The original is almost always better than the copy... just try any Chinese knockoff. "Make something quality and it its harder to clone" is my motto.
Just thought this was interesting: I was looking at some of the courses that Udemy offers. I thought, maybe an ios developing course would be nice.... I was really surprised to see that there are several courses that teach you to make an iOS app by taking a previous app and changing the graphics and sounds basically. They called it 'skinning.' I was really surprised because when a dev makes an app, it is their form of art. I thought for sure, that copyright protected the original idea and mechanics. But... I guess not. I mean what is skinning? Well, same game, same mechanics, take off the skin or surface, add a different one. Again, same mechanic and game. I am an artist ( in many trades) and a photographer. Oh my gosh.... I would be very upset if someone copied my idea or art, and made money off it. I just can't imagine how a dev would feel, after working on an app for over a year, putting money into it, then someone comes along and changes a few things and sells it. Seems so immoral. Hmmm..... I could be wrong... But. I am one of those people that is always honest. I never lie. I don't steel. I point out to a cashier if they give me too much change back. So... When I saw those courses about 'skinning' I felt very uncomfortable. And; when I think about the possibility of doing it myself, it makes my stomach a bit queasy. I know.... If you are going to clone or skin an app, just write the original developer first. If they say it's ok, then there would be nothing morally wrong about it. Right??
Doesn't Apple approve everything manually? Given that and the sheer # of apps on the iOS AppStore, I'd think it'd be very costly and time consuming to be THAT thorough, which may result in it still being missed. They're human just like the rest of us. Mistakes happen. Akin to sometimes, bugs get through in published apps. They update it to fix it. Because coming up with an original franchise, idea, etc. is very hard work and risky. There's a reason TV shows, movies, and video games would rather put out stuff from franchises and formats that have made them lots of $$. Given all of work put into some of these legit apps, it's much easier for them to cut out alot of that and just worry about coding it, as opposed to also designing it. [shrug] Similar to how tobacco execs sleep at night, directly marketing to children, lying in front of committee hearings despite knowing that tobacco products, if used correctly, are harmful... all before heavy regulations came down on their industry. They were quite fine with it actually. You're assuming everyone has the same morales as you or everyone else? It's good you emailed them. They can't do anything about it if they don't know about it. Nor can anyone else file complaints in their place. Also, I recall hearing a story of how there was an app that was a ripoff of... Clash Of Titans? Clash Of Gods? Something to that name. The company that was ripping off their app was in some Asian country (Thailand? Malasia? Indonesia?) Suffice to say, it's much harder to go legally go after those folks with different laws on the matter.
This is precisely why some articles and blogs suggest that devs not bother with games, and instead, go with business or non-gaming apps. Some of those are much harder to clone, and you can charge premium pricing without worrying as much about pirates since they won't be as interested in getting a $100 app that improves your performance in curling, some advanced scientific calculator, industry specific uses, etc. When asked by folks that one dev's app should be free or heavily discounted, his counter was his app has saved people hundreds and hundreds of hours. That shut them up. Jobs was also the one known by "good artists copy, great artists steal".
Copying a game concept is a great way to learn since the whole thing has been designed and thought through and as a coder you just think about the implementation and how to do certain features the original game has rather than complicate it with designing a game as well. It's like learning to paint for example. Artists train from sketching things in real life, studying the form of things, people and how light and shadow and colour look, etc. An artist/painter is essentially "copying" a scene from real life. Then once well trained, they can move on to trying to invent their own scenes and content without a reference. So that said, the question is should a game clone developer profit from their learning excercise?
i wonder if they are making any money... i guess legal action is too expensive for the rights owner, and hard to win in a court.
