My concern here is that public response and success from this game will set a precedent for companies to follow. As of yet most companies have chosen not to circumvent working with designers and copy their games based on legal allowances. This could be because they want to do the right thing or they are afraid of public outrage. We’ve seen investment companies buy major publishers and take drastic measures to “streamline” cost by doing things like firing internal design teams already. If a huge company like Asmodee, sees this game become successful and the bad publicity doesn’t outweigh the reward. Why wouldn’t they just start copying every well received game without the means for mass production or a sleek marketing campaign?
I think that he has reached out and then used it anyway is unforgivable. Super poor form and is not only a terrible blight on his integrity, but sets a dangerous example for others to follow. It reminds me of the way David Sirlin used the entire core of En Garde for Flash Duel but didn’t originally acknowledge as you mention.
To me this one raised a completely different question as for me these are easily different enough esp when I compare it to other examples, but a key reason for me feeling that is that the essential experience of the game has been changed up a lot by the collisions and the component design (two space cars) and importantly that I think they’re just as important to the essential experience as the movement rules. On the thread i found myself pondering how reductive we can potentially get talking about game design as an isolated thing from development or somehow being about specific mechanics that almost certainly exist somewhere else too if you look hard enough - the true game is the whole game not specific parts. There are lots of other examples of games heavily inspired by others where the essential experience is also pretty much the same but with just a slight twist and iteration and in that space this seems a much bigger shift. For me that’s the test - if you change the essential experience of playing then it’s a different game.
I think there is 1 big piece of information that is missing. If he gives "credit to the designer" ONLY when there's a deal in place (so he would have to). Because under those circumstances "I always give credit when I'm contractually obligated to" reads a lot different at that point. If he's done it every time outside of that then I would be VERY hard pressed to think he had nefarious designs this time. Although I will agree that it's a bad look, and bad for the hobby either way
I absolutely disagree with the "it's a bad look" point. If i talk to a designer of a racing game about a possible collaboration should that preclude me from ever releasing my own racing game? Surely not? If talking to another designer means getting accused of theft if any of your games resemble one of theirs, that would mean it's incredibly risky to collaborate and everyone should strive to be a lone genius. That's not how games are made. Anyone who agrees that the two games are different enough to not be mere copies of each other should not have any problems with this situation. I think it's ridiculous that a game that you would be perfectly fine with if it's inspired by another game suddenly becomes problematic because the two designers talked about collaborating before.
I think if you talk to someone about using their game design and then stop, you now have a choice..ensure that whatever game you come up with looks noticeably different, or risk the public backlash. I don't think it would have taken a lot to step this back from being the exact same movement mechanism after trying to work with him on that exact game design.
@@BoardGameCoYou cant just hold someone hostage from improving on your game. Study both sides of IP law and you may come to a different conclusion. I could easily throw out there that it is a very bad look for a game reviewer to weigh in on this drama without having actually played both games.
@@grassCrow You absolutely can throw that out there. And as with most things in life, if your viewpoint has merit, than enough people will agree with you. As someone who has chosen to live a good portion of my life on the internet, I've learnt that I should always ignore the voices that are the exceptions, but when 10-20% of my audience feels differently than me...that's usually a good starting point for some introspection just in case. It doesn't mean people are right, but it's a good starting point towards that double check.
@ its not my goal to be popular. I think you made a grave mistake and are swaying people to wrongly hate on the developer . I like your channel otherwise.
I tend to think Duncan wanted to work with Corne based on Duncan's track record at Osprey, but the publisher he works for now decided against it. He just didn't want to lose his job.
Can the innovation be an original theme inspired by past mechanics? You could argue the innovation is introducing a new play style to a new audience (which can be good for the hobby).
This conversation comes up frequently in the table top rpg space. Could Wizards of the Coast kill the Dungeon and Dragons open game license and could a publisher just release the rules for D&D under a different name and terms for things (ie. Wizards and Wyverns) and avoid litigation? Generally the answer was "yes" you could. These conversations was usually about the little guy punching up at the corporation. But this can go both ways. The other side of the coin. There are beloved games that are out of print and don't get remade with a reskinning because the designer or publisher is sitting on it for whatever reason. Should a reskinned version of these games come to light? Even without the publishers or designers blessing?
WOC tried to kill the OGL. Legally they could not. However you would still have to watch straight coping from the rulebooks because that would be plagiarism. You would at minimum have to rewrite the same rules in different language.
