It’s beating a dead horse when I say that ideas are derivative of other ideas that came before them. Films, television shows and even video games are guilty of this. So why, then, do some game developers get accused of plagiarism and not others? Is it right to accuse game developers of riding the success of a popular game so that they too can be as equally or less successful than the original product?
Minecraft, the little independent game that could, released before it was finished and people enjoyed it enough for it to sell 5.2 million copies. The concept of Minecraft is deceptively simple and addicting. The world is composed of blocks of sand, dirt, stone and more, and you mine these elements to make objects. You use the materials to build houses and try to survive the night because that’s when enemies come out to try and kill you. For more information on Minecraft, for the curious, click here.
About a year ago, Fortresscraft was released on Microsoft’s Indie Game Marketplace and it bore a striking similarity to the game mentioned above. On Feb. 18, the creator of Fortresscraft made a statement about the plagiarism allegations. “There’s nothing that Fortresscraft shares with Minecraft that it does not also share with Infiniminer, [which is the game that predates both titles.]” He also said that it’s about as ridiculous as claiming that one racing game ripped off another one. This alleged plagiarism did not affect Fortresscraft’s success as it sold 2 million copies and was in the top played games on the Indie Game Marketplace for all of 2011. He is correct with his racing game analogy but honestly, I think the creator of Fortresscraft should be pleased with his success regardless if people say that he copied Minecraft. Two Million copies sold are still two million copies sold.
When Gears of War released in 2006, it coined the term “stop n’ pop” which is when a game character stops at a piece of cover and pops up to shoot the enemies. It was a clever idea that made its way into nearly all third person shooter games including: Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead: Redemption, the Uncharted franchise, the Mass Effect franchise, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 1 & 2 and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 1 & 2. It’s an effective mechanic for the player to know that they are out of harm’s way. But there was a game released in 2010 from developer Tecmo called Quantum Theory that was too similar to Gears of War 1. The cover mechanic, the gruff one-dimensional characters, the dystopian setting, the controls, the alien monsters and the art style seem to copy and paste the Gears of War spirit, and the game received poor sales and equally poor reception reflected this.
So what can you take away from this? A good idea is a good idea. We shouldn’t be critical of a game developer whose game is similar to another game, but when a company lifts several defining elements off of a game then that becomes an issue when lawyers get involved.
Sound off in the comments below or send me an email at shfawcet@asu.edu with any other games that are similar or rip-offs of other games.
