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Zynga Doesn’t See why People Care so Much About Originality |
Listed in: News Tags: assassins creed, david porter, dishonored, EA, lawsuits, prince of persia, social gaming, thief, zynga
Zynga is pretty notorious for stripping popular games, re-naming the assets, tacking the word “Ville” on the end and claiming the resulting product as its own. Accusations of theft have come from a wide spectrum of developers, and EA recently handed the company a nice legal smackdown over the very same issue.
So it should be no surprise to hear Zynga claim that there’s no such thing as originality in games. Zynga GM Dave Porter was quoted as saying that the company mostly copies its competitors games, and issued this statement to help clarify what he actually meant:
“What I actually said was that all games are derived from other games, that this has been happening long before Zynga, and that the debate about originality in games is vastly overblown and misses the mark. Before making Draw Something we ran OMGPOP for four years and made lots of games that were inspired by games we loved and we emulated the mechanics from games with great UI. This is no great revelation.”
Now, Porter does have a point—developers look at games they love and use them as inspiration for their creations. Without a Thief, for example, we might never have gotten a Dishonored. And without a Prince of Persia, Assassin’s Creed may have never existed. However, there’s a pretty big difference between using great concepts as a starting point and literally copying and pasting someone else’s work.
What do you think?
[Gamespot]
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Comments
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Stealing someone's work and then selling it, as your own, is not a matter of originality but of plagiarism.
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Call of Duty copied Halo. I don't see Bungie bitching at Infinity Ward.
That's his point. Hell, ALL FPS games copied Castle Wolfenstien. Maybe even older but that's as far back as I can remember.
Not a single FPS is original so...why are they allowed to copy all the previous titles?
Why is Kia allowed to copy the 4 wheel car design? Oh and that whole one steering while thing they're using, yeah, NOT ORIGINAL.
Hollywood regurgitates IDEAS all the time. TV shows, gameboard companies, kitchen appliances....Why is APEX allowed to make DVD players? We already have DVD players. Oh, that's right, consumer products are allowed to copy ideas. Can openers, cd players, fax machines, telephones, chairs, tables.....however they can not be 100% identical copies. Zynga's games are not 100% identical copies.
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2. FPS games today are not the same as the old 2D/3D speed shooters.
3. Halo was to my knowledge, for it's time original, as was TC: Rainbow Vegas.
4. They're using four wheels, just as most programs use C++ and the like, not stealing the whole design...(though I have seen companies put their company name onto a car from another company)
5. Read '4.'
Also, name a few movies from different studios, that are the 'same', if you would?
I, however, do understand your points and agree to an extent.
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Why do you think we hear, ALL THE TIME, of people getting sick and tired of cookie cutter FPS games? Don't even begin to deny it!
The facts are they are all copies of each other with nothing more then slight improvements.
No one stole someone else's code and literally stole their game.
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Zynga tries copying the game with little effort, adds tiny changes and then releases it.
So, while they didn't steal it per se, what they do is still plagiarism.
I can understand someone making a game in the same genre as another, but there's a difference between that and taking the whole concept of a game, as your own.
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Create a game where you run around and shoot people. That's the vast majority of FPS games. So based on your logic EVERYONE who makes an FPS is "copying the game with little effort, adds tiny changes and then releases it."
They aren't creating anything and saying they're the first. They are doing exactly what everyone else does. But because it's something other then a FPS....everyone is flipping shit over it.
Again:
"Why do you think we hear, ALL THE TIME, of people getting sick and tired of cookie cutter FPS games?"
Copying a game verbatim would be stealing the graphics, stealing all the text, stealing the entire design. Zynga has never done this. They have simply made games of there own that are the same genre. Therefore you agree with them:
"I can understand someone making a game in the same genre as another..."
You also contradict yourself:
"but there's a difference between that and taking the whole concept of a game, as your own."
That's exactly what FPS's do. Time setting - WW2. Objective - Run around and shoot people. That's the entire concept of the game and it's done over and over and over and over and over and over again.....Oh wait! Change it to WW1! Oh look, we created an entirely new game!!! Give me a break!
Cookie....meat your cutter...
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I greatly dislike FPS games, which are as you say.
Games like Call of Duty and Battlefield.
However, there are FPS like Deus Ex, Borderlands and Thief, which are not cookie cutter games.
Now, before you befuddle me and my reasoning for such replies with your trolling, I'll explain the point.
The point I'm making is that games and other entertainment should have some originality and defining difference between each other, other than just a slight difference(e.g. Mii/Avatar)
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"However, there are FPS like Deus Ex, Borderlands and Thief, which are not cookie cutter games."
I wont argue that. Of course there are going to be "some" exceptions. I never said 100% of all FPS games have little to no originality.
"The point I'm making is that games and other entertainment should have some originality and defining difference between each other, other than just a slight difference(e.g. Mii/Avatar)"
I agree. Except the problem with this comment is...it describes at least 70% of the entire market and I'm being very giving with that. So....why are people only bitching about Zynga? Because the shit storm that is our media latched on to them and wont let go.
Zynga isn't doing anything that almost all developers do.
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It's hard to launch an all-new film, especially with a big budget.
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