Thank you for making this video! You are the first and hopefully not the last to cover this scandal. I agree with your presentation, but for a seasoned game developer to do such a gross mistake is hard to believe… and even harder to condone. So I will side with David and give Goliath a bit of a hard “bad look”.
The biggest problem to me is that it's such a lose-lose situation for us in the hobby. On 1 hand if everyone still supports the new game we've now established a precedent and what's to stop large publishers from doing this more often. On the flip side, if the outcry becomes enough to really effect sales and profitability going forward, have we now created a situation where anytime a moderately successful game is released that resembles in the smallest way someone else's work are we going to go through this all over again? And if that happens do we get less new games available to avoid the controversy? Neither of these outcomes are good if you just love and want to play games. 😢
I just received joyride and I didn't even know powerboats existed. And to be honest, I'm happy I found this video after receiving joyride. Now I don't have to have complex thoughts about buying (or not buying) joyride...
Maybe they were in talk so he could use the name and bring the game out as a 2.0 version, then it fell flat and decided to just go with his own in the end.
@ Just found some : WO1995019209A1 Game assembly for playing rummy or similar games Micha Hertzano EP1595582A1 Tiles for domino or Rummikub like games Mariana Hertzano Micha Hertzano US6805351B2 Lawsuit board game, Tina Rae Eskreis Nelson US9345949B2 Priority 2013-03-15 • Filing 2014-03-14 • Grant 2016-05-24 • Publication 2016-05-24 Ted Andre Lucquito Gerard Ted Trading card game and method of play
@@BoardGameCo You couldn't patent a game rule, but you could patent a specific method for mechanically implementing that rule if it was sufficiently novel.
The "MtG owns tapping" thing is a patent. The patent has expired now, so it doesn't apply, but even then (as mentioned in the video) designers worked around it by describing "exhausting" or "kneeling" the card instead. I don't think such alternate descriptions were ever tested in court, but it does support the idea that even if you DO patent a game idea that probably won't stop someone from making a game mechanic which is basically the same thing but very slightly tweaked.
Totally agree with your take. First of all since the contact was already there, that does not look good. Second: Powerboats wasnt very successful and I think that's the main difference to cases like Wizard or Dominion. I believe when you're heavily inspired by something very unknown and then making big money with it, the recognition shoud be much bigger. I wont jump into the discussion of 'copy or not' though, because solving that one could destroy parts of our cozy industry. But since it actually 'is' that friendly, i think Joyride took the wrong turn.
I agree that it wasn't a good look, but I do want to push back a little bit on the "Powerboats is super niche" aspect. Powerboats wasn't a super mega hit like Dominion, but it was a fairly successful game back in 2009. It got a couple awards, it got some buzz, I believe it sold out its original print run. All signs pointing to a successful game (not a mega hit, but a success). The Powerships kickstarter also hit its funding goals. If you read the BGG thread, there are a number of posters talking about how Powerboats was well known as one of the "less well-known racing games that lots of people still like."
I do think it's definitely less well known than most, but in a way that makes it feel worse for me. Being inspired by a massive hit that everyone knows about feels inevitable. Working with a designer of a relatively unknown title and then borrowing that later, feels a little worse.
I think this happens way more than we realize. Many games borrow heavily from other games. Tend has so many elements and nomenclature from StarDew Valley. Shackleton Base borrows heavily from Anachrony. But I agree that the attempted collaboration makes this seem more egregious.
I don't get how anyone can defend the Joyride publisher. The fact that it's no illegal doesn't make it ok. This is a blatant ripoff that makes me not want to get anything from this publisher now or in the future. It's just s shitty behaviour that should not be rewarded. And make no mistake, normalizing this will make this happen again and again.
Cant just hold someone hostage from improving on your game. Thats why there are safety rails on intellectual property laws. Otherwise improvements wont exist. This needs to be seen as a legal issue and not a moral one. People need to move on in life.
There’s thousands of games out there. They all take ideas from each other and apply it to their own game. Board or video game. They all pinch and take mechanisms. They reached out. It didn’t work out. No one knows what happened and it’s only gained a lot of attention because it’s been a super popular game. If you’re going onto BGG to review bomb a game that you don’t own or haven’t played because of this. You need a bit of outside time.
I think you’re saying it’s worse that he reached out to the designer first (opposed to just publishing their design)? Feels like it’s better to at least attempt to compensate the inspiring designer.
I think what he's saying is that by reaching out to the designer first, it's clear that his intent was to make this game. Then when that didn't work, they just made it anyways.
