Why people clone games?

This topic was started in February 2013, so the mobile landscape has definitely changed since the original comments were posted. I think you are right in your assessment, as it seems that Flappybird was only mercilessly cloned after it was withdrawn, or were there clones beforehand?

From a hobbyist point of view, I can see the attraction of cloning your favourite game, but making it more awesome.

 

First off, I dont copy games. But the more appropriate question would be Why to not copy a successful game if you want to make money with your hobby.
I can think of a few mobile games that were copied and also successful (Even if I dont remember names now... also not the original ;D)

 

Personally I don't like 1:1-Clones, especially if you want to make money with it.
Why should I play Flappy Ghost when I have Flappy Birds? (Not that I play Flappy Birds, but just for the sake of argument )
I remember searching in the AppStore for some interesting new games and stumbled over a "Feature"-Page called: "Games like Temple Run" and I thought that was really pathetic. Guess which game was listed on top of "Games like Temple Run": Temple Run. Yeah, and the following game was Temple Run 2. And then bunch of different clones. I don't know why I should get a clone with the very same mechanics, similar graphics (I admit sometimes the graphics are indeed different!) and maybe the very same rip-off-business-modell.

However. A clone is a great way to get some experience. If someone is creating clones just for the sake of creating games and "training" his/her skills, hell yeah, go for it!

I like only the types of clones which have a (nice) twist.
For example: I played Flappy Bird only once. Downloaded it, played it, got an okayish score (11) and deletet it. Never touched a Flappy Bird Clone after that. But there was this MMO-Style Flappy Bird-Game where you could see the "ghosts" of other players in Real-Time. And all of a sudden I had fun with Flappy Bird, because I could see how other people play and fail like me

So, if you want to make money with your clone: clone, but be original and add something that makes your clone outstanding.

 

But that implies that you weren't just cloning Zelda 2, you were iterating on the design the gameplay. As I see it, there's a huge difference between actual clones in the most literal sense, and legitimately iterating on things that came before. Where we draw the line between those is subjective.

Some people say 'all games are clones because their all inspired by each other' but personally, I think there is value in us drawing a distinction between inspiration cloning. One is pure business, the other is also interested in the form itself. In my opinion the 'all games are clones' comment devalues the discussion and therefore indirectly devalues the form

EDIT: I think its also worth separating clones that a developer makes in order to learn, but doesn't release commercially, from clones that are developed for business sold commercially

 

Good argument, mostly because it gives me alternative language to 'clone'. Would 'derivative work' or 'iterative work' be a better term, when something is not an out-and-out, pixel-for-pixel, mechanic-for-mechanic clone?

I also agree that shameless clones - e.g. Zynga's whole modus operandi - devalue games when released commercially. If we're not pushing the boundaries of our players' experiences, what's the point? We don't just do this for ourselves, we do it for our players too. Also, as you say - how does this help us grow as developers? The ability to directly clone something just proves that you can follow motions that have already been executed, not improve or grow. As this is a highly competitive creative trade, I think we should fear lack of growth above all else.

 

I think part of the reason people clone things is because of the way they see the world. Most people perceive what's out there, take it on its appearance and don't look much deeper. When a game comes along, let's use Flappy Bird as an example, people see the form of it, the appearance of it, and this kind of builds a `box` in their mind in the form of the game. They don't question the box much. So, pursuing the apparently easy path to financial success, lots of people jump on the bandwagon to say `hey I can do that too`, and instead of being artistic, or creative, they will just let the game dictate to them what the new game should be like. They won't question anything. They won't look at the decisions that went into it. They won't ask WHY it is the way it is, or WHY it works the way it does. They tend not to get into the abstract stuff.

