The law's an ass...

[luggage]

Following on from another thread where it was discussed about larger publishers it was noted that there's...

Beesly's Buzzwords (http://www.playbuzzwords.com/)
and
Tumble Bees (http://playweb09.pogo.com/home/images/screenshots/jumbee-lg.jpg)

Clearly Beesly has got a product dilution case against Tumble Bees. It couldn't be clearer that you can mix the two games up.

Trouble is it would cost a hell of a lot of money to take EA to court over it. Personally you'd think it would just take a couple of screenshots and the demos to prove it. I mean, how can a lawyer (no matter how highly paid) argue that it isn't product dilution? That's how it'd work in my perfect world :)

What can we, as small Indie developers, do about this type of thing? Obviously we can just do nothing and put up with it but this kind of thing greatly annoys me, and Beesly isn't one of our games. There's clones and then there's CLONES! You could at least understand a little more if it was just a beginner writing it - but EA?

So does anyone know where the law stands on this type of thing?

[monco]

How do you know Beesly didn't clone EA?

[Bmc]

I'm actually pretty sure Tumble Bees was first so ... and besides their new game Glorm is pretty much a straight out clone of Pururun(nothing wrong with that IMO), pretty much even laid out the same. So why would they sue someone else for cloning them?

edit: I guess I'm wrong but Tumble bees being 1st

[luggage]

It's unlikely - maybe Flashbang can help us out with that one. Doesn't make any difference to the discussion though.

If it helps...

What can you do if a larger, better funded company ripped off your game?

Try not to get bogged down in particular situations and look at the bigger picture.

---edit---

may not be conclusive but...

Beesley's Buzzwords\Flashbang article - dated 25 March 2004 here (http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6092226.html)
They already state it was an IGF winner then.

From the Tumble Bees read me... June 22, 2004

Make your own conclusions

[Andy]

Mark from RedMarbleGames can help you more on issue luggage. This is too sensitive question to ask the suggestion from random peoples like most of us here.

[KNau]

Meh, cloning is cloning. The majority of us are copying or "borrowing" game ideas and elements from the big publishers, I see no reason why that shouldn't run both ways and have them copying from us.

[luggage]

Meh, cloning is cloning. The majority of us are copying or "borrowing" game ideas and elements from the big publishers, I see no reason why that shouldn't run both ways and have them copying from us.I'm sure if I did a game called "BurnIn", copied all the artwork, car styles, effects from Burnout and EA spotted it they'd have something to say.

[milieu]

I'm sure if I did a game called "BurnIn", copied all the artwork, car styles, effects from Burnout and EA spotted it they'd have something to say.
I think most people would feel that "BurnIN" would be confusingly similar to EA's trademark on "BurnOUT". In other words, it would be reasonable for consumers to think that it was a sequel or spinoff of the Burnout game, and that's exactly the kind of thing that trademark suits are about.

But if you used a different name, and all you copied was the game play, and you created all your own assets, EA wouldn't have a leg to stand on. I can create a game involving a marine fighting demons, and id can't do a thing about it.

Video games don't have a lot of protection. Their assets are protected by copyright, and their names can be trademarks. Beyond that, you have to depend on trade dress and "look and feel", which can be very nebulous concepts.

[tolik]

Think:

Nintendo created a patent for their N64 3D action mode from Pokemon Puzzle League (read: Tetris Attack/Puzzle De Panepon). It took 5 years to approve it.

[gmcbay]

Cloning gameplay ideas is one thing. All of these word games already derive a lot from Bookworm, which derives from Boggle, etc. But having a game that is not only so close in gameplay, but also has such a confusingly similar theme and presentation is absolutely horrible.

[PoV]

Aye. My reasonably popular freeware and LD game PuffBOMB (http://www.sykhronics.com/?recent/puff.html) was cloned and made in to a PDA game by some Russian guy (http://www.binoteq.com/bearsjob/) (or just a guy with a site somehow related to Russia). Several friends found this for me, and I at least managed to get a credit in the game because of it and a free copy for my Zodiac. So meh... I'm not sure what my point is other than I feel your pain. :D

[Ricardo C]

Aye. My reasonably popular freeware and LD game PuffBOMB (http://www.sykhronics.com/?recent/puff.html) was cloned and made in to a PDA game by some Russian guy (http://www.binoteq.com/bearsjob/) (or just a guy with a site somehow related to Russia). Several friends found this for me, and I at least managed to get a credit in the game because of it and a free copy for my Zodiac. So meh... I'm not sure what my point is other than I feel your pain. :D

Wow... You'd think they would have at least have the decency to come up with their own theme for it.

