happened in the 80’s with over saturation of shitty titles. Nintendo had to invent a seal specifically because of too many shitty games. Other companies developed their own methods of verification (Gabe Newell famously is an ex Microsoft employee) ID literally creates the .bsp file type. NOBODY else had this technology or access
The result was: innovation. in the years following the 80s game crash after we got classics like Mario 64, Half life and Doom.
while the 80s crash did lead to nintendo tightening up restrictions to the nintendo NES platform, gabe didn’t invent the bsp - that’s Henry Fuchs and Bruce Naylor.
everyone had access to bsp tech because it was literally a standard printed in Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice.
Gabe came along later, licensed the tech ID built on top of all that, and that’s where Half Life comes from.
The links you assert aren’t there.
Computer gaming is going to evolve into something new. The writing is on the wall. Give it a couple more years and a kiddie script coder will be able to recreate pretty much any game from scratch. I think games are going to become more collaborative and the AAA game studios are going to lose their asses because they won’t be able to adapt.
Shovelware gets harder to sell? I’d count that as a win!
I’m tired
Yes and that is you, the studio and publisher that thinks creating games is a factory for making money for the investors and publishers.
But it is not.
It was always art
They can only copy some things, what makes your art special is that you made it. People can feel that. Also it’s moonlighter, it’s not like it’s a super unique game in the first place.
Can’t trust your average person to see the difference.
This is not good for creators.
Unfortunately true. The average person seems to be decently happy with vibecoded slop, whether is games or other applications. Just look at how people are all over these hella vibecoded game recomps or PS5 emulators. They are going crazy for them. They have no principles in that regard, they just wanna mindlessly consume, consume, and consume.
I wouldn’t touch that shit, out of principle, and who knows what godforsaken code these vibecoders had AI hallucinate, I would not want to execute this on my PC, maybe my worst enemies’.
Isn’t this capitalism? A few decades ago the game industry feared illegal copies would destroy it. We got all kind of crappy copyright protections.
Usually when something is great, people want to use it, distribute it, and improve it. If everything is closed sources and guarded for profit, arts and music would be very different. Everyone is “inspired” by others, even if they all think it’s their own idea. Even languages copy on each other.
If the goal is only to make a game for profit, keep it exclusive, I can’t say I have a lot of sympathy.
EDIT: In the 80ies there were clones of popular games too, and the industry complained about copies, and survived. https://1900hotdog.com/2020/06/nerding-day-donkey-kong-ripoffs/
Don’t let them take the overhand. Showcase your game for the fans. There will always be people copying or pirating your work. Keep doing the stuff you do and it will pay off (hopefully). Look at Zelda, its copied so often, yet it does not matter for the original. There are so many racing games, each of them is like a copy from another. Same for fighting games. Yet fans are fans of the originals and games are still good.
I don’t think its a good idea to not showcase your game, because someone can copy it.
this is a bad idea imo. until it hits the market and it’s ready to be paid for, someone with more resources WILL take your unique idea
Sadly, their investors do not seem to share your confidence. 🥲
I don’t think that was a decision by their investors.
What gives you that impression?
What I see is that demos help games succeed, ergo investors’re happy. You’re suggesting that he was so resolute in his stance that he pitched it to them, knowing that he was trying to sell them on a high risk play to what, send a message? 🤓
The question is, what gives you the impression that investors control the project? Unless proven, I don’t think your previous claim is true. I’m not in the position to provide evidence for not doing something, its the other way round.
I’m questioning your logic, not your sources. Thanks, though. Nice dodge.
You made the claim. And I don’t believe you are right, unless you can prove it. I’m not the making the claim that investors control the demo to be cancelled. Do you have any prove for your claim?
I made the claim that your hypothesis is irrational and lacking support, and followed up with why. Double down all you like. 🤷🏼♂️
You’re the one making the claim the investors didn’t have a play in this. Shouldn’t the most obvious/common case be what we default to?
I don’t think die-hard fans that trade off of established names aren’t carrying direct profits. Especially for a franchise/studio as young as Moonlighter.
