( A few weeks ago there was an interview on Gamasutra with Brian Reynolds on the subject of game plagiarism. After it was posted I wrote up an opinion piece that I submitted to Gamasutra. However it turns out that everyone had the same idea. The point however was important to get across which is why I'm posting it here.)
Zynga is once again in the news, with more plagiarism accusations regarding the game Tiny Tower and Zynga’s title: Dream Heights. A recent interview was published on Gamasutra with Zynga’s chief game designer: Brian Reynolds. In that interview Brian Reynolds talked about how social games are “inspired” from each other, comparing it to the game industry at large. As someone who has been playing and analyzing games for the majority of his life, I find that assertion a tad disingenuous. This kind of mindset is a dangerous one to have and something we as an industry have not talked about.
There has always been a fine line between inspiration and plagiarism in the Games industry. The Sonic the Hedgehog series was started as a direct competitor to Mario. The majority of First Person Shooters have their foundations base within the Doom and Quake series. 100% completely original games are few and far between these days. Designers are always looking at existing titles for inspiration and refinement to create successful games.
That last point is important and part of Brian’s response in the interview. On the subject of the success of Civilization he said:
“Actually you know, some of the best games ever made, I’ve felt like were actually, the best way to put it -- the most favorable way to put it -- might be a "glorious synthesis" of stuff in previous games. I bought the very first Civilization, I think one of the greatest games really of all time. I felt like, "Hey wow, what a great synthesis between the Empire game from the PC and the Civilization board game, you know? So it was like some of this and some of that, and then some completely new stuff thrown in.”
This point he is 100% correct on. The highest rated games released were not developed in a vacuum. The designers looked at their respective genre and the industry as a whole for inspiration to help guide them with their project. A quote later on about the concept of games being “reskinned” is where my disagreements with the interview start:
“Well so in theory you want to add something, right? You want to, if you’re working in the genre, add something to the genre. You know it’s funny you were talking about "reskinned," but I just think back in the industry, I’ve actually seen some things that kind of felt like reskins, but were pretty cool, you know? You can do a really good "reskin" and people like it? You take the Star Wars game [LucasArts and Ensemble's Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds], that was kind of a reskin of Age of Empires. I mean in fact, they licensed the engine and used the engine, I felt, "Oh that was kind of cool."
Comparing building a game off of an existing engine, to reports of social games wholesale copying mechanics, aesthetics and design are two completely different situations. To explain why, we need to go back in time to the NES era.
After Super Mario Bros became a massive success, we saw a lot, a lot, A LOT of plat-formers released. In no particular order, here are a few examples:
CastleVania
Metroid
Kirby’s Dream Land
Ninja Gaiden
Tiny Toons
Mega Man
If we look at the absolute base mechanics of those games, they all share similarities to Super Mario Bros. They all involve the player moving and jumping to get through areas and defeat enemies. However each one of them took said mechanics and went in a different direction, not only from Mario, but from each other.
Relisting those titles, let’s briefly touch on some of their unique qualities:
Castlevania: Combat system, setting, boss fights.
Metroid: Exploration, player upgrades, setting, main character.
Kirby’s Dream land: Character, setting, inhaling and exhaling enemies, floating.
Ninja Gaiden: Story, close ranged combat, difficulty.
Tiny Toons: Multiple characters each with their own move set.
Mega Man: Character, long range combat, acquiring power ups from bosses.
This is where the creativity and inspiration of our industry comes from. Each game drew inspiration from Mario and then did something different. With reports and accusations of social games just changing a few graphics and the title, that is plagiarism in my eyes.
Waiting for the next big thing then copying it, instead of trying to create it yourself is not a part of a creative industry. For me personally, I’m not trying to become a designer with the goal of just copying other people’s work. I have been inspired by the games I’ve played for my game ideas, as well as for my analysis and articles. Every one of my ideas is about doing something different with the mechanics or genre as a whole.
I don’t know how much of a profession suicide I’m making by saying this, but no matter how desperate I’ve been to find a job, I have not applied to any positions at Zynga or other Social Game companies. The thought of having a copying mindset instead of a creative one, does not interest me in the slightest.
For social games to evolve, designers have to look beyond the goals of monetization and profit. As they pigeon holed the genre in a “horse before the cart” scenario. How can you create something different, when your game must have an “actions per day” mechanic to allow people to spend money on more actions?
As the competition in both retail and social games grow, I have a feeling that we are going to come back to this discussion of inspiration. Hopefully the outcome to these issues of plagiarism will be a better defined line between inspiration and plagiarism.
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