this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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Go go gadget strawman meme. Do you think the same about Hogwarts legacy too?
I pirated and completed Hogwart's Legacy because I fucking hated how little it respected player agency and I wanted to write about how fucking bad it was. (I pirated it because fuck JKs TERF ass)
It's a game that abso-fucking-lutely refuses to let you play it how you want it and instead endlessly railroads you into how the developers want you to play.
Early in the game is a great example, you're following the professor through the dark. Instead of something interesting or engaging, like dark hands grasping you and pulling you into the dark, or a Nier Automata-like hidden ending with instant credits, no...
A big blaring ALL CAPS RETURN TO PROFESSOR FIGG with a fucking countdown and when the countdown ends it just says "Game Over" with no real explanation of why not staying close to the professor mattered or failed the mission. No, no reason just DEVELOPER SAID DON'T DO THAT.
That whole fucking stupid shit game is on rails like that. I'm so glad Baldur's Gate 3 came out and showed people what a fucking game that lets you have agency and play how you want is like.
Using the same game mechanics as a billion dollar company = denying the existence of transgender people
People shitting on the game are so much more annoying than people praising it. Obviously it's not going to kill pokemon, no shit. It's still a fun game. The progression is solid, and its fun collecting cute creatures. The whole reason it blew up is because it was surprising that what was thought to be a meme game released with the amount of quality and depth it has.
It looks like a shit game but calling it plagiarism because they're both games about capturing monster seems a bit silly.
You don’t get it there can only ever be ONE game everything must be PERFECTLY ORIGINAL and TOTALLY UNIQUE we don’t NEED another game we already HAVE a game at home
Well it's also a little absurd because you can't actually copyright game mechanics. Throwing a ball to capture a creature would fall under "mechanics" I would assume.
You can copyright Pikachu and Ash Ketchum and Pokemon and the name Pokeball, but you can't actually copyright the game mechanic of using the ball to capture a mob.
Why is it absurd?
You think a movie should be able copyright plot elements?
It's absurd to call it plagiarism, because it's not a copyrightable thing. I was agreeing with you and extending the point.
The plagiarism part is about creature designes. They are very simillar to Pokemon at times, down to proportions being nearly identical:
https://twitter.com/covingtown/status/1749462735291859423
That isn't the most especially convincing thread to me (I'm not entirely sure I buy that those models being similar means anything, but will wait for more info before rushing to judgment), but more to the point it's so sad that after leveling these accusations, they have to go so far out of their way to tell people not to harass the artist. Like yikes, it's wild that people who don't like a game have to be convinced not to harass somebody instead of, you know, just.... not buying the game?
And? You realize how little that holds up in copyright court? Have you heard of aquaman and namor? Or Donald duck and daffy duck?
Why does this has to mean anything legally? I see an obvously traced asset, and what I get from that is that there was not a drop of passion put into the designs. It just adds to the feeling of this game being uninspired as fuck.
Whether it's legal or not has nothing to do with if it has a drop of passion.
Look dude, I don't get a rats ass about this game. It looks like a shit game. But it's not illegal to be a shitty game.
I just want to say that as somebody who never played Ark, the discourse on this game is infuriating. Game reviews suck now because they're all predicated on other games: "this game is like Blasphemy 2 meets Stardew Valley," well that's great unless you haven't played either Stardew or Blasphemy.
When did we forget that good journalism defines all terms before using them? When did we start accepting this lazy non-commentary?
To me, and anyone else who has never played Ark, all we know is that Palworld apparently isn't Pokemon-like but is some nebulous something else instead. It's so frustrating.
Did you know the dev is also a crypto shill?
I literally don't get what the fucking big deal about this game is.
I'm also not too impressed by its childish schlocky shock humor and implications of animal cruelty. Nope, animal cruelty is not fun or cute in a game, and glorifying it or acting like it's hilarious is just fucking gross.
It's not like there's an engaging story where you're role-playing a character, like say, Baldur's Gate 3.
No, it just encourages asshats to be terrible asshats.
Also, not only are the devs crypto shills, according to them, they don't actually know what the fuck they're doing and haven't used version control at all. I mean, props to them for making it this far without knowing what the fuck they're doing, but it doesn't inspire confidence about the future of the game if they're in the process of learning how to make it. Further, the whole bailing on their previous game before it was done (which now has MIXED overall reviews on Steam), I'm left to assume this is possibly a cash-grab.
I mean, this is supposedly an indie studio, but if they're so indie, where the fuck did all the money to make this shit come from, and I have a very hard time believing the assets are all made by one or two artists. It's a gargantuan effort, and it's pretty clear that while they've cribbed designs, they haven't straight copied them. They have just enough wiggle room to deny it.
Part of the reasons I have a hard time believing that about the art is because the art styles between Legend of Zelda (cough Craftopia) and Pokemon (cough Palworld) are wildly different, but somehow in both cases, they used deeply similar styles. It's just to clean of a quality rip-off to be from an actual "indie" company. I just don't buy it, something is fucking fishy, but I can't put my finger on it.
Finally, if the leaks from Sony's Insomniac Games are any indicator.... The entire video game industry is hanging on by mere threads and is about to fucking explode financially.
It's very interesting this rip-off company showed up right when the whole market is about to tumble. I wonder if they've got some serious money behind them hoping to swoop in and pick up the pieces of the broken industry? I don't know, I just know it all seems sketchy and I'm gonna wait quite a while before I consider giving that company any money.
Thank you for reading my rant. I know it is utterly inconsequential and meaningless but tbh I felt like plugging some better games to play
ive been eyeing cassette beasts lately and im happy to have learned of beastieball from you
I've played some of Cassette Beasts and I'm really enjoying it! It's Pokemon + Bravely Default with some cassette retro futurism thrown in.
"I hate this game it's plagiarism"
"Thanks for listening to my rant on plagiarism. Now that I've defined what plagiarism is, i really just wanted to plug games that by my own placed definitions plagiarized pokemon"
What's the LGBT thing?
Honestly I've watched some gameplay and it looks like a mix of pre-made and original assets which isn't ideal, and given the history of the dev team I'm not optimistic about it going much further, but what's there looks like fun, not good, but fun. And buggy, but so was the most recent Pokemon game.
The crypto shit gives me pause though, and if they're TERFs I'm definitely going to pass on it.
Honestly I recommend ARK survival instead since they made a very open effort to support LGBT people and it's basically the same game but superior in every way. Without the plagiarism and nastiness attached.
Others have compared it to Rust, but I haven't played rust myself so I can't make any statements on that
Plagiarism doesn't mean copyrighted. Plagiarism is a social and professional norm/ethic.
Also, as folks learned with the Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast/Dungeons & Dragons debacle, the whole ass thing is you can't copyright game mechanics. So those similarities (ie. catching mobs in balls) are open season.