Die-hard fans keep the game’s community alive, which can eventually lead to new people finding it, but I’d be surprised if even 50% of a game’s revenue is supported by people that would pick the game out of a line up of all the game they plan in a year. And that other, indifferent 50% could realistically be snapped up by someone who shits out a cheap clone with a similar enough aesthestic.
When I said “fans”, I didn’t mean literal die hard fans. It was a word as an attempt to distinguish between who doesn’t care in any capacity, for lack of terms. Let’s take Vampire Survivors as an example. There are many copycats of this game, but most people don’t care about them. Most people want to play Vampire Survivors. Or all the Mario Kart clones. Well yes, they are not identical clones, but that’s the thing. Those games have an identity and quality “fans” (or just “gamers”) enjoy, that they don’t get from the clones. The community are playing the main games, and are part of the fun for many. I don’t think that we are currently in an especially broken situation of copycats, that dictates the entire industry. We had copycat games since the 80s. Don’t get me wrong, it is an issue, but its not a big issue. Now its easy for me to say, because I’m not a small indie developer.
The core gameplay of Vampire Survivors was directly inspired by a South Korean mobile game called Magic Survival, developed by an indie creator named LEME and released on Android in late 2019.
That’s not what it means to be a copycat. No one talks about games being inspired.
The community are playing the main games,
People are playing Vampire Survivors because it’s Vampire Survivors. No one can say whether it would be the Flagship of its genre if genAI let someone create a passable knock-off in a week. Yeah, we’ve always had knock-offs but those required some modicum of effort to produce. And that effort took time, time where the original could become entrenched with people that like what it innovated on.
We can’t talk numbers because nobody has them, but I’m pessimistic that the majority of Vampire Survivors (or any game that has reached “mainstream”) players are engaging with the game in a way to interfaces with what makes it unique. They would get the same enjoyment out of a shallow rip-off. They’re only going with VS or any mainstream because other people have vetted it as “not a waste of money” or out of FOMO. Idk how old you are but I absolutely “enjoyed” N64 shovelware games that were objectively 6 out of 10s because they were good enough. And I have a more discerning palate now, but that’s because I’m a fan of the industry. Most people are just consuming content, like watching basic TV. The “fans” you describe are people in these comments. And they are indisputably in the minority when it comes to volume of product sales.
Maybe I am too optimistic, but copycats are also kind of free advertisement for the original.
This is just how capitalism work in general. Imagine how many amazing ideas don’t see the light of day because the creators know the markets will steal it, fuck them over, introduce a worse version to the world and then bin it when it has no more value. Capitalists are thieves, plain and simple and AI has newly empowered them in the software sector.
this is how microsoft works
Imagine how many amazing ideas don’t see the light of day because the creators know the markets will steal it
Lol i call this bs. People who think this way tend to be just an idea guy that will inevitably fail on the execution. Idea is worthless, everyone have genius idea until they start implementing it. All great stuff are based on previous iteration, untested idea will never be amazing. People who never test their idea is either an idea guy or a patent troll, both are legit insufferable.
I do this all the time and so do my coworkers. In fact, it’s enshrined in our employment agreement that all our industry relate ideas are company owned. It’s absolutely an abusive and exploitative system, no better represented today than by capitalism.
You having a stroke?
Then explain, ohh the great unstroken one.
Your grammar is awful.
Yeah, I just assumed English isn’t their first language? But that’s hardly the point
Doesn’t mean their grammar is any good
Yeah, and?
You do you, but that’s not going to engender respect in others with your writing. 🤷🏼♂️ I’m more or less trying to help, and intended the first comment to be in jest.
Like this doesn’t happen in any other socio-economic system. Ffs… kids need a new argument.
For the record, nearly every top-tier game ever made was done so under capitalism. But we can always compare.
You list all the non-capitalist games you love dearly and that have done well, and I’ll list all the ones made under capitalism. Let’s see how things match up.
