<rant mode=”on”>
What is the value of creative efforts, often described as intellectual property? And by value I don’t talk about monetary measures alone.
Envision this: You have an idea with a small technical scope and you share it with others. Later on, the exact same idea is presented and implemented as somebody else’s new and brilliant idea, just before your own implementation of it is completed… Would you consider this to be ok, it’s just your own fault you didn’t implement it fast enough after revealing it?
If an idea in itself has no value, and is up for grabs for anyone as soon as it has been verbally or textually expressed, then I don’t think I will spend a lot of time sharing ideas in any open fora, or even closed ones for that matter. Game concepts and game mechanics will be under a lid and seal until the game is finished.
If I spend 90% of my time working out the gameplay and 10% of my time goes to producing graphics and code, then the time spent on gameplay is where the value of the game reside. If you spend 90% of your time on the graphics, and someone traces it to create “their own” version of it, would you accept it as decent behavior? What about re-record the in-game sounds and changing the pitch to create their own version of it?
I am not saying people shouldn’t make another tower defense game (we at illustrata just made one), or not make another physics stacking game, but there is a difference between making a similar game in a category of several variations, and recreating one specific game with only microscopic changes and reduced polish.
If you are a cloner from Kamino insisting on identically cloning other game concepts, at least have the decency to clone something that has already been released and not something you have come across being in development for the same target platform and audience you are aiming for.
Then again, this might only be me being overly sensitive to injustice and what i consider to be rude behavior.
</rant>
