Tester: How is $feature supposed to work?
PM: How did $rival_company do it in their $rival_game? Check it there - that's how it's supposed to work.

...One of the greatest killers of any joy in gamedev is when you hear people want to blatantly rip off someone else's design.

It's OK to be inspired by something, but when you can't even be bothered to come up w/ your own ideas... That's just insulting.

Often a well made spin on a copied idea is the best.

I see it as the art of striking a balance between stealing a good idea and implementing it in a creative way.

This applies to so many games but also music and movies.

@Lensflare Completely agree. It's hard to come up w/ purely original ideas nowadays. Indeed, many great things have been created by taking one idea && then modifying it somehow.

Those instances are OK.

Sadly, there are times when people want to do a 'reskin' of sorts. No improvement, no revision, no spin. A direct 1:1 copy. That is just disgusting.

explains a lot why games are so boring now

management!

@jestdotty Fortunately it's !every game company that has this approach, but it happens.

Also, there's a lot of reimaginings, remakes, && remasters nowadays. Sadly many studios are scared to create something original, so they rely on reselling things that have already been made.

Good thing is that there are still good studios producing new, exciting games, so !all is lost.

@D-4got10-01 EA has perfected the art of reselling the same crap over and over. They even managed to make each version worse rather than better.