I personally choose not to buy joyride or any other game from this wanna be designer duncan and from the company he works for. That is what solves this problem. Save a buck and go out of business.
I think the thing I find most interesting, is the extreme certainty of both sides. Look at the comments here...half of them think it's crazy that there's even a conversation about whether any wrong was done and half think it's absolutely theft and a huge problem. I find it curious how polarizing and certain all sides are. Meanwhile I'm here taking a fairly middling stance of "not the best look but that's about it" and both sides are upset I'm not strongly on their side. It's almost as if this is a complicated subject without a clear and obvious answer.
@@BoardGameCo There is a clear answer ... study why IP law exists and you'll find it. The immorality of using someone else's idea does not exist outside of IP law, it is either legal or illegal. It malum prohibitive, not malum per se. Just because you're the first person to do something doesn't mean everyone afterwards has to pay you to do it also, that's absurd, and that person is a troll. IP law exists to promote incentive to create new things and has its limits. Outside of IP law its immoral to demand that someone can't do something simply because you did it first. That is called being a Troll.
You're right that it's not a good look but art/media/games steal from each other all the time and if the new iteration is better they usually get praised for it regardless. Don't see how this is any different. Think the "controversy" is overblown. Joyride is still a great game and this doesn't change that. Would've been waaay worse if Powerboats was still in development and then Joyride stole from it but it's been out since 2008.
The ironic thing is that Corne’s thread put Joyride on my radar and got me to buy it (before looking into the controversy) I don’t think I’d ever buy a game simply about powerboat racing, but - even if I did - it seems like there are no copies of Powerboats “competing” with Joyride on the market… Maybe a Rio Grande or AEG will take a chance on Corne with a small print run🤷♂️
My concern here is that public response and success from this game will set a precedent for companies to follow. As of yet most companies have chosen not to circumvent working with designers and copy their games based on legal allowances. This could be because they want to do the right thing or they are afraid of public outrage. We’ve seen investment companies buy major publishers and take drastic measures to “streamline” cost by doing things like firing internal design teams already. If a huge company like Asmodee, sees this game become successful and the bad publicity doesn’t outweigh the reward. Why wouldn’t they just start copying every well received game without the means for mass production or a sleek marketing campaign?
I think that he has reached out and then used it anyway is unforgivable. Super poor form and is not only a terrible blight on his integrity, but sets a dangerous example for others to follow.
It reminds me of the way David Sirlin used the entire core of En Garde for Flash Duel but didn’t originally acknowledge as you mention.
To me this one raised a completely different question as for me these are easily different enough esp when I compare it to other examples, but a key reason for me feeling that is that the essential experience of the game has been changed up a lot by the collisions and the component design (two space cars) and importantly that I think they’re just as important to the essential experience as the movement rules.
On the thread i found myself pondering how reductive we can potentially get talking about game design as an isolated thing from development or somehow being about specific mechanics that almost certainly exist somewhere else too if you look hard enough - the true game is the whole game not specific parts. There are lots of other examples of games heavily inspired by others where the essential experience is also pretty much the same but with just a slight twist and iteration and in that space this seems a much bigger shift. For me that’s the test - if you change the essential experience of playing then it’s a different game.
I think there is 1 big piece of information that is missing. If he gives "credit to the designer" ONLY when there's a deal in place (so he would have to). Because under those circumstances "I always give credit when I'm contractually obligated to" reads a lot different at that point. If he's done it every time outside of that then I would be VERY hard pressed to think he had nefarious designs this time. Although I will agree that it's a bad look, and bad for the hobby either way
As always - Humans will copy each other more explicitly and directly than AI ever will.
I absolutely disagree with the "it's a bad look" point. If i talk to a designer of a racing game about a possible collaboration should that preclude me from ever releasing my own racing game? Surely not? If talking to another designer means getting accused of theft if any of your games resemble one of theirs, that would mean it's incredibly risky to collaborate and everyone should strive to be a lone genius. That's not how games are made.
Anyone who agrees that the two games are different enough to not be mere copies of each other should not have any problems with this situation. I think it's ridiculous that a game that you would be perfectly fine with if it's inspired by another game suddenly becomes problematic because the two designers talked about collaborating before.
I think if you talk to someone about using their game design and then stop, you now have a choice..ensure that whatever game you come up with looks noticeably different, or risk the public backlash.
I don't think it would have taken a lot to step this back from being the exact same movement mechanism after trying to work with him on that exact game design.
