing the original.

Ideally, Goal #1 would be a non-issue as if one were to meet Goal #2 (AMAZING, VALUABLE GAME) it would also make a lot of money. If what PompiPompi said were true, and the game that made the most money were also necessarily 'the best game', there would be no problem.


That is not the case, and so those who make games end up split into (remember, I'm using very broad, sweeping terms -- there are shades of grey here) two camps:

• How can we/I make a game that will make the most money?
• What is the most 'valuable' or otherwise most enjoyable game we/I can make?

I don't really like using the term 'valuable' which is why it's always in quotes.

Anyway, the people who end up making a game with money in mind may end up making a good game. In almost all cases the goal of making a good game is equated with money and so there is some overlap: but money is still at the top of the pyramid of 'stuff that was in mind when considering the design of the game', and that's never a good thing.


End: I'm not saying that money isn't important (it'd be nice if it wasn't, though!) but it should not be The Most Important Thing if you're making a game -- just as it shouldn't be in anything else.

[leonelc29]

non-related:

(it'd be nice if it wasn't, though!)

yeah, we should be fighting animal until they drop money so we can pick it up. darn you, currency control!

[PompiPompi]

Droqen, you are using a very marginal and inaccurate measurement to decide on one of two very distant outcomes.
It's really impossible to tell who makes games with money as a first priority or not, sometimes it's not even clear to the game developer himself.
Yet, you decide that people who make games for money are super evil, and people who don't make games for money as a first priority are good.
It's very simple, money doesn't have to be part of the equation at all. If you don't want to have money as a factor in your design process, don't sell your game and don't make any profit out of it. Very simple, no?
You can say "Yes, but I need money to make a living! I don't have money now! I need to be making money out of games!" Yes, but what about people who made it big and made a lot of money from games? What is the next thing they do? Do they start making free games as they already have income from their previous game? No, they dream even bigger and want to make even more money.
I am not against making money, not at all. And I think it's fun to make money out of your games. Even if you didn't get the money from your games, it is satisfying that people like your game so much they are willing to pay for it.

I am just saying, it's not fair to have the "Money in mind" discriminator tool to say which developer is bad and which is good. If you want to use "Money in mind", the only way to seperate people based on that is those who make any amount of money from games and those who make 0 amount of money from games in the past and in the future.

[st33d]

Money always matters. There are very few devs who don't have to pay bills. Sometimes the lack of money and the trouble it causes creates great things like the console version of Super Meat Boy, and conversely the need for money creates shit like this:

[PompiPompi]

You could also have an income from a "real job", and make games as a hobby in your free time, for no profit. It's that simple.
There are some indie game dev out there that have a lot money, and could afford to make games for free without having to worry about paying the bills(that much).

My point is, it's possible to not have any money involved. But, nobody choose this path for some kind of a reason. Or at least, no one I know of.
Maybe some game designers from the AAA indusrty that make it for fun, but those are rare.

[s0]

It's fine to make money from games and it's fine to want to make money from games. What I'm opposed to is games that have little value besides being a potential cash cow for their creator, games designed by marketing people. The mindset behind making things like (non-freeware) clones* and "social" f2p scams games is downright cynical and I don't understand why this kind of stuff isn't more frowned upon than it is. Maybe I'm overly idealistic about this, but I just want people to be original and make good games.


*For the 50th time, a game using the same core mechanics as another game is NOT necessarily a clone.

[SirNiko]

The point is that Notch created something original (he added monsters, animals, plantlife, dungeons and a crafting system) out of the base concept of Infiniminer. He created something new, people now have something new and different than Infiniminer, even if the very base mechanics are the same.

The creator of Fortresscraft has created nothing original. He has copied, to the best of his abilities, Minecraft without any additional effort. The only thing he has done is put it on the XBox to get money from that market.

Giving Notch money encourages him (and developers like him who want money too) to create new, original concepts. This is good and desirable.

Giving money to the creator of Fortresscraft encourages him (and copycats like him who want money too) to copy existing concepts that would exist without them and create nothing original. This is bad and results in less new game development.

[DavidCaruso]

A clone isn't bad if it turns out better than the original, so if the FortressCraft creator is more receptive than Notch to the ideas and suggestions that I or people like myself would want in making Minecraft a better game (like either giving it better combat and turning it into a better videogame or streamlining it and turning it into a better massively multiplayer online 3D voxel art program, instead of a half-assed compromise between the two) then it's perfectly reasonable to donate money to him. That doesn't appear to be true in this particular case however, and that rant where the creator called everyone faggots was hilarious. Though if a clone was updated so it became better than the game it cloned, could you even call it a clone anymore?

[gimymblert]

Minecraft wasn't minecraft overnight and you could still buy it on early days when it was just all about block placement. With the promise that update will be free. Fortresscraft is basically like the early minecraft, a base to extend from.

I won't judge until it extend, but at least the unreleased prototype like the minion system already sell you something else. And the current build has a custom block feature that is something unseen and a definite improvement over minecraft.

[SirNiko]

Though if a clone was updated so it became better than the game it cloned, could you even call it a clone anymore?

This is why we no longer call Minecraft an Infiniminer clone - it has advanced past its source of inspiration. I would say that this is a major "Yes".

Of course, this leaves "Better" up to interpretation. If Fortresscraft just added a bunch of unlockable hats, you'd have a split between people who think it's way more awesome, and others who believe that hats do not constitute a significant improvement.

You could argue that Ninja Fishing on the iOS offered enough originality with the ninja slash gameplay and new sprites to move past being a mere clone of Radical Fishing. I'd disagree but I'd consider it a valid position.

[droqen]

If you want to use "Money in mind", the only way to seperate people based on that is those who make any amount of money from games and those who make 0 amount of money from games in the past and in the future.

You have clearly misinterpreted a vast and important fraction of my words.

[fatso]

To me, it's just like what happened when Halo came out and FPS's exploded, or Mario to platformers, or ANY original "seed" game. Minecraft is just a different genre is all. There are GOING to be clones and rip-offs, you can't help that. Are they sapping creative energy from people who really want to create something original? Fuck no, if anyone really wants to do something original like Fez, then you fucking do it. Anyone who copies you and finds success will forever be compared to you.

I often think it's hypocritical of the gaming community to hold such negative opinions of clones, and then applaud someone when they create a slight variation of Mario or Zelda or <insert popular franchise here>. It's the same thing, different developer. If you clone one of those popular series, then you turn around and say "Ninja Fishing is bullshit" just because it's a niche genre and it's happening to one of your own, then you're being a hypocrite. Everything builds on everything else. If that clone gets the game design of the original out to more people, then that's a plus in my mind.

[Schoq]

It's not hypocritical unless it's the same person saying both things.

Also, Halo a 'seed' game for FPS?