{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/article-0-1B1A20EA000005DC-778_964x654-300x203.jpg","local":"\/data\/posts\/2014\/06\/d7b403c94a092f7d5e3bd6600847ebed.jpg"}],"author_link":"author\/strong99\/","author_name":"strong99","cat":"LD #29","categories":["LD #29","LD #30","MiniLD"],"comments":[],"epoch":1402879140,"event":"LD29","likes":8,"metadata":{"p_key":"81535","p_author":"strong99","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"290652","p_title":"Copycats and protecting against them","p_cat":"LD #29","p_event":"LD29","p_time":"1402879140","p_likes":"8","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1398384000","event_key":"22","event_name":"LD29"},"source_url":"2014\/06\/16\/copycats-and-protecting-against-them\/","text":"

It hurts to see that most lovely game ideas and even complete games get ripped, copied and being sold. It makes it impossible for those who had the idea to improve it beyond \u201cgood\u201d. So what would be the good kind of \u201cprotection\u201d against this?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s never impossible to copy or even recreate if they want to. (re-engineering get\u2019s easier by the day). The thing is, you shouldn\u2019t rely on the product you create. You should rely on your ideas. Rely on\u00a0the experience you design instead of the product itself. Keep developing,\u00a0keep ahead<\/span> of\u00a0your competition and copycats. Everything gets copied from\u00a0books, movies, games up to houses. Did you know they remodelled Paris and Venice in the USA and even bigger in China? It\u2019s a small sized mini-Paris city. Things get already\u00a0copied before they\u2019re a day old. Don\u2019t rely on your product, rely on your innovative ideas. Create your space, your slice of the world where people can sign up and enjoy your ideas (a brand so to say)\u00a0instead of a single product at a time. That\u2019s what Ludum Dare could\u00a0be, beyond the compo, it\u2019s own brand where people come to enjoy the fresh ideas of the community.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>

Image source<\/a>, daily motion, copy of Paris.<\/p><\/div>\n

That said, always keep an eye out for copycats. If you can take them down from stores, go ahead, but don\u2019t rely solely on your product that is always copyable.<\/p>\n

I regularly compete in the Ludum Dare competition and develop games for companies. I like using these kinds of competitions to get in touch\u00a0with\u00a0creative minds and recruit them. If they stop competing it would be a great loss. I designed\u00a0the online tool GameCreator <\/a>to easily create and share games or interactive presentations to wherever and whoever you want. It doesn\u2019t contain code in the old sense of the word. But the idea behind it is to easily mock up, extend, improve and share your ideas. Instead of developing a few weeks, mock it in a day, share,\u00a0improve and share again.\u00a0Since it\u2019s an online cloud service it\u2019s also a bit harder\u00a0to directly copy it from the web to an appstore without ripping almost the entire service and its build in protection. Instead they could set up a link and embed in an app\u2019s browser. Which you would always notice in the tool\u2019s analytics. But the game\u2019s source code would always be shareable for the competition.<\/p>\n

Feel free to contact me through twitter<\/a>, linkedin<\/a>\u00a0or otherwise.<\/p>\n

Tags: cloud<\/a>, copycats<\/a>, gamecreator<\/a>, islandworks<\/a>, Ludumdare<\/a>, rex van dorp<\/a>, stealing<\/a>, stolen<\/a>, strong99<\/a>, tool<\/a><\/p>","time":"June 16th, 2014 12:39 am","title":"Copycats and protecting against them","title_was_empty":false}