Idk if it really counts as non-capitalist, but I played Dwarf Fortress for well over a decade before you could even pay for it 😂
Like this doesn’t happen in any other socio-economic system
We would know if capitalists didn’t literally handicap and shoot every other socioeconomic system.
Or are out that “kid” that thinks Nazi Germany was socialist and current China is communist.
Meanwhile the literal highest selling game of all time is… Tetris, the game that is quite famously Soviet…
LMAO! Tetris barely made it to the top 20, bud. But revisionism it seems, is what really wins arguments nowadays. I mean, who needs proof, right?
On that subject:
It took 10 seconds to prove you wrong:
https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games
Take a look at ALL that capitalism! (Keep in mind that this list is WORLD WIDE)
I knew minecraft was #1 but I’m surprised how long that Tetris line hasn’t been true. I heard that in the 2000s and 2010s, too.
Also this made me laugh. Not sure why they truncatated the name
Yeah, Tetris was massive when it came out. I was around. Remember it well!
It’s wild you’re getting downvoted here. Almost as wild as implying Tetris selling a lot of copies proves that communism leads to better games
Yeah. It’s ridiculous the reach they go to when they think they have their little gotcha! moment.
If you’d like a list of your logical fallacies so far in this thread alone, I’m afraid it’ll have to keep for tomorrow. I’m knackered after a double, and you seem to get off on this whole thing, but I’ll put a pin in it, for sure.
Why not take the first result on google and duckduckgo?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games
The source on the one you gave is a random unsourced claim in a guardian article from 2009, whereas wikipedia cites the tetris website.
Sure… so let’s include Tetris. Now, how does your ONE game stack up against the rest?
Facebook kid, everything in your entire wold that you e hit is the product of capitalism. But please… continue the manufactured outrage. It’s funny!
Oh and by the way:
And the Guinness Book of Records also disagrees with you.
But either way, nothing is going to stop your little ball-fisted feverish rage at all things caliptalist while frantically mashing keys on your capitalist designed and built phone, or PC, or tablet to tell me how it is….
So how about you do that now that I have you blocked. That way- you can get that coveted last word in, and I won’t have to waste my time reading it.
You’re making a moving the goalpost fallacy, a false analogy fallacy, a false dilemma/TINA fallacy, a strawman fallacy, a non sequitur fallacy, and an irrelevant premise fallacy, all of them at the same time.
The fucking point is:
- Capitalism is being forced into everyone and if anyone dares to refuse it and try something different, they’re fucking destroying these people.
- That one system is the only one we know and it looks like if it were successful, it doesn’t mean that it’s succesful and good.
No it isn’t.
“Astonishing! This Adam Smith fellow writes screeds against Mercantilism using quill and parchment created by Mercantilism!”
For anybody else reading this, this fallacy is called “moving the goalpost”.
One could also argue for “motte and bailey”, but that’s less clear.
Not really a motte and bailey I don’t think, motte and bailey requires 2 positions one untenable and one irrefutable, in this case he just got provided evidence then changed his standard for being proven wrong which is 100% moving the goalpost.
fuckingchristonabender.
Don’t you have hobbies? Go, be a twat to sone other group of anons, eh? Or, maybe go outside at least.
Like making a slave list all the cotton picked outside slavery…
The endorphins from all that fart smelling must be really worth it.
Okay, so some games are more susceptible to this. No Man’s Sky. But half of the glory of Balatro is the weird jokers. Or on a story-based RPG, all the writing. Or a doom-like, the levels. It seems like what makes it less cloneable is the human touch.
I saw an indie game that was basically a cafe manager sim and it’s sad to me that 90% of that game could absolutely be instantly cloned with AI, not the dialogue but every one of the systems the dev spent so much time on.
True, I don’t think the clones reach the height of what they copy - But they certainly muddle the space.
Why do you get to release something that is closed source in the first place? Anyone could copy a book or clay tablet if they wanted through all of history.