[Matthew]

We did look at Bookworm and every word fall game we could find in creating Beesly's Buzzwords. Our focus in changing the gameplay was pacing: we felt the board constantly refilling on every word spelled was a tremendous downside to the current crop of titles. In Buzzwords, letters deplete and are replenished each season point goal met, with a total clear every year. The game over state is a lack of words remaining on the board.

We wanted to go with a hex grid for Buzzwords, and decided against using faux-shapes to display it (like PopCap did with their offset square tile hex grid). Using a bee theme for a hex grid is kind of a no-brainer, and a silly amount of puzzle/word games with hex grids use this theme. There are a ton of products that rely on the "spelling bee" pun for word games, too, even if they have nothing to do with hexagonal grids. In retrospect, perhaps we should've tried something else to stand out, but we decided to focus more on Beesly and the backgrounds than the honeycomb aspect.

Our plan with starting up Flashbang was to create a few "safe" projects, first, and then branch into riskier titles. Glorm and another project in development are our last puzzle-y ubercasual 2D games (and, as someone already pointed out, Glorm is essentially Pururun with some new stuff).

Anyway, this is the timeline as I understand it:

Tumble Bees Java Version -- we were very careful to distance ourself from this, both in look-and-feel and gameplay. I know EA has been aware of Buzzwords for over a year, too, so I guess the inference is that a lawsuit isn't possible (or just not financially feasible).

Beesly's Buzzwords (http://www.playbuzzwords.com)

Tumble Bees to Go (http://www21.pogo.com/togo/product/tg-tumblebees.jsp?sls=2&site=pogo) (downloadable standalone)

Word Hive (http://www.grab.com/games/view.php?game=669) (just saw this today; not sure exactly when it was released)

[monco]

So Tumble Bees *was* the first one. What's the big deal here?

[svero]

Iteresting.. cuz everyone just assumed ea ripped it off.

- S

[Anthony Flack]

Because I'd never heard anyone mention Tumble Bees until today. That's one of the problems with this - you never know who came up with stuff any more. But I guess everyone's at it now, aren't they? It's true that the bee theme and the hex grid are kind of an inescapable conclusion though.

Personally, I think that theme duplication is adding insult to injury, but then coming up with a diffent theme takes hardly any effort anyway. So... er, I'm not sure whether that makes it majorly extra shameful or not. Interesting to see that borrowing the theme as well as the game is something that crosses the line for some people.

Anyway, before I get too worked up I should add that I haven't actually played any of them except Beezley's, so who knows how similar they actually are. Even though all three certainly look identical.

[Matthew]

Beesley's Buzzwords\Flashbang article - dated 25 March 2004 here (http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6092226.html)
They already state it was an IGF winner then.

From the Tumble Bees read me... June 22, 2004

Just to be clear--that's the launch date of Tumble Bees to Go, which is the standalone game in the franchise. It was in development during the IGF last year (an EA/Pogo guy came by and chatted a bit at the booth). Buzzwords launched in November, 2003.

A comparison of screens to see everything side-by-side:

Tumble Bees:
http://playweb09.pogo.com/home/images/screenshots/jumbee-lg.jpg

Buzzwords:
http://www.flashbangstudios.com/buzzwords/images/screen3.jpg

Tumble Bees To Go:
http://aolsvc.aol.com/onlinegames/vgdp/images/p2g_tumblebees_400x300.jpg

Word Hive:
http://i.grab.com/media//6364d3/games/screenshots//669/1.jpg

Theme aside, all four games are actually quite different; even between Tumble Bees and Tumble Bees to Go. Again, I think the theme just falls out of a hex grid and spelling. We developed our own ideas for how to apply a bee theme and UI independently, as I'm sure EA did for TB To Go and Lightning Round Entertainment did for Word Hive (their CEO used to work for PopCap, as a random bit of info).

Digging around a bit; these were interesting too:

Spelling Bee Bingo:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00004TFZ9.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Snap Spelling Bee (some bargain PC game?):
http://www.findmeagame.com/images/4/660644.jpg

Honey Nut Cheerios Spelling Bee Game:
http://img.epinions.com/images/opti/c4/93/kifmToysAllBriarpatch_Honey_Nut_Cheerios_Spelling_ Bee_Game_BP171021-resized200.jpg

A TV Gameshow:
http://gscentral.net/bee.htm

[svero]

Well I think, at the very least, we can all agree that so long as everyone is paying the proper royalties to the Queen bee on this whole hive design thing then it's more or less ok. Otherwise the lot of you might get stung.

[svero]

Sorry.. I err... couldn't resist...

[svero]

I just tried beezlys buzzwords. There's a serious bug. When playing the classic game if you click when the promotion screen comes up it stays up and the level restarts in the background. So you can't keep playing. The promotion thing sticks around in front. You can't get rid of it.

[tolik]

Svero - this is the feature which makes games different and prevents EA from playing and evaluating it to create lawsuit :)