Ripoff Games That Became More Famous Than The Original.

[RealRT]

while the 5th installment of GTA is the better selling game series, I think the Saint's Row games are a lot more fun.

Unfortunately, the thread title says "more famous", and GTA is clearly the winner there.

Back in the day, there was a game called Doom. It didn't have much plot, but the plot that did exist was about a teleportation experiment going wrong and a bunch of monsters invading. Then Half Life came along, took that exact same plot and ran with it. It doesn't play like Doom at all, but it definitely has the same plot.

Alright, alright, mine was personal but how about this: First-person maze wherein you can be killed by roaming baddies. You can find guns to defend yourself, the game stirred controversy for a bit but still sold like gangbusters and is a legacy title to this day...Sounds like Doom, right? Well, would there be a Doom if they didn't steal from Wolfenstein? Wolfenstein is great and all but isn't there a lot of hype for the next Doom whereas the last few Wolfenstein games were sleeper-hits/cult classics at best? Yeah, Doom 3 stumbled but where's the Brutal Wolfenstein mod that revitalized interest?

Doom didn't steal from Wolfenstein. You can't steal from your own work.

 

[Starbird]

- Prey was doing Portals...well, Portals quite a bit before Portal arrived.

Aside from the treatment of Portals in Prey being quite different from those in Portal, Narbacular Drop which Portal was based on was released five days after Prey was first announced to the public. It's unlikely the guys behind it who went on to make Portal with Valve were ripping off Prey when they did it.

The portals in Prey were the biggest bust ever! I was really excited but they were actually a bit rubbish, static warps between 2 points in effect. And they never finished the story line!

Really? I found it pretty complete. Really enjoyed that game for all it's flaws. Geez...some of the scenes in that were hard to watch

Spoiler

The whole bit where your girlfriend that you've been chasing the whole game is fused into that monster thing and you have to kill her...and your character's dialogue after.../mantears

.

I would have loved to see a sequel that fleshes out some of the weirder stuff, but overall definitely one of the gems of the Doom 3 era.

 

[Mutant1988]

Honestly, I fail to see how it matters who ripped of who, unless it's a direct blatant copyright infringing clone.

Only question that matter is - Is it good or not?

Because when you boil it down, pretty much everything is a refinement of past works and could be construed as a "copy". I'd rather call it evolution. Original ideas are rare. But if you do an old idea just right (Or a combination of ideas), then that's more than enough. You don't have to reinvent the wheel with every single game.

But my contribution would be Dark Watch. It's Halo. The controls, the physics, the drivable vehicles, the guns - All have an analogue in Halo.

Except everything takes place in a twisted western setting where you are a vampire fighting the living dead. Quite a fun game.

 

[Silence]

Warcraft and Starcraft. I think there is no denying. Close to ripoffs from Warhammer and Warhammer 40k (oh god I hope I got the number right). Even though I like the Blizzard Universes much more design-wise and have never played a Warhammer game, I believe the similarities are no coincidence. And the developers of Warcraft (1) wanted it to be a Warhammer game in the first place.

 

[laggyteabag]

2048. I was sat there played Threes and somebody looked over and said "Oh, that looks like 2048".

I would hate to be a mobile app developer. If your game ends up being super popular, you can be sure that everybody and their mother will start to make a blatant copy of it just to absorb the ad revenue off of the original's popularity.

 

[Stenalik]

Wasn't the American Super Mario Bros 2 a rip-off of Doki Doki Panic in Japan.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Wasn't the American Super Mario Bros 2 a rip-off of Doki Doki Panic in Japan.

No, Super Mario Bros 2 IS Doki Doki Panic. They just replaced the original sprites with Mario-themed ones.

 

[seris]

candy crush saga and its countless clones are just a rip off of bejeweled

 

[Irridium]

While it's not a "rip off" Persona has certainly gained far more fame then Shin Megami Tensei, the series it spun-off from.

 

[sageoftruth]

candy crush saga and its countless clones are just a rip off of bejeweled

Actually, more than anything else, Candy Crush ripped off Candy Swipe, not just by being the same type of game. The similarities are shocking. Here's a link.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2014/02/12/candy-swipe-dev-pens-furious-open-letter-to-candy-crush-makers/

 

[Fox12]

candy crush saga and its countless clones are just a rip off of bejeweled

And in turn, banner saga was a poor rip off of candy crush saga. So much so that it evidently caused confusion in the market place, and led to a lawsuit. I know I was tricked. I wanted to play a fantasy strategy game with Viking giants, but I accidentally bought banner saga instead.

 

[PinkiePyro]

I don't know ant game ones not already mentioned but I know a food one

Oreo's are actually a ripoff of hydrox cookies....

 

[remnant_phoenix]

"Ripoff" might go too far, but God of War became a lot more popular than Devil May Cry, and God of War had the same basic gameplay: third-person action combat with a fixed-camera relying on combos and quick reflexes in order to control the battlefield and dominate multiple foes.