What would a world look like where everything is open sourced? You can still sell open source games
It’s described by three tags, tower defence, roguelike, castlevania. So they literally copied ideas, style and gameplay loop from other games. Absolutely novel nothing like this was ever made, my virgin eyeballs aren’t ready for such novelty.
They created completely derivative product and tell how derivatives are bad in the article because ‘ai’.
How do you know?
I have eyes.
You played a game with your eyes that is not even out yet? Not bad.
You can watch a video where other people play the game, it’s a popular pastime, you should try. In this case short video of the game is available on steam page, so people would be able to watch how game looks and plays before lending after it comes out.
You still don’t know what the full game entails.
Yes, most stuff is a combination of stuff that came before but the way one combinates it makes it special.
So if you show your whole hand before release it makes it easier for copycats to beat you as the kreative work was already done.
And with ai which makes it possible to make stuff faster with money, those with more money will again Diktate the market.
This isn’t so much “because ai” but more “because of ai you lose first move advantage to people with more money”
I hope that makes it clearer.
You sound like one of those people that get all angsty about some songs having the same chords in them.
I’m not at all angsty about this, it just looks bad when they say you can’t copy our ‘ideas’ (also all of themwere copied).
I think that relies on the assumption that every tower defence game is a copy of the original; same for roguelikes and Metroidvania games. That’s a huge assumption that isn’t really true at all, IMO. There is a LOT of variety within each genre.
Or it’s a transition that forces people build upon other peoples ideas culminating into greatness. Everything just needs to be foss.
This would be nice if you could feed your family with free software.
But you can’t.
You can feed a family by selling libre software or support, e.g. RHEL, other enterprise software.
I mean, many open source projects offer paid subscriptions for hosting their service for you, in the world of hosted applications. So I mean, there are ways to monetize free software, indirectly.
Witcher IV is free but you want more than 30fps? For just $5/mo and you can play at a stunning 60fps! Want unlocked framerate? That’s $15/mo. 4k textures? $5/mo please. Want more than one saved game? Upgrade to three whole saved games for $10/mo!
This is essentially what you are asking for.
Thanks Satan.
I feel like people would buy a game if the alternative was just that you have to compile it yourself and not have Steam achievements
They do. Mindustry, Residual, and Asperite come to mind.
What part of free did you miss from their comment? Those are only open source games, not FOSS like they specified.
- Free as in freedom, not beer
- You can also get them for free by compiling or (for Mindustry) via itch.io or Flathub.
For someone (a fucking large portion of people) who would play and beat the game over a weekend, you just gave everyone a boner for saving them a fuck ton of money. Pay $35 (or even free since their rig can’t do any of that regardless) for the game vs $80, fucking eh dude.
I don’t think you made the point you wanted lmfao.
You described Microsoft gamepass with extra steps… and more expensive too.
Gamepass is a full game, not tiered games where you can choose what content you would want.
I could see how you would think it’s the same thoug, but it’s not at all. Being able to play a game for free with limited details is what people want. Not everyone can play 4k/120 lmfao. And the single dev that wants to spend the time can now have a product for multiple kinds of clients.
That has nothing to do with my op. It’s actually the opposite… If people could just copy shit they could copy it and make a version without subscription.
Also my op was borderline just sarcasm. Although isn’t it how everything works in China with ip laws?
That’s not how the projects in his example work. It’s closer to a game which you can play for free but getting it to start is a bit of a hassle if you aren’t tech oriented so they offer to host it for you.
It wouldn’t work for all types of games though. And some products do keep part of their offer behind a pay gap. Some work with donations, including governmental.
Mindustry seems to be doing just fine.
Mindustry is paid on Steam? Thats not FOSS that’s just open source.
An outlier is not the norm. Cave Story and La Mulana inevitably need to be sold to generate the dev’s incomeEdit: mistaken Mindustry for being FOSS
It is FOSS, see other comments.
Mindustry has also been paid since launch, its open source, not FOSS.
- Free as in freedom, not beer
- You can get it for free on itch.io or Flathub
Has GNUv3 license
Ok, that make sense.
They foss, not free.
FOSS means free and open source software mate.
