Grid Wars author comments on clone's creation

"All in all, Incitti doesn't seem too bitter about being asked to remove the game, but he said he hopes other Geometry Wars clones get the same treatment from Bizarre."

That's not bitterness? Because it happened to him it should happen to everyone else?

The dude's got obvious programming talent but decided to COPY someone else's creativity. Makes no sense. It's parasitic and lame.

He doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. Darn right he pulled it down.

Bummer for dude - I hope he puts his efforts into creating something more UNIQUE next time.

"Started to morph..." is a nice way for for you to describe how he made it look EXACTLY like Geometry Wars.

"started to morph" my buttockses! Great pain was taken to copy the exact look of the game. The dude's a punk.

if it wasn't for this game being "pulled" from the internet i would've never heard of it.
let alone downloaded it and told all my 360less friends about it.

I don't think this guy is a "punk" at all. However, like others have said, I hope that he takes his obvious talent and starts to use it to develop brand new ideas. The gaming community would be better for it IMHO.

Looking down his other downloadables, it seems like he just rips off one game after another. I find it difficult to believe that it morphed from anything into a clone of Geometry Wars, except in the fact that the game engine itself would have started pretty rudimentary and gradually grown more like Geometry Wars (his target) as he went on.

"if it wasn't for this game being "pulled" from the internet i would've never heard of it.
let alone downloaded it and told all my 360less friends about it."

Grid wars is trash compared to the real deal. It's a slow, boring game.

Nice point, J.Goodwin - he has a history of knock-offs.

For all of you upset by 'Grid Wars' being pulled from his site, you can still get his rip-off of Robotron...

He makes "rip-offs". Big deal. Dont like them? Dont play them! Personally i think so called "rip-offs" plays to the same roll as knock off clothing and knock off foods, etc. If Knock offs are never made, the original has no reason to better itself. These "rip-offs" also serve as a breading ground for new and interesting gameplay mechanics that can be tried out....take Geometry wars! Its just a re-hash of space-duel (space duel had geometric objects that you shoot) and astroids. But it also brings a little more to the table.....I think this whole thing is a bit hypnocritical.

They need to make a movie about this.... hmmm.....

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h304/m1st3rid/GSNAKESONPLANE2.jpg

You're actually talking about Space Wars, which was a head to head spaceship combat game only. There were no enemies, and it didn't have bombs or even two stick control. That game was basically a direct rip of the PDP-1 Spacewar! which is considered one of the earliest video games (Microsoft actually decided that it was The First according to their GameFest presentation, and they remade it with "evolved" style graphics as a demo for the new XNA kit).

If you're going to point that one out, then you really need to condemn the entire industry for stealing the idea of people playing competitive games on computers beyond replications of traditional board games.

It's not hurting sales of Geometry Wars, people who play Grid Wars simply have no 360 to get Geometry Wars for.

Diluting the brand people.. Yes, his "clone" might not have been affecting sales directly, but it's still impacting the brand, which Bizarre owns and they can do with it what they want. Marketing and business go much deeper than just raw sales figures. This guy is an obvious rip off coder.. He doesn't have a leg to stand on at all, and he would be smart to be in full compliance. It's sad to see people that just want to rip off of others ideas exactly. I could see if he took it a step further, like 3D or something, but that was a clone, enough said..

Also, there are a lot of people saying that this game was for those that didn't have a 360.. So, it's okay to copy a game because someone doesn't have the console? Is it okay to copy all of Sony's Blu Ray discs to HD DVD so that people without BR's can watch them? I mean, it's not hurting the BR Movie's sales, because the people watching the HD DVD's don't have a BR Player, so they wouldn't have bought it anyway..

You've got to pay to play, or we might not have any original titles someday.. Support the artists and the talented coders that have done the original work..

I would understand if Grid Wars was competing in the same space as Geometry Wars. But as it stands Grid Wars is PC and Geometry Wars is XBOX.

If you don't want competitors then give them no reason to compete.

Don't go after a guy just because he filled the void that you left wide open.

Also, even if Bizarre was to make Geometry Wars avaliable for the PC they would make another retarded move and only make it for Windows, which would leave the door wide open for clones again! To which i say again.

If you don't want competitors then give them no reason to compete.

