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Two men representing indie games outfit Vlambeer have urged the industry to raise awareness on game cloning and its potentially harmful effect on livelihoods.
Rami Ismail (pictured, left) and Jan Willem Nijman (right), who both are widely believed to be victims of game cloning themselves, said the industry must not turn a blind eye to the practice.
“We got cloned [at Vlambeer],” Ismail told attendees at GDC.
“That kind of dropped us into a discussion about cloning, but we discovered that a discussion about cloning is kind of dead,” he added.
“Cloning hurts the industry and the discussion on clones has completely stalemated.”
His colleague Nijman warned that, if game plagiarism isn’t tackled, it will “lead to a loss of faith in the industry”.
Nijman said clones stagnate the industry by lowering expectations as similar game concepts are recycled.
“And clones damage people, not just studios,” he added. “A lot of great games designers get fucked over all the time.”
Ismail said the solution to plagiarism is to raise awareness.
The industry shouldn’t merely demonise cloning, he said, but make the practice irrelevant by helping the games market realise its damaging effects.
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