Actually, the downloadable PuzzLoop looks and feels a lot more like Zuma than like the original PuzzLoop.
i am confused now, someone seemed to think the new puzzloop was release before zuma... and you are saying its the opposite. Anyone know ? Anyway i like zuma better and like i said before for me its best one wins. what if i made a "zuma clone" with robots and techno music , would i be filling a market niche the makers of zuma did not bother to fill ? i think so ! thanks for making my plan sound more legit your argument can be used to explain the same thing that is happening with c clones. I feel empathy for the fact that you are losing money over the C clones really. But when i hear people raging about clones like that it kinda sound like someone bitching about is/her business not going the way its supposed too :/ don't over publicize it... plan a revenge... make a better game.... make the competition look obsolete ! I think that the original creator of puzzloops know that they dont have a case but its making troubles for popcap and that might be enough to restrain people from cloning games the way popcap did. Wich would be sad. I love clones , they are diferent "flavors" of my favorite games. For the consumer clones are a win win situation.
Chuzzle? I know it's a variation on a match-3 game but i can't recall seeing anything else similar to it before it came out.
I see an ironic twist of events here. There's a saying that goes along the lines of "The British invent it, the Americans make a product out of it, and the Japanese copy and improve it, eventually dominating the market". With Puzzloop, it is the exact opposite - it was an innovative idea from Japan that wasn't really succesful, but was cloned, improved and commercially successful in the US. To complete the cycle, all we need is a UK developer to top that!
So how long is meant to pass before it's "OK" to clone another game? At what point is the ball picked up and it ceases to be a parasite. I presume there must be some time scale that can be put on it?
Look at how quickly the Chuzzle clones followed it's release. That's parasitic. Now look at the time between PuzzLoop and Zuma. That's not.
WOOOOHHAAAAHAAA!!!! only now you realise our master plan ! nahhh... no puzzloop clones on the menu just yet hehe Don't you see it as offering a new "flavor" ? i mean... if i like the gameplay but not the packaging there is options for me when there is some clones. When i shop for products i am happy there is a lot of similar products with different packaging or offerings. I would not buy a pink toothbrush with flowers on it even if the utility is the same as the sturdy blue one . Someone else could feel the exact opposite.
So where's the line? At the moment you've put it at somewhere between 6 months and 4, 5 years. Care to elaborate? Would 2 years be enough? 1 year? I can't agree with "It's ok for me to copy a game because not many people know about it, but it's not ok for anyone to copy my game."
So it's like talking about dumb and dumber, heh ? Now seriously, I won't stay on any of both sides, since, on one hand, I think that Zuma has used quite more than the main mechanic of the original game to appeal to a different audience, which is very distinctive; anyway, the main mechanic is also the big deal of a game, and having to develop it really costs time and money. Anyway, I hope PuzzLoop wins this battle for just one reason: there would be a precedence on cloning as a "crime", so hopefully we would see a lot of really original games.
What about paying the original creators to get their permission to use that different flavour on their original product?
exactly... i would agree to some extent thats its cheap to clone an original game from an indie dev ( like in the chuzzle case ) but with a game like zuma where its a clone to start with, it sounds really silly to bully people who cloned it. If a law would forced people to do it they would but its not the case. I cant think of any business who gives out money when they dont have too. I think it will change eventually tho... maybe ? the digital age saw surfaced a whole bunch of ethics / copyright / legal issues that current society dont exactly know how to handle. It will settle down eventually. Until then a lot of digital products will proliferate in the free for all. Take sound sampling for example, it took a while for the laws to adapt. It may be the same with games. The laws will change went it reach a breaking point ?
Perhaps; certainly the law is hopelessly broken with regards to games. Software patents are awarded frivolously and are most commonly used by unscrupulous individuals to extort money. Copyright does not adequately protect people's work. The copyright period is far, far too long, and the fear is that strengthening copyright protection would only make things worse. You're reducing games to the level of commodities. Nobody needs a constant stream of radically new toothbrush designs. Developing new game designs is risky and expensive, and if there is no benefit in doing it, then people will give it up. If there is no reward for innovation, then the consumer certainly won't benefit in the long run, when the industry is overrun with cut-rate software companies in China turning out functional duplicates of the current favourites in 3 week development cycles.
No, what you would see is a lot of small developers being sued who cannot possibly afford to defend themselves. To me, i think comparing zuma to puzz loop is like comparing Water Bugs to Qix... Similar idea but very different in reality.
yeh sure, then we all be getting sued all the time. hey look his game has a space ship and it fires 3 missiles at a time let's sue him, hey look his game matches gems let's sue him cloning isn't a crime and it shouldn't be.
if someone releases a more polished yet cheaper version of your game a month after its released, will you think the same way? Where a game is a blatant clone (same gui layout, exact same game mechanic, but different sound / graphics), I'm all beind someone taking legal action. Otherwise people just won't spend any of the really hard work designing new games.
... well, some of us might be more inclined to work on games that are less clonable? I don't know where the 'this is ripping off' line can be clearly drawn - and if it's not clear it just invites trouble. Witness the enormous wars we had here over... man, I'm afraid to even SAY the names lest that huge fight starts up again. A game that was clearly EXTREMELY STRONGLY INSPIRED by another game, and yet was not a 100% clone. In my opinion. Other opinions varied. That's the problem.
which equates to 'copy other peoples work and do nothing original'. Im glad sid meier, peter molyneux and will wright dont agree with you.