Bizarre should just Hulk the F*** up and say damn we missed the mark on this one, and let it go.

I forgot.. Geometry Wars is the "Killer App" for 360... I mean, isn't it the reason you guys bought your 360 too!?

Bizarre is actually just being totally greedy in this sense, there's no reason to go after small indy dev's who clone an idea. The problem is there idea is so damn easy to recreate that they are upset that someone will probably not only offer the exact same game (soon enough -- and for free), but it wouldnt even be hard for someone to improve upon it and have a game reknowned as being better than it.

Some of you guys are way to, frankly put mean. This person put alot of effort and time in to making a popular game a reality for those who dont want/cant afford an xbox360.

After all, isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery?

You know all arguements against cloning and copying and all that aside, let's look at the issue from another angle here.

Here's a talented guy who saw a popular game and created a game with similar style and mechanics on his own. Then, he made it available to everyone for free. Now the creators of geometry wars are complaining that's it's cutting into their profits and what not... but hey, this guy made a similar clone all by himself and didn't charge anyone to play it! Clones of various games have been made by individuals and companies throughout time (pong, space invaders, tetris, street fighter, etc). Usually, however, it's companies that are selling those games. This one was made by one guy and is free!

Do you know what that tells me? The game was easy to make and geomotry wars have clearly made a huge profit on it. Way back, capcom sued another fighting game company (think it was art of fighting) because a character's moves were similar to their own. Courts ruled against capcom, saying you couldn't copyright generic fighting motions. I think you could make a similar arguemtn in this case. How can you copyright generic moving and shooting objects? I agree with support the little guy... but this guy is even littler.

"The dude's got obvious programming talent but decided to COPY someone else's creativity. Makes no sense. It's parasitic and lame.

He doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. Darn right he pulled it down."

Sal, you're an idiot. First of all, geometry wars is a combonation of two old arcade games, not original (even if they added a lot to it.) Secondly, programming talent != creativity, and copying a game and giving it away for free != no creativity. Some things are fun to program. As a single coder, he wouldn't want to worry about graphics and assets in a game, so geometry wars is the perfect game to do, since all it's graphics are done in code, and look cool. Everybody does a tetris or pong clone, but that's not because they're uncreative, it's because sometimes its fun to just program and not have to think something up. From what he says, his project started off as a robotron code, just like geometry wars, but when it wasn't coming out for PC he switched gears and made a clone so that he (and others) could play it. Props to him.

You know, there's about 1,001 Tetris makers who would disagree that Mark Incitti has "no leg to stand on."

Since Grid Wars isn't a 100%-I-burned-a-CD copy of Geometry Wars, the issue of cloned gameplay is a patent matter, not a copyright one.

As for whether Mark Incitti should have made the game in the first place - the real question, why should Bizarre step in and cause trouble, interrupting what hobby programmers have done for years and years in peace, in order to protect its temporary source of income?

Are there any shady sites where one can still download the game?

"I would understand if Grid Wars was competing in the same space as Geometry Wars. But as it stands Grid Wars is PC and Geometry Wars is XBOX.

If you don't want competitors then give them no reason to compete."

Wrong. Thankfully you have nothing to do with legal process then... It's what's known as an _exclusive_ and it's part of what makes the experience unique to the 360... And that is not a good-enough reason to knock off a game EXACTLY for Windows. He should have changed it up, but instead, he made it look similar, play similar, and he named it 'Grid Wars,' a name that definitely alludes to 'Geometry Wars." Unethical, and the guy has a history of making knock-offs.

The fact that Grid Wars was free, or that Geometry Wars wasn't available for the PC is not the issue - the game was blatantly knocked off; that is the issue.

It's just business - Bizarre created something and has to protect their creation. Despite of how people attacking Bizarre on this topic act, Windows and the Internet are not 'owed to you.' Bizarre does not OWE you a windows version. It's their choice, not yours. Original creations are still protected, even if they are not on the PC platform. Making it a small, cool, free download doesn't make it original or excusable. Copyrights still apply - and perhaps Bizarre _is_ getting ready to drop Geometry Wars for the PC and wants to assert themselves against these knock-offs.

Saying 'damn we missed the mark, let it go" might be what YOU would do, but a company with money and IP at stake isn't going to.