So then they come away with a clone which has inherited a whole bunch of decisions without question... ie the clone has to have low res pixel art, the clone has to be about a bird, it has to be flappy, it has to have pipes, it has to have scrolling to the right, it has to have the same control system, even to the point of having the same user interface/buttons etc and a very similar name. In other words people like to stay inside boxes. A lot. It takes creativity, artistry, originality and confidence to look deeper than just what's on the surface, to see the underlying thought processes, and to vary the conclusions that the original author came to in different ways. Like you could take pretty much the same game mechanic and come up with a very different looking game. How about vertical scrolling? How about a different one-touch control method that animates a different kind of character in a different way? How about not having these pipe-shaped obstacles? How about not making it low-res pixel art? Break the mold.

You can still use something for inspiration and yet dig it out by its roots and throw away some of the later effects of the author's original thoughts. You have to ask yourself why, and rewind the development clock to look at what led to certain decisions being made, and question whether those decisions were the right decision, and what are the alternatives. I think that because a lot of people not only don't look deeper, but don't even get any of the `why`, they come up with horrible clones that don't even understand what made the original game `work` well. e.g. making the obstacles too far apart as to remove difficulty, making the character move differently enough to make it not fun, making the scrolling too fast or slow, etc... variations that are shifts in appearance but are still very shallow, that don't really grasp the depth behind the design. And so you get a lot of `not as fun` clones, and poorly made clones, and clones that are ugly, and clones that just don't work as well. It's because people don't understand why the game is the way it is. Without knowing why, you can very easily make decisions which totally break the design and end up being just random changes for the sake of change.

If you look at most clones, they have inherited so many decisions and forms and appearances from the original games. Not that they have to, it's just that people make associations and stick with them. Why does almost every 2d destructible landscape game have to be an artillery game? Why does every addictive clone of flappy bird have to scroll sideways with a strange character? All these so-called fixed genres are reinforced by people staying inside boxes. When a game works and it's fun, people just think hey, this game works, it must be because it's set in a certain environment with certain graphical style and certain behavior, I'll do the same. They don't realize things don't HAVE to be the same on all fronts, it doesn't have to have the same appearance or behavior, there are other options, other variations, other freedoms outside the box which could be equally just as good, or better.

This is the difference between making a blind copy with no idea why the game is the way it is, and seeing and understanding the game and using it as inspiration - coupled with abstractly sidestepping the obvious and being artistically creative.

 

I think cloning comes to cynical moneymaking, or educating onesself, to being bored senseless, to seeing what you can bring to the table and so on. Plenty of reasons, and it's neither a good nor bad thing, people choose wether to play the game, making it's all up to you. I found myself the last couple of days, probably thanks to this thread, blowing the dust off my marble madness clone and deciding to do the yet unmade 6th level of the original set, replace the UI, rework a lot of the graphics with new perspective, if not replacing assets then choosing more appropriate shaders, polishing and making it a finished product. This was the same game I ostensibly learnt Unity with, starting 2 1/2 years ago and giving up on updating on the Play store a year ago.

Now my entire 'official' contribution has been a clone which I started at first to learn Unity, and now using what i've learnt over 3 years to put back into it. The plan is to result in a completely polished 1:1.5 clone (graphics are much prettier naturally), release it for free, then get some pals together to make a bunch of new levels using designs and graphics that have little to do with the original game. Using skyshop in a level or two? Sure, in fact just try and get absolutely everything I can in there. When we've done 15-20 levels, should it pan out (It's still a sideproject) i'll release it on android and ios for a couple of quid, probably make nothing, and i've already told the people interested in designing they can have any money

I've made a decent few little sketches/thingummabobs some of which are in my sig, including a webplayer version of my clone, but the only thing I ever published is a clone, and it defines the whole way i've embraced Unity

All very deep you see, however in the end my enjoyment in Unity was because of these 'make your first game' things (although i made my first game in the 80s), and it's why i still like Unity - its fast, and a clone has already been prototyped and designed, what's left in it? for me that simplicity was attractive. The things i'm doing next, they're very un-clone-ish! But I don't think of them as any more legitimate. When i'm working with no financial interest it's much up to what feels nice and my clone felt very nice!