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Is it true if you release a succesful game, Ketchapp will copy it in a week?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Frpmta, Sep 26, 2015.

  1. Prototypetheta

    Prototypetheta

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    inb4 Farmville
     
  2. Frpmta

    Frpmta

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    Almost finished.


    I'll be rich!
     
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  3. elmar1028

    elmar1028

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    The hardest thing is to become popular. Clones will come and their is nothing you can do about it.
     
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  4. Badwoof

    Badwoof

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    Ketchapp and all clone factories are the vile scum of the developer world.

    The app stores should ban clones. Do they really need 5000 versions of 2048 and flappy bird?

    But yes, if a game is easy to clone (like most puzzle and casual games), it will be cloned if it's successful.

    You can trademark names, and should if it's likely to be cloned. At least then they can't use a name that's too similar.
    http://gamasutra.com/blogs/StephenM...easons_to_Trademark_Your_Video_Game_Today.php

    You can't copyright game concepts, but you can patent them sometimes. It's harder and more expensive than a basic trademark. See an interesting article here:
    http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130727/its_just_a_game_right_top_.php
     
  5. darkhog

    darkhog

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    Barely related to the thread, but what game Ketchapp's Floors is clone of? Very like it, but I'd rather play original.
     
  6. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    I've got a much better idea. How about we just pretend they don't exist like most people? :p

    Honestly, and I'm trying to limit myself to constructive criticism here, if I hadn't known any better I would have suspected your game was the clone. Restricting yourself to two screenshots and lacking a video is likely what hurt your game the most. By comparison they presented numerous screenshots and had that gameplay video.

    Additionally, and I'm having to go off your screenshots because I haven't bothered to download your game, they didn't restrict themselves to a simple color or two for their game. Their stack very clearly changes colors. That's much more appealing to look at. If yours does it I would most likely never know because once again you lack a video.

    By the way names with a pattern like "super [first word] [second word]" are very common and easily forgettable.

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ketchapp.stack&hl=en
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2016
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  7. darkhog

    darkhog

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    Yeah, to be fair Ketchapp in most cases improve on games they clone. Though I'd be pissed if they'd clone my game with no improvements (either graphics or otherwise). If they'd clone it WITH improvements, it's fair game in my book and I have to update my version with better stuff to compete.

    I wonder if people from Ketchapp are reading this thread since they obviously are using Unity. If so, I'd like to know what is their reasoning behind cloning games.
     
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  8. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    While I imagine many of us can relate to cloning a game with improvements when we're not full of new ideas, I doubt many like what ketchup does. It appears that they exist solely to clone games and use their name to sell it. Imagine if someone did that to the makers of portal!

    Their name is basically "catch up", meaning they will see your game and race you to a larger market share for a clone of it.

    Almost makes you want to pull a Fine Bros, doesn't it? Trademark something broad, lure in ketchapp, crush them with the legal system. No? Just me? ok :(
     
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  9. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    There are more annoying pests I would love to see crushed. Does Ketchapp target iOS too?
     
  10. goat

    goat

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    Had to look up who the Fine Bros are and what they tried backfired. They'd been better off trademarking Fine Bros and being done with it since they are really reliant on others and not any innate talent they have themselves. Something says they were just trying to be overly greedy to pull in more subscribers but instead lost subscribers.
     
  11. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    Game design is just a hobby for me so it's not my main "If I had just 1 [maligned] wish..." target either, but it's still a terrible thing they are doing.

    Someone mentioned they use unity, so maybe. Or maybe, as a copycat studio, they only target the platforms the original does.

    It was the most recent instance of something like that happening :p It's not that they couldn't legally pull it off, they just didn't want to sustain the continuous subscriber loss :3

    Haha well imagine if the source material they used issues copyright claims against them. Their business would implode.
     
  12. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    I'll admit that I'm torn between deciding if it's terrible and if it's acceptable. How much of a chance do some of the original games actually have at success compared to the clones? How quickly does Ketchapp clone these games? Is it actually being cloned as quickly as the thread claims?

    It's difficult for me to draw a conclusion when the only example presented to us doesn't feel like it had any real chance at success. Once again, regardless of how good the game may have been, lacking a gameplay video is a big mistake.

    Just checked their website. Stack is available for both Android and iOS.

    http://www.ketchappstudio.com/
     
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  13. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    I dunno, but it's still probably stressful for developers to have the possibility of this organization make a few minor tweaks to your idea and then outsell you because they're known for doing so.