@@BoardGameCoYou cant just hold someone hostage from improving on your game. Study both sides of IP law and you may come to a different conclusion. I could easily throw out there that it is a very bad look for a game reviewer to weigh in on this drama without having actually played both games.
@@grassCrow You absolutely can throw that out there. And as with most things in life, if your viewpoint has merit, than enough people will agree with you.
As someone who has chosen to live a good portion of my life on the internet, I've learnt that I should always ignore the voices that are the exceptions, but when 10-20% of my audience feels differently than me...that's usually a good starting point for some introspection just in case. It doesn't mean people are right, but it's a good starting point towards that double check.
@ its not my goal to be popular. I think you made a grave mistake and are swaying people to wrongly hate on the developer . I like your channel otherwise.
I tend to think Duncan wanted to work with Corne based on Duncan's track record at Osprey, but the publisher he works for now decided against it. He just didn't want to lose his job.
Thank you provided a thoughtful opinion into the discussion that allows room for grace on both sides.
Thank you for covering this!
Absolutely 🙂
Can the innovation be an original theme inspired by past mechanics? You could argue the innovation is introducing a new play style to a new audience (which can be good for the hobby).
This conversation comes up frequently in the table top rpg space. Could Wizards of the Coast kill the Dungeon and Dragons open game license and could a publisher just release the rules for D&D under a different name and terms for things (ie. Wizards and Wyverns) and avoid litigation? Generally the answer was "yes" you could. These conversations was usually about the little guy punching up at the corporation. But this can go both ways.
The other side of the coin. There are beloved games that are out of print and don't get remade with a reskinning because the designer or publisher is sitting on it for whatever reason. Should a reskinned version of these games come to light? Even without the publishers or designers blessing?
WOC tried to kill the OGL. Legally they could not.
However you would still have to watch straight coping from the rulebooks because that would be plagiarism. You would at minimum have to rewrite the same rules in different language.
Duncan is right. Corne does not legally “own” anything to be “stolen” here. You can’t steal something in the public domain.
Thank you for making this video! You are the first and hopefully not the last to cover this scandal. I agree with your presentation, but for a seasoned game developer to do such a gross mistake is hard to believe… and even harder to condone. So I will side with David and give Goliath a bit of a hard “bad look”.
The biggest problem to me is that it's such a lose-lose situation for us in the hobby. On 1 hand if everyone still supports the new game we've now established a precedent and what's to stop large publishers from doing this more often. On the flip side, if the outcry becomes enough to really effect sales and profitability going forward, have we now created a situation where anytime a moderately successful game is released that resembles in the smallest way someone else's work are we going to go through this all over again? And if that happens do we get less new games available to avoid the controversy? Neither of these outcomes are good if you just love and want to play games. 😢
I just received joyride and I didn't even know powerboats existed. And to be honest, I'm happy I found this video after receiving joyride. Now I don't have to have complex thoughts about buying (or not buying) joyride...
Maybe they were in talk so he could use the name and bring the game out as a 2.0 version, then it fell flat and decided to just go with his own in the end.
You can patent game mechanics but don’t think it ever happens due to costs.
I was under the impression you couldn't.
@ Just found some : WO1995019209A1 Game assembly for playing rummy or similar games Micha Hertzano
EP1595582A1 Tiles for domino or Rummikub like games Mariana Hertzano Micha Hertzano
US6805351B2 Lawsuit board game, Tina Rae Eskreis Nelson
US9345949B2 Priority 2013-03-15 • Filing 2014-03-14 • Grant 2016-05-24 • Publication 2016-05-24 Ted Andre Lucquito Gerard Ted Trading card game and method of play
@@BoardGameCo You couldn't patent a game rule, but you could patent a specific method for mechanically implementing that rule if it was sufficiently novel.
The "MtG owns tapping" thing is a patent. The patent has expired now, so it doesn't apply, but even then (as mentioned in the video) designers worked around it by describing "exhausting" or "kneeling" the card instead. I don't think such alternate descriptions were ever tested in court, but it does support the idea that even if you DO patent a game idea that probably won't stop someone from making a game mechanic which is basically the same thing but very slightly tweaked.
Totally agree with your take. First of all since the contact was already there, that does not look good. Second: Powerboats wasnt very successful and I think that's the main difference to cases like Wizard or Dominion. I believe when you're heavily inspired by something very unknown and then making big money with it, the recognition shoud be much bigger.
I wont jump into the discussion of 'copy or not' though, because solving that one could destroy parts of our cozy industry. But since it actually 'is' that friendly, i think Joyride took the wrong turn.
