Flappy Octopus, Flappy Jellfish, Flappy Whale, Flappy Fish, Flappy Wings

[Thrik]

To be fair, it's not just a case of art. The whole game was essentially a clone, right down to the exact mechanics. And what unique art it did have was virtually directly ripped from Mario. In a world where Zynga is criticised for cloning games like Tiny Tower and countless others, why is it OK for an individual to do it? I'm not even an indie game developer and it seems very unsavoury to me.
 

The fact that he put the game through Apple's approval process, monetised it, and probably made quite a nice sum out of it made his intentions quite clear IMO. Sure developers often create little experimental games that are hugely derivative, but they don't put them on the equivalent of a high street game store shelf. I've designed UIs that are essentially complete copies of existing ones just to learn how to build such a thing, but I wouldn't then go and pitch/sell it as a product. If nothing else, I'd feel like a dick.

 

It's a matter of opinion, but I don't see him taking the game down as evidence of him being some totally innocent guy who's been inappropriately bashed. I see him more like someone who took a chance by releasing a one-evening project to see how it went, (allegedly) used 'score enhancing' services to get some initial traffic to his game, and then once the heat got too intense decided to preserve his reputation by cutting loose and taking his earnings (probably at least $500,000).

 

Personally, I think that this whole story has exploded so much because it's an extreme example of where the 'clone development' culture of mobile games can lead, and people are expressing their disapproval of the process much like they did with Zynga a year ago. There's been a lot of concern and discussion for a few years now about what constitutes a true clone and where should the line be drawn. IMO, this is a clear example of overstepping the line.

 

But at the same time, that shouldn't be confused for saying that