I highly doubt that a PC based downloadable clone of Geo Wars has, in any significant way, cut into the profits of Bizarre. I mean, let's face it, the game is nowhere near as good as Geo Wars evolved. I'm something of an addict of the 360 version but I still enjoyed playing this clone, blatant and sub-par as it is yet, I doubt it would have stopped a purchase of the actual Geo Wars.

You know, I read the whole statement from Bizarre about clones, but I don't really buy it. This is a whole industry of clones and rip-offs! One company makes a 'Kart' racing game, and then we get one from lots of other companies with just different mascots. Or how about party games, or fighting games, or-you get the point.

As long as the guy didn't steal the code and the actual artwork, why the heck should he have to stop distributing the game? This kind of competition has been around for quite a long time in our industry and I actually think it's very healthy, especially to keep game prices down.

Bizarre needs to get their own hook...something that would compel a user to get their version rather than a copycat...rather than expecting that no one is going to flat-out copy their game design idea.

I actually can't believe Bizarre would waste time and money on something as trivial as this. This guy isn't profiting from this venture and couldn't possibly be taking people away from Geometry Wars. If anything it probably would be getting people excited about things Bizarre will be doing in the future. What a waste!

OK, let's stop all of this nonsense about Geometry Wars being 'simple shapes so you can't copyright it...'

It doesn't matter. If you look at Grid Wars, and it makes you think of Geometry Wars, well, buddy, that is a RIP OFF. If the audience thinks something is good based on the merits of a seperate original, that qualifies as a threat to the original. The matter is not how 'simple it was to create,' the matter is that SOMEONE ELSE already created it.

I posted this in the other Grid vs. Geometry topic a few hours ago, but I'm posting it here too so I don't have to rewrite it:

"It's like people see the word 'LAWSUIT' and they can't possibly comprehend that it may be justified.
If this beloved 'grid wars' is so special, tell me WHY it has to completely mimic the look of Geometry Wars? Why use the same colors and shapes? Why use the same gameplay?

Because the creator of Grid Wars wanted to rip-off Geometry Wars. He wanted a game that plays the same without a 360. If you play GridWars and you're able to get the same experience you would if you played Geometry Wars, then the creator of Grid Wars is taking the audience - after Bizzarre created the demand.

Bizzarre has to step in and do something because the law defines it as necessary: each time a company allows a rip-off or clone to happen, it sets a precedent for a future copy to happen. As in "Well, why are you suing us if you let that other company do it last year?" The court system needs to see active defense and protection of a copyright. If you ever pay attention to copyright lawsuits (and I see many of you never have or ever will) you would know that companies can lose their trademark by allowing a concept or brand-name to slip into common usage, thereby losing the ability to copyright it.

Plain and simple: if it reminds you of Geometry Wars, looks like Geometry Wars, but most importantly, if it nullifies the need for you to go buy Geometry Wars, it's a rip-off of Geometry Wars.

WHY does this make so many of you mad? It's a super-affordable game (around $5), one of the best games for the 360, and yet some of you feel like it's owed to you to be able to go play a rip-off. In my eyes, you don't deserve, or understand, quality."

I know some of you will take issue with my opinion - but I ask you - have you ever created something, then had it knocked-off? Getting ripped off sucks.

illtrooper, an exclusive holds no power over people not involved with it, trademark and copyright are separate issues and not synonyms of each other, when it comes to abstract things like gameplay we are talking about patent matters, not copyright, a rip-off is not by itself legally actionable, and for God's sake, stop pretending you know so much about law while insulting the so-called ignorance of the people around you.

Space Duel, Robotron.

Bizarre: Pot. Kettle. Black.

Every single previous post in this thread is moot. It's like saying Christina Aguilera is a clone of Britney Spears. True or not, it's completely irrelevant, for obvious reasons.

Hopefully, this doesn't impact the notion of "fan-made games". If I want to make a homebrew Mega Man game and let other people play it, is that me hurting Capcom's brand or helping it?

In this particular case, yes, the line is a bit fuzzier since the game looks and plays very similar to Geometry Wars. Maybe he should have just called it "Geometry Wars: Fan Edition".

Jeff - You don't have a leg to stand on, nor does the lame gamer to created this clone.