I agree that it wasn't a good look, but I do want to push back a little bit on the "Powerboats is super niche" aspect. Powerboats wasn't a super mega hit like Dominion, but it was a fairly successful game back in 2009. It got a couple awards, it got some buzz, I believe it sold out its original print run. All signs pointing to a successful game (not a mega hit, but a success). The Powerships kickstarter also hit its funding goals.
If you read the BGG thread, there are a number of posters talking about how Powerboats was well known as one of the "less well-known racing games that lots of people still like."
I do think it's definitely less well known than most, but in a way that makes it feel worse for me. Being inspired by a massive hit that everyone knows about feels inevitable. Working with a designer of a relatively unknown title and then borrowing that later, feels a little worse.
I think this happens way more than we realize. Many games borrow heavily from other games. Tend has so many elements and nomenclature from StarDew Valley. Shackleton Base borrows heavily from Anachrony. But I agree that the attempted collaboration makes this seem more egregious.
I don't get how anyone can defend the Joyride publisher. The fact that it's no illegal doesn't make it ok. This is a blatant ripoff that makes me not want to get anything from this publisher now or in the future. It's just s shitty behaviour that should not be rewarded. And make no mistake, normalizing this will make this happen again and again.
Where was the outrage when Star Wars The Deckbuilding Game straight out copied Star Realms?
Daily fix of what about Ian - check.
Cant just hold someone hostage from improving on your game. Thats why there are safety rails on intellectual property laws. Otherwise improvements wont exist. This needs to be seen as a legal issue and not a moral one. People need to move on in life.
There’s thousands of games out there. They all take ideas from each other and apply it to their own game.
Board or video game. They all pinch and take mechanisms.
They reached out. It didn’t work out. No one knows what happened and it’s only gained a lot of attention because it’s been a super popular game.
If you’re going onto BGG to review bomb a game that you don’t own or haven’t played because of this. You need a bit of outside time.
I think you’re saying it’s worse that he reached out to the designer first (opposed to just publishing their design)? Feels like it’s better to at least attempt to compensate the inspiring designer.
I think what he's saying is that by reaching out to the designer first, it's clear that his intent was to make this game. Then when that didn't work, they just made it anyways.
@@buddywahlquist2467 but it looks like it wasn’t - looks like originally they were just exploring relicsensing
Good thing that you cannot copy game mechanics. Otherwise so many great games would've never been published.
MTG is a good reference. There have been 100’s of TCGs and Richard Garfield only gets paid for M:TG
I personally choose not to buy joyride or any other game from this wanna be designer duncan and from the company he works for. That is what solves this problem. Save a buck and go out of business.
Trying to be a patent troll without even owning a patent and you act like he is a victim. Crazy world we live in.
I think the thing I find most interesting, is the extreme certainty of both sides. Look at the comments here...half of them think it's crazy that there's even a conversation about whether any wrong was done and half think it's absolutely theft and a huge problem.
I find it curious how polarizing and certain all sides are. Meanwhile I'm here taking a fairly middling stance of "not the best look but that's about it" and both sides are upset I'm not strongly on their side.
It's almost as if this is a complicated subject without a clear and obvious answer.
@@BoardGameCo There is a clear answer ... study why IP law exists and you'll find it. The immorality of using someone else's idea does not exist outside of IP law, it is either legal or illegal. It malum prohibitive, not malum per se. Just because you're the first person to do something doesn't mean everyone afterwards has to pay you to do it also, that's absurd, and that person is a troll. IP law exists to promote incentive to create new things and has its limits. Outside of IP law its immoral to demand that someone can't do something simply because you did it first. That is called being a Troll.
@@BoardGameCo Of course I for example don't agree with that. ;) But well-said!
Its the same game and he didn't give credit to the original designer. So he stole it.
You're right that it's not a good look but art/media/games steal from each other all the time and if the new iteration is better they usually get praised for it regardless. Don't see how this is any different. Think the "controversy" is overblown. Joyride is still a great game and this doesn't change that.
Would've been waaay worse if Powerboats was still in development and then Joyride stole from it but it's been out since 2008.
The ironic thing is that Corne’s thread put Joyride on my radar and got me to buy it (before looking into the controversy)
I don’t think I’d ever buy a game simply about powerboat racing, but - even if I did - it seems like there are no copies of Powerboats “competing” with Joyride on the market…
Maybe a Rio Grande or AEG will take a chance on Corne with a small print run🤷♂️
Yeah that thread definitely helped elevate both games this week.