[casual_games] Copycats -- What Can Be Done?

[Gabriel Gambetta]

        * was Cake Mania a clone of Wild West Wendy or Diner Dash or ...
        * what if Wild West Wendy seemed like a Diner Dash clone because
        it came out after but they really started development first 
        * could the two simply be coincidence? 
        * Diner Dash clearly spawned a new flurry of games but didn't it
        borrow from Betty's Beer Bar or the arcade classic (Root Beer)
        Tapper. 

Some people may think Wild West Wendy is a DD clone because it was
released later, but as you said, we didn't know gameLab was making DD
and they [almost certainly] didn't know we were making WWW. Of course
both WWW and DD came over a year after Betty's Beer Bar so I'm still
proud to consider our Betty started the
build-your-restaurant-franchise-with-a-strong-female-lead craze :)

Betty itself was vaguely inspired by Tapper, but it also introduced many
elements that later "inspired games" have been copying - the premise
(serve customers), the theme (drinks/food), the female lead, even the
wacky looking characters lately (Cake Mania).

I'm not angry though. Good ideas get copied and hopefully improved upon,
that "standing on the shoulders of giants" stuff, that's how human
knowledge usually advances. What does bother me somewhat is when people
claim their game is "innovative", "unique" and "groundbreaking" when it
clearly isn't. It's marketing, sure, but it's still not true.

	--Gabriel


________________________________________________________________________
Gabriel Gambetta
Mystery Studio - http://www.mysterystudio.com
Gabriel on Graphics - http://gabrielongraphics.blogspot.com