    I'm biased or maybe hypocritical - I love when indies take a AAA idea and do it better and get better reception than AAA does. But for a bigger studio to prey on smaller studios seems wrong. Maybe robinhood left a larger impact on me in my childhood than I realized :p

    As a hobbyist I have no right to an opinion here :p I'm making games for myself only
     
  14. Ryiah

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    Suddenly I had the silliest idea. If you have this awesome mobile game you want to play, but have no interest in trying to develop it seriously, you could put together a passable prototype for the store and wait for Ketchapp to clone it. :p
     
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  15. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    Angry Birds was a knockoff of "Crush the Castle".
    Farmville was a knockoff of "Farm Town".
    "Pong" was a knockoff of a "Table Tennis"
    "Guitar Hero" was a knockoff of "Guitar Freaks".
    or so I heard.
    ---
    Like it or not, a Knockoff/clone can have greater success than original.
    Also:
    Oreo copied Hydrox.
    Lego copied Kiddiecraft.

    And I remember reading an old Sci-Fi story that was identical to "Avatar" - many years before the movie was made.
     
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  16. Acissathar

    Acissathar

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    I know a lot of the criticism I saw for that movie was that it was literally just a Sci-Fi Pocahontas.

    I'm just a no-name hobby developer, but the way I view clones is that cloning + improving is perfectly fine. That's how we have a lot of great games that we have today. Somebody had a good starting idea, but then someone else had something that made it even better.

    Cloning where the clone is literally just a texture / model swap of the original is bad. (To me this includes those games that are like Solitaire, Soltaire: Star Wars, etc.)
     
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  17. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    In the story I read, paraplegic programmer, used body transfer machine in order to utilize genetically-engineered synthetic organisms to colonize ..... Jupiter. In the end, he transferred his consciousness permanently and when he did that, the "mind transfer machine" broke and his human body died... while he remained in his new body forever.

    That's significantly closer to Avatar than Pocahontas.

    Differences: Those organisms had four arms, and consciousness-transferring machine had vacuum tubes in it. Oh, and and there was no romantic love story.

    What's really annoying that I can't remember neither the title nor the author of that damn thing. I read it years before the Avatar was made.

    ----

    There are many treasures in the old Fiction works. Since I don't exactly expect people today to have read 'Goblin Reservation", "Time is the Simplest Thing", or even "The Stainless Steel Rat", a lot of those works could be re-adapted into modern medium... probably while bringing in a lot of cash for someone.
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2016
  18. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Remember the name of it? :D
     
  19. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    Not a bad idea at all. Although after the adam demo I think unity is going to attract more devs and ketchup will run out of resources trying to clone the slew of games that are going to be made in the coming years.
     
  20. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Checking out their website has left me with the impression they only clone very simplistic mobile games. Therefore the solution to not having your game cloned by them is to create a game with actual depth to it. If you do decide to create a fluff game then be prepared to approach the market with the attitude your game will be cloned. Find a way to succeed despite it.

    http://www.ketchappstudio.com/
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2016
  21. Ryiah

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    There are other platforms. Like Samsung TV (seriously though... does anyone actually know a developer for it?). :p

    Right, it does take significant time and thought. That's why you don't see quick little clones being churned out. Or at least clones that resemble anything like the original. After all, while game mechanics may not be copyrighted, the content of the game is capable of being protected. Cloning a game is far more difficult when the content is the valuable part of it.

    Yet at the same time it doesn't seem that fruitless to me. Spiderweb Software seems to be doing alright.

    https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/spiderweb-software/id426522868

    Additionally I stumbled upon this blog post of his where he rants about the difficulties of targeting iOS.

    http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2015/06/age-pleasing-apple-and-trying-to-climb.html
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2016
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  22. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    Hmm... I suddenly feel significantly less sympathy for ketchapp's victims. :confused:
     
  23. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    Not funny.

    Try remembering title and author of every book you read 15 to 20 years ago, see how well that one goes, especially when you used to read a lot and that was a short story. Just try it.
     
  24. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Cloners can kiss my leathery hide.
     
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  25. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    I dunno. Browsing through Ketchapp's website it looks like they have started cloning their own games. Seems like a much easier job then scanning released games looking for clone targets.
     