You keep saying that Geometry Wars ripped off Space Duel and Robotron, and yet they look and play dissimilarly. If you place all three games side by side each one looks different and they are not easily confused. However Grid Wars is a clone, you can barely even tell which is which.

Robotron:
http://babsika.cocolog-nifty.com/okiniiri/images/robotron.png

Space Duel:
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/screens/S/ySpace_Duel.png

Geometry Wars:
http://www.joystiq.com/media/2006/03/geometry_wars_snakespawn.jpg



I say sue the bastage for damages, that should teach him a lesson.

He wasn't inspired by Geometry Wars. He didn't even take the game mechanics and make it his own.

He took a game and made a carbon copy of it. The legal issue is, that from screenshots, you can't tell the two apart. Pretty much everything is exactly the same. He could have used different graphics and gotten away with it, but he was too lazy and uncreative that he can't even come up with any good ideas of his own.

We do not need anyone like this flooding the market with half-assed games.

Kinsman... Althought the PC is not a market for Geometry Wars, therefore 'not involved,' as you imply, this course of action from Bizarre leads one to think maybe, just maybe, they are thinking about entering the PC game market with Geometry Wars, thereby 'involving' the market the clones are in... Or maybe they are getting pressure from Microsoft who liked having the game exclusive to their 'closed system' 360/Live Arcade model.

True, while _gameplay_ in this case may be an 'abstraction,' based on games before it, the reality is that Mr. Incitti fucked up and made his game look exactly like the original game he was knocking off, thereby excusing himself from what you find defensible - his game is clearly modeled after Geometry Wars, both in play and look, making it 'actionable,' and I doubt he'd be able to convince anyone it was a parody.

Due to the reckless nature of the blogosphere, I got a little loose with the terms 'trademark' and 'copyright,' but yeah, I do know the difference.

And here is a shot of Grid Wars, looking identical to Geometry wars:
http://www.caiman.us/freepix/2317-2.jpg

People seem to have some sort of attitude that completely cloning a product is okay, just because it's software.

If someone started selling or giving away shirts that looked almost exactly like Ralph Lauren or Gucci products/designs with only the logo changed to be "Ralph Lawren" or "Guccii", would you also find that ethical? Perhaps some of those fine "Panasoanic" phones you see in retail shops. You can admit to being a cheap b*stard and that's why you got a knockoff...fine. However, there's no way you can argue that it's firmly on any sense of firm ethical grounds.

It's not like the guy took a gameplay element or even used a general art style as motivation. It's a complete clone with a name change. It does dilute a brand, especally sine the consumer could incorrectly associate or confuse the two products.

bah ,im sharing this PC game with everybody , screw Bizzare sons of bitches , anybody wants this game ill share it with all of you!

So looks like anything now on that uses vector style graphics and twin joystick control is infringing on Bizarre Creations intellectual property. Even though Grid Wars is pretty much a clone of Geometry Wars I think it is very hypocritical of Bizarre to take action because their game is very generic in the first place, it is a combination of many other shootemups. Maybe Williams should take action for Bizarre copying the controls from Robotron or maybe Vertrex should take action for the use of simple vector graphics. Some of you people should realise this issue isn't so black and white.

It's a clone of a clone, even if its almost 100% copied so who cares (seems like lot of you do :p). Im quite sure that geow isn't the first game where you fly in 2d space and shoot objects which sometimes break into smaller ones. geow team just copied some other game and changed the outlook a little bit. They're no better than Incitti. And by saying that i don't mean copying is not good. Im glad that they did geow and im glad that Incitti did gw.
Btw. i remember playing a game couple of years ago which was very much like geow. Maybe i'll dig it up and see how much alike they are.

#32,illtrooper:

When I say that exclusivity has no power over those not involved, I am not talking about markets - I am talking about individuals. If Geometry Wars was exclusive to XBox360, Mark Incitti had no part in the agreement between Microsoft and Bizarre, and is not bound by whatever two people agree to do for each other.

As for the look and feel of Grid Wards - Tetris is a game where the look and feel are cloned right alongside of the gameplay. Bizarre can copyright the *instancing* of their game concept, in "Geometry Wars" - they cannot copyright the concept of a 'geometry war game'. They can *patent* such a thing, but if they haven't, Mark is free to follow his muse.

Game cloning has a long, rich tradition.

