September 25, 2008

Excit Clones

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2 comments:

axcho said...

It is strange how people will flame for ripping off games, until of course there are so many clones that they constitute an entire genre. I've gotten that with my game Braids on Kongregate, which was based on Ragdoll Masters.

By the way, I haven't gotten a reply from you yet to my last email about Adopt an Invader - it's been several weeks. Are you still interested in the project?

Krystian Majewski said...

This behavior is really most peculiar. It might be worth investigating. It seems like if an idea is unique, the copying it means somehow "stealing" or "ripping off" the person with the original idea. People will feel obliged to "help" the guy with the original idea by flaming the copycat. They automatically assume that the originator doesn't want his idea to be copied.

But when an idea gets spread wide enough, it becomes a "common good" and copying is not considered unfair. In fact, I have the impression that THEN it is even somewhat positive to copy that idea.

It is a very confusing behavior. I have two explenations:

1. People behave like that because they grew up taking copyrights for granted which themselves are internally inconsistent.

2. It is some strange primate instinct designed to strengthen the survival of a group. Like a refined version of groupthink.

Or both. Either way, an intriguing memetic phenomenon.

And sorry for the delay. I got cought up with moving from my old flat. But things are back to normal now.