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  26. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    Maybe their communication isn't that great and some of their teams are cloning games that are already clones of each other that another ketchapp team is working on.
     
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  27. elmar1028

    elmar1028

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    It depends on the idea of the game.

    Could you please tell me your game idea so I can tell you if it's going to be copied or not.
     
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  28. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    I wasn't trying to be funny. I thought it sounded interesting enough to check it out.
     
  29. MV10

    MV10

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    Ha! Awesome. I had completely forgotten about that series. It was one of my favorites.
    You should clone the theme for a mobile game. Maybe "Flappy Rats".
     
  30. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    Successful game? I'd say the answer is almost 100% YES.

    http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/28/game-cloning-sucks/

    Don't worry though they will almost certainly not be the only folks who clone your successful game. They'll likely just be some of the fastest to respond.

    It does suck I think because although this stuff has happened before as someone mentioned even back on the C64 with GGS and SMB the difference is that was an attempt to bring the same kind of game experience to C64 computer gamers that was available only on the consoles and arcades at the time. Today the clones are released on the exact same platform and released very quickly. That is a huge difference.
     
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  31. Le_Tai

    Le_Tai

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    Except for China, how do you know about those country? Do you have any data on the subject?
     
  32. MV10

    MV10

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    Some of the Indian contractors I've worked with told me about such things back home. It wasn't game-specific but there is no reason it couldn't be. Heck, the working conditions for even supposedly-respectable Indian contracting agencies are still pretty miserable.

    I think it would be difficult in Vietnam, the general level of education there is pretty low thanks to their warped and corrupt government (one of my companies does a lot of exporting to Vietnam and I've spent a fair bit of time there). Korea (which I've visited only briefly) doesn't strike me as a culture that would allow much of that.

    The Philippines do a lot of this, too -- again not really gaming-specific but coder sweat shops exist. In corporate America, Philippine contracting agencies are aggressively trying to undermine the cost of Indian offshoring (which is no longer the bargain it once was).
     
  33. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    Trump : "place a huge import tax on goods manufactured outside the US, in order to bring more jobs back home". I wonder if that would apply to coding in any way. They'd have to go through everyone's emails to make sure they weren't receiving code from another country, haha.
     
  34. Not_Sure

    Not_Sure

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    Huge tariffs are just another tool for monopolization and unfair market cornering.

    It's just one extreme to another.

    The real economical crisis/issue that our children face is automation.

    At best 90% of jobs will be obsolete in 40 years, while at the same time costs will drop like a stone. Like cars for less than $5000.
     
  35. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    All is not lost. Perhaps by the time today's toddlers are adults there may be a lot of opportunities from companies in India, China and other places outsourcing work to folks in the USA. :)
     
  36. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    What's wrong with that? :D

    I plan to contribute heavily to that reality, our children be damned! I'm going to have robot children that will make other children obsolete!!

    And hopefully at that point we've eradicated the greedy population and only the reasonable are left to realize that we can support our population with automation technology to the extent that we don't need an economy. Concerned about running out of resources? Send an unmanned space craft to a meteor / planetoid and have the robotic crew harvest the resources.

    Or go on board the unmanned craft and use a horde of robot slaves to terraform a planet for you and your neighborhood.
     
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  37. MV10

    MV10

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    Extremely unlikely. People have been saying that for the past 200 years -- literally since Eli Whitney's cotton gin kicked off the Industrial Revolution.
     
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  38. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    They were kind of right. The corporate side costs for harvesting cotton have gone down due to automation technology :p

    The prices coming down could happen, but the increased wealth produced by the industry drove up greed instead of driving down prices.

    Just because the cotton gin made it easier to harvest cotton doesn't mean that greedy mo running the business is going to sell cotton to anyone for less.
     
  39. MV10

    MV10

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    My cheap socks disagree with you, sir.
     
  40. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    Hmm, you're probably right. I looked into the expense breakdown for manufacturing cars and I don't think socks have to deal with a lot of those factors. Also vehicle manufacturing shows 47% of the cost is just in raw materials! I guess they aren't ripping us off as badly as I thought :D
     
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  41. MV10

    MV10

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    And I would guess the overwhelming majority of the remaining 53% is directly attributable to that artificial economic force called the UAW.
     
  42. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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  43. MV10

    MV10

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    [[ PLAYER ONE: "THREAD HIJACK" QUEST COMPLETE. ]]
     
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