Now, I do think that God of War (the first one by itself, that is) had a much better story than Devil May Cry, and yes, God of War had prettier graphics, but I think that it's absurd that people were talking about how God of War "redefined action games" when most everything that God of War did gameplay-wise, Devil May Cry did better four years prior. To boot, Devil May Cry 3 came out earlier the same year as God of War, and it has more depth and challenge in its gameplay than the entire God of War trilogy COMBINED.

GoW was DMC for the masses. It was easier to comprehend and easier to play but still a solid experience, so I don't begrudge it. Also, as a Greek dude, I enjoyed seeing my myths done justice. It was clearly made with enough love that it escapes the label "ripoff" and becomes more "inspired by" DMC, at least in my eyes.


All in all, unlike some of those other ripoffs, I believe GoW is worthy of a good portion of its praise. Even though it sorta stagnated. Let us not forget that DMC2 is also a thing. While DMC is much better, it's not perfect either.

Now Bayonetta, that, that's pretty much near perfect. Platinum games took the crown back. I can't remember a recent good GoW game.

I'd agree that "inspired by" is a fair label. And I actually dig God of War, and by that I mean the first game. After that? The gameplay may have stayed well-designed, but the story writing took a serious nosedive.

 

[Flammablezeus]

Minecraft. I wouldn't be surprised if most people haven't even heard of Infiniminer.

Thing is Notch used to post on TIGSource, and once showed off this little Java app which made a 3D world with cubes you could pick up and place about, players used it to make art and stuff and offer suggestions... in other words there was no crafting and real gameplay, so its hard to say it was a copy/clone of any game more like a game growing out of a funny app and just kept growing.

Except that when Notch first released footage of Minecraft he said "This is a very early test of an Infiniminer clone I'm working on. It will have more resource management and materials, if I ever get around to finishing it." So I think it's pretty easy to say it's a clone of Infiniminer. Sure, with its success it was later able to become much more engaging than being a simple clone, but that was just a result of the clone becoming more popular than the original (which is what this topic is about.)

 

[remnant_phoenix]

"Ripoff" might go too far, but God of War became a lot more popular than Devil May Cry, and God of War had the same basic gameplay: third-person action combat with a fixed-camera relying on combos and quick reflexes in order to control the battlefield and dominate multiple foes.

Now, I do think that God of War (the first one by itself, that is) had a much better story than Devil May Cry, and yes, God of War had prettier graphics, but I think that it's absurd that people were talking about how God of War "redefined action games" when most everything that God of War did gameplay-wise, Devil May Cry did better four years prior. To boot, Devil May Cry 3 came out earlier the same year as God of War, and it has more depth and challenge in its gameplay than the entire God of War trilogy COMBINED.

Maybe it became more popular at the time, but I think Devil May Cry has the same amount of clout among gamers as God of War does. Probably even moreso now, since GoW has kind of worn out its welcome. It certainly didn't take DMC's thunder.

In terms of fan response, I agree, but what really stands out to me was the critic response. God of War won GOTY from...either the GDC awards or the Interactive Acheivement Awards? (looks it up) It was the IAAs, and those are supposed to be the serious ones, the Oscars of video gaming. And yes, critics did, and some still do, say things like "God of War redefined action games," which is what I take exception to, especially as it pertains to this topic.

 

[aozgolo]

Final Fantasy was heavily inspired by Wizardry and Dragon Quest... so ya know... there's that.

 

[Scow2]

Warcraft and Starcraft. I think there is no denying. Close to ripoffs from Warhammer and Warhammer 40k (oh god I hope I got the number right). Even though I like the Blizzard Universes much more design-wise and have never played a Warhammer game, I believe the similarities are no coincidence. And the developers of Warcraft (1) wanted it to be a Warhammer game in the first place.

Warcraft may have been ripped off of Warhammer (According to the rumor), but Starcraft was NOT ripped off of Warhammer 40k.

The similarities are because they're both drawn from the same source material (Notably, Aliens and Starship Troopers, among many other similar sources)

 

[Starbird]

Warcraft and Starcraft. I think there is no denying. Close to ripoffs from Warhammer and Warhammer 40k (oh god I hope I got the number right). Even though I like the Blizzard Universes much more design-wise and have never played a Warhammer game, I believe the similarities are no coincidence. And the developers of Warcraft (1) wanted it to be a Warhammer game in the first place.

Warcraft may have been ripped off of Warhammer (According to the rumor), but Starcraft was NOT ripped off of Warhammer 40k.

The similarities are because they're both drawn from the same source material (Notably, Aliens and Starship Troopers, among many other similar sources)

To be brutally honest...the Zerg are very similar to the Tyranid both storywise and art wise and the Protoss have a *lot* of Eldar going for them. The terran space marines are very similar to the art for WH4K space marines.

Not that it's a bad thing.