Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, then you've probably heard a little about the 'battle of the clones' that has been taking the MMO Industry by storm lately. Why after over 20 years of gaming has this issue regarding one game intentionally copying another to leech of its success just started to surface now? Well, it hasn't. This issue has risen many times over the course of gaming history, and I'd bet money that's it's going to rise again.
Cloning, as it's called, (or as I'm going to be referring to it) doesn't just appear in the MMO Industry either, it appears all over video games, and believe it or not, all over every industry in the world. Think about it for a second, I bet we've both got toasters, but what are the chances that they are both made by the same company? Or both exactly the same?
[Why toasters? Well, I was eating toast....]
Slim, very slim. That's because over time so many different companies started making the same thing with the smallest of changes that once enough time had passed, it simply wasn't an issue anymore. Or maybe they sold the patent, I really don't know. The point is, that there are thousands of different toasters, and most of them do pretty much the same thing. Back to the gaming industry, cloning happens on a daily basis. One company takes the idea of another company and 'tweaks' it until just enough is changed that they can't be held legally responsible for copying. One such example is Maple Story VS Wind Slayer, and it is this very example that has caused such a stir in recent times. Why this example and not the hundreds before it? Because with this example, they cut a very fine line. Both games are so close in graphics, gameplay, and style that the people have noticed, and they're not happy.
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[Maple Story VS Wind Slayer. Can you spot the difference?]
Having played both Maple Story and Wind Slayer myself, I can say that I totally and 100% agree with the people on this one, if there ever was a clone of a video game, Wind Slayer is it. Yes, there have been many before it (Shaiya VS Lineage 2 comes to mind) and yes, there will be many more. But how do we stop it? How do we give the original creators of these games the justice they deserve, and how do we weed out these 'clones' once and for all? It's simply really, we stop playing.
As much as we would like to blame the developers for causing these issues, where is it going to get us in the end? Nowhere, and fast. The developers of companies such as this aren't listening to our concerns, any company that condones cloning of this magnitude to begin with can't be very good listeners. They care if we play it, and if we pay for it. Therefore, it only makes sense that if we stop playing these games, they'll have to stop making them.
I know that Wind Slayer added features that Maple Story didn't, and I know that there will be many people standing on the other side of the fence saying "They may look the same, but X did this better than Y and blah blah blah" but at the end of the day, a few extra features shouldn't be enough to make an entire new game. A slightly different story and a new map is not another game, it's another skin on the same skeleton and quite frankly, it's boring, and I'm tired of it.
To clarify, I'm not having a go at games that are similar in genre. Yes, any good RTS is going to be in a 'birds eye' perspective. Yes, there are probably more 2D side-scrollers in the world than any other type of game (SNES and Megadrive had a field day on these). I know this, and I don't have an issue with it. I do have an issue with games that take the top 5 components of a game and copy them all. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen, and the Maple Story VS Wind Slayer is a perfect example. Still don't believe me? Let's take a closer look.
- Graphic Style
Quite obviously the most noticeable similarity between the two, the Graphic Style of both of these games is undeniably similar in almost every way, from the Character and Monster models and static 2D backgrounds to the colourful visuals and overall childish flavour. As mentioned above, this isn't fair grounds for cloning, at the very most it over-appreciation, something I have no quarrel with. It's when combined with the features below that creates the problem.
- Gameplay
From start to finish these two games play out so close that strip them back to the core and you are playing the same thing. Not unlike many other games in the side-scrolling genre, at core level they are all very similar, but there two cross the line. Your doing the same damn thing the entire time, and this shows a lot more below.
- Levelling and Class System
Killing things. That's what you do in both of these games, you kill things, and by doing so you get stronger. Again (and I'm starting to sound repetitive now) you do this in nearly every game in existence. But there is usually a different style to it, unlike here. Until level 10 in both games, you hit things until they die with either a strong attack, or a normal one. Then at level 10 you complete an annoying 'fed ex' collecting quest and pick from one of 5-10 generic classes that you already know everything about from every other game in the genre.
- Quest Style
Same quests here. Collect this, take it here, do it again until your brain stops sending impulses and fall off your chair. Not a bad quest style, that's not what were here to discuss, but it's the exact same between both games, except of course that in Wind Slayer one of the main quest giver's name is 'Gangdalf' (except of course in one of the quests, when it's actually 'Gandalf') Naw, these guys don't condone copying at all!
- Controls
Finally, the control system, exactly the same as each other once again. I honestly can't remember if you can change the arrow keys from being movement in Maple Story, but you definitely can't in Wind Slayer and I wouldn't be surprised if even this small detail was exactly the same too.
Okay, so if 2 separate games have 2-4 of these things exactly the same, I'm probably not going to kick up a stink. I won't be playing both of them on any regular basis, but I won't be writing an article about them either. But when all 5 (and no doubt more that I haven't mentioned) are so close you need a doctorate in gaming to tell them apart, then I have a problem, because at the end of the day, I wouldn't like it being done to my work either.
What about you? Have you noticed a game that copied another and been upset by it? Have you played a new game with that eerie feeling that 'you've been here before?' Then post below your experience and rally the troops! Let's take a stand against cloning once and for all, and stomp it out of this industry.
