I think this burger restaurant metaphor is... really not great.
Imagine instead that you've spent two years in a kitchen, working nonstop on a completely new type of food. You've discovered how to make something unprecedented, but it took endless rounds of tweaking ingredients and taste-testing. You open a restaurant to sell your food, and it succeeds massively.
... unfortunately for you, the main ingredients are just flour, eggs, sugar and milk, and for whatever reason, it's pretty easy to reverse-engineer your recipe. Within half a year, a dozen copycat restaurants are all making the same thing, except maybe they sprinkle some powdered sugar or salsa on top.
Now, I don't know what you'd do in the restaurant industry to litigate against that. There's probably some viable path, though, because it's obvious that you created something entirely new, and it can't exist without a specific recipe and method.
In the video game industry, though, it's pretty difficult. Patents don't work very well. The legal system hasn't been kind to people trying to claim ownership of gameplay types, even if it's blatantly obvious that the described gameplay wouldn't exist without that person. Platforms also really don't give a shit (see the recent thread about Apple allowing through dozens of Wordle clones, but that's only the latest in a very long history of App Store clones).
I think it's just a narrow and pretty uncharitable view of game dev that would lead to the thought that it's like opening a restaurant, much less one making some food type that has existed for a century. Creating a new gameplay mechanic is not at all like tossing a new type of pickle on a sandwich.
Without cloning there would not be anything what we have today and no indie developers as well.
DOOM clones was a thing of past. There were many of them.
Then Diablo clones - Sacred was one of them I liked. Torchlight or Path of Exile should not exist by the logic of article and OP.
If a clone is better and is outperforming original, then clone makers are doing right thing. In the big view on future, patents or any other restrictions on knowledge are only limiting overall progress.
Yes. The same is about these mobile game clones - the ones that will be better than original(on something), will last longer. The bigger issue is that mobile market is way faster and attention span of newer generation is also shorter, so everything is not as dramatic picture, as this article is painting. Also, I can only see this article as free advertisment to Wordle - on top of the mobile ads, that they have spammed and they much better than the "useful idiots" understand, that their time for Wordle is limited.
I absolutely loved Duke 3D. The tools to make levels were ridiculously good for the time and the multiplayer death match was fantastic. Come on who doesn't love shrinking down their opponent to mouse size then chasing them down and stepping on them.
What you describe kinda sorta happened in 2013 NYC with the introduction of the cronut.
A baker created a new type of croissant and it exploded in popularity - overnight success.
It wasn’t long before Dunkin Donuts was selling their own cronuts (they had to use a different name for them though, the baker had trademarked the original name).
As someone who is making food at home and do not visit restaurants(because I have seen other side - how the food is made), I can only see Cronut as a brand development and advertisment of a donut(which is terrible food IMO). People in NYC are probably very bored(just like I am with my food scene here - that's another reason why I am preparing my own food) - that's why they were excited for new thing.
Imagine instead that you've spent two years in a kitchen, working nonstop on a completely new type of food. You've discovered how to make something unprecedented, but it took endless rounds of tweaking ingredients and taste-testing. You open a restaurant to sell your food, and it succeeds massively.
... unfortunately for you, the main ingredients are just flour, eggs, sugar and milk, and for whatever reason, it's pretty easy to reverse-engineer your recipe. Within half a year, a dozen copycat restaurants are all making the same thing, except maybe they sprinkle some powdered sugar or salsa on top.
Now, I don't know what you'd do in the restaurant industry to litigate against that. There's probably some viable path, though, because it's obvious that you created something entirely new, and it can't exist without a specific recipe and method.
In the video game industry, though, it's pretty difficult. Patents don't work very well. The legal system hasn't been kind to people trying to claim ownership of gameplay types, even if it's blatantly obvious that the described gameplay wouldn't exist without that person. Platforms also really don't give a shit (see the recent thread about Apple allowing through dozens of Wordle clones, but that's only the latest in a very long history of App Store clones).
I think it's just a narrow and pretty uncharitable view of game dev that would lead to the thought that it's like opening a restaurant, much less one making some food type that has existed for a century. Creating a new gameplay mechanic is not at all like tossing a new type of pickle on a sandwich.