Look at PuzzLoop, Zuma, Tumble Bugs, Magnetica -- all the same game, some different companies.
Look at Bust a Move and Snood.
Look at Bejeweled and Zookeeper.

If any of you trust wikipedia (I do): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clone_(computer_and_video_games)

Other notable game clones include Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Star Ocean. You may argue with me on those, citing that they don't mimic the exact look of their inspirations, but they clone the gameplay of their inspirations very closely.

I take issue with calling him parasitic, as he is obviously not making any money off of this. He's probably losing money (bandwidth costs). One could argue fame, but without much evidence for or against we can only speculuate (or ask the man).

All in all, he's done nothing that Squaresoft and Blizzard haven't done. Seems a little severe to me to be attacking him so.

If Bizarre didn't deal with this, it would give anyone wanting to make clones of their properties an implied license to do so. Instead Bizarre sent a message. Copying their property is not okay.

They're certainly not the first company to have an issue with intellectual property, but they're among the most recent.

Grid Wars is a rip-off of Geometry Wars, plain and simple. Geometry Wars did borrow elements from previous games, yes, but you'll notice that it combined those elements to create something new, and (judging from response to it) interesting.

If some programmer wants to copy other's games, that's fine, but when he freely distributes those copies, he is hurting somebody's ability to profit off their creation.

These are plain-spoken facts, aside from all the name-calling, console bashing, and sour grapes. If you want something, pay for it. Can't afford to? I'm sorry, but that's your problem. Don't try and make it mine.

#38
Does anyone else find it annoying when two sides are having a complex argument, and then someone comes in and just repeats a square-one position again?

Okay - about the "implied license": Read #28 - trademark and copyright are differing matters.
About copying property: Read #36.

About copying property:

BAH! Geometry Wars was a copy of "mono" to begin with....

Not only do Bizarre not deserve any respect for their actions, they deserve contempt. Perhaps they are just stooges for Microsoft, who didn't like it that people had options if they wanted to play a game like Geometry Wars. If Bizarre want to collude with them into trying to force people onto the xbox platform, that's their business, but it's also their problem since they have waived the moral right to prevent people developing similar games on a platform that they (Bizarre) have obviously actively refused to support (how difficult would it be to make a build for Windows?)

If people allow this to go without comment against Bizarre, we might as well go back and outlaw De-CSS for real, since the purpose of that was to allow DVD viewing on Linux. By the reasoning demonstrated in this case, Linux users should be forced to use Windows to play DVDs on their PC.

Also, for what it's worth, Geometry Wars is really not an original game. It's a good game, but it's really just a combination of Space Duel, Robotron and Defender - Anyone who says otherwise hasn't a clue. These games are classics, and the ingredients of a good game; There's nothing wrong in using them for gameplay elements. Bizarre are to be complimented on their implementation and creativity, but despised for their pettiness.

It was a friggin' freeware game. He didn't ask anyone to pay for it. He wasn't making money off of it, and he worked hard on it. I don't see a real problem with it.

For those who want the game, you can download it here! :)

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/grid/GridWars54.zip

I read through these comments and see that there are many who are virtually clueless about gaming history. Jeff Minter made shareware clones of Defender and Robotron (Attack of the Mutant Camels, and Llamatron) for various home PC platforms and went on to make an actual, IP owner endorsed version of Tempest.. Tempest:2000 for the Atari Jaguar.

I'm not saying Bizarre have no right to be irate with Mark Incitti, but there were better ways of handling this. He's obviously improved on Geometry Wars so why not recognize his talent and bring him on board to work on the next version (or PC version since the demand is obvious)?

This doesn't make me want to buy an xbox, that's for sure. If a retro-styled game that weighs in at under 6 megs is justification for shelling out almost $600 (and montly online fees) for a state-of-the-art console with DVD and superior graphics capabilities, I would suggest that the bigger and better console iterations (xbox360, nintendo wiii, and playstation 3) wear no clothes.

You guys think Bizzare could have handled this better? They were in talks with the guy for months, so I don't see that being possible. If he didn't copy the art, weapons, enemies, score system, aka everything and didn't give it an allusive name, this probably never would have happened. Bizzare has to protect this stuff or they loose some of their rights to it (legally).

You don't see mono getting any grief, do you?