On Copycats in Games

For a while now I’ve been steadfastly defending my position as a gamer who absolutely hates cheap rip-offs. I hated World at War’s campaign for ripping off the plot of Saving Private Ryan. I hated Dante’s Inferno (so badly that I couldn’t finish the demo) for copying, literally, everything about of God of War, from the combos to the fucking color-coded chests that you had to button-mash to open up (fountains, I believe, in Inferno’s case). And I loved WET, but I’d have probably hated it too if I’d played stranglehold first.

Anyway, until now I’d had no relevant reasons to bring this up and write about it. But yesterday I saw a GamesRadar article comparing Alan Wake and Deadly Premonitions, and I couldn’t resist my chance to hop on the wagon (It was the second article in sort of a series, the first comparing Wake and Alone in the Dark). So, now that I’ve some context, allow me to crack my knuckles and go to town.

Okay, so in an industry where absolutely any original idea that sells will be shamelessly replicated on a massive scale and labeled as a genre (and this goes for any genre that currently exists, especially FPS) I probably shouldn’t be making this point. Obviously most gamers, myself included, are perfectly fine with some copycattery. But that doesn’t eliminate that vague, unmistakable feeling that overcomes the mind when playing a painfully derivative game; and it never will.

I’m not talking about when you pick up a shooter and immediately feel comfortable because it has the same control layout as CoD 4. I’m talking about when levels, controls, characters and mission objectives are strikingly similar to other games you’ve played. Whether you think of 3D Dot Game Heroes compared to the original Legend of Zelda or Shadow Complex compared to Super Metroid, when a game crosses that line between being an homage or derivative into being a mere cut-and-paste job, it shows. And it can ruin the experience.

But there are plenty of caveats that I’ll note:

1. You Can't Rip Yourself Off, Stupid.

Yes, though I know you might want to call Prototype a Hulk or Spiderman 2 rip-off, and you think you have good reasoning, you’re wrong. Brutal Legend’s third-person action segments are not a copy of Psychonauts’s; and Fallout 3 is not a copy of Oblivion. Whether you’re able to accept it or not, some dev teams actually develop a personal style as they make games together. If you play Oblivion and then Fallout 3 back-to-back you’ll first notice how incredibly similar they are, and then you’ll notice how much Bethesda vastly improved their execution. You know how some writers, when starting a series, are sorta meh with the first book, get really good at handling the third and fourth books, and then blow readers away with the final few books? Yeah.

2. Rule of Thumb: You Can't Homage A Contemporary.

You’d think this would be obvious, but you’d be really surprised. Is Dante’s Inferno an homage to God of War? Hell no. Why? Because God of War 2 came out a little over two years before Dante’s Inferno, and God of War 3 was published a few months after. That makes God of War not only a contemporary, but a competitor. If you’re going to be a carbon-copy, you’re inviting comparison. And if you’re not as good as the original, it’s exponentially worse that you copied it at all. It’d be like giving a diet Pepsi to someone who loves regular Coke and saying they taste exactly the same.

3. Taking Things Over Is Not Copying.

When a director, musician, writer or developer moves on from an unfinished work that must be continued, the publisher or relevant stand-in hands the project off to someone else. This someone else might be unproven talent or someone noted as good at continuing someone else’s work (think Obsidian Entertainment). So, being in the position they’d be in—with no earthly idea what the creator had in mind for the next entry—this someone would most likely just copy exactly what the creator had been doing all along to alienate no one and make no mistakes whatsoever. That isn’t copying. That’s just being in a balls situation that no one would enjoy.

Show these folks (like Treyarch) some love for once and stop dissing them for uncontrollable circumstances.

4. Iamdonewithmylistyay

So there it is. My personally crafted handbook on the do’s and don’ts of ripping off. I understand many people will strongly disagree with my opinion here, but I couldn’t miss the opportunity to state it. Thanks for reading if you got this far.
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