Everyone Is Clones

The people behind the Indie Games Winter Uprising are promising to provide an alternative to the “massage apps, clones and garbage” that (apparently) make up the bulk of the Xbox Indie Games Marketplace. Let’s set aside for a moment the sour grapes underlying the whole premise (which again undermines the notion, beloved of game journalists, that indie devs are a bunch of cool guys who are above the usual games industry nonsense). What’s so bad about being a clone?

Try to think of a completely new style of game. Go on, really try. Don’t just mix genres, or come up with a scenario that nobody has used within an existing genre. No, try to think of something that nobody has ever done.

Can’t do it? Don’t feel bad, most people can’t. Moreover, most people don’t really want to, including the people who developed the Winter Uprising’s line-up of shooters, RPGs and adventure games. They were happy to work within existing genres, but they also seem happy to take cheap-shots at others for doing the same.

There’s nothing wrong with being a “clone.” For years, all first person shooters were called “Doom clones,” even by people who liked them. Dungeon-crawls like Shiren the Wanderer and Zettai Hero Project are called “Roguelikes” because they’re like Rogue, the progenitor of that particular type of RPG. If you wanted, you could call the seemingly endless parade of modern dual-stick shooters “Robotron 2084 clones.”

None of this is insulting. People like Shigeru Miyamoto, David Crane, John Romero and John Carmack, Roberta Williams, and so on weren’t necessarily the most creative game designers of their time—they were just in the right place at the right time to get their ideas out there first. That others explored the same concepts after them may make them “clones” in a strict sense, but it doesn’t necessarily make them uncreative.

People who think that being unoriginal is necessarily bad are deluding themselves in a couple of ways. First, they think it’s possible to do something that nobody has ever thought of before. Miyamoto’s game designs are original as far as games go, but they borrow ideas from popular fiction like King Kong and Alice in Wonderland. Second, they’re ignoring the long artistic tradition of imposing limits in order to spur creativity. Are poetic forms like the sonnet less creative than free verse? If you’ve ever attended a bad poetry slam, you know the answer.

As for massage apps, Justin Le Clair’s original entry into the genre, Rumble Massage, was just that—original. It was followed by a number of clones, and while I haven’t played any of them, I’m willing to accept that most of them are garbage. But it’s not necessarily true that all of them are.

So what is the uprising really against, since it clearly isn’t really against clones. If it’s against low quality, then more power to those behind it, but they’re being elitists by pretending that it’s impossible for certain products (e.g. massage apps) to be high quality. And if what they really want is for XBIG to contain nothing but traditional gaming experiences (like RPGs and shooters), then they’re actually against originality, since those traditional games are, by definition, derivative.

Anyone who is enthusiastic enough to make a game is probably enthusiastic about games in general, and therefore can’t help but be inspired by the work of others. In other words, everyone is ripping off something, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But there is something wrong with slamming your peers for a lack of originality while promoting your own entries into well-worn genres as somehow better.

It's Not Wrong To Pay $3

This weekend, indie developer Tale of Tales is having a pay-what-you-want sale on a bundle of three of its spookier games: The Path, The Graveyard, and Fatale. The minimum payment is $3, but those who pay at least $50 will receive an undisclosed bonus. After the success of the Humble Indie Bundle back in May, we shouldn’t be surprised to see another developer take a chance on the pay-what-you-want model. We also shouldn’t be surprised that giving Tale of Tales money is being treated by some as a moral imperative.

“There is some motivation to pay more than the minimum (beyond it being pretty crass to lowball an indie like that)...” says Joystiq’s JC Fletcher, in his post on the sale. Apparently we have different definitions of “lowball.” If someone says “I’ll take $3” and you give them $3, you’re not lowballing them, even if they make pained faces as you hand over the money.

But is it crass to pay the least that someone asks? Not in this case. These pay-what-you-want sales are a calculated risk. If the number of people who were curious about a game but not curious enough to pay full price for it is high enough, then the developer makes money through volume. If not, well, no business venture is a sure thing. Hopefully Tale of Tales arrived at the $3 minimum after careful deliberation. If not, so much the worse for them.

Still, even if it really is crass to pay the minimum asking price, what does the fact that Tale of Tales is an indie developer have to do with it? They’re people trying to make a living by making games, just like, for example, the people at Pandemic, Realtime Worlds, and Krome. Despite the support of major publishers, the above studios had to close down when people didn't want to buy the games they made at the price for which they were sold.

Fletcher’s reasoning (which, to be fair, is in no way unique to him), is really just the flipside of that employed by pirates who say that it’s all right to steal games released by major publishers. They have the money, so they can absorb the loss. Indie developers, on the other hand, are seen as perpetually scraping by, and therefore entitled to more support than those developers who have tried to find a measure of security by working with big publishers.

The indie entitlement narrative may be benevolent, but that doesn’t make it rational. Indie developers are no more or less entitled to money than any other developer. All of them are human beings trying to make a living by doing something they love. What’s really crass is to suggest that one deserves special treatment simply because they’re more in line with some obscure idea of cool, and not because they do especially good work.

I’m going to buy the Tale of Tales bundle, and I’m going to pay more than $3 for it. But it’s not because I think indie developers are a privileged class of people who are entitled to my financial support. Rather, I’m going to do it because I think Tale of Tales is making a type of game that needs to be made, and I want to support their vision. Anyone who disagrees, or simply isn’t sure, can pay less, even $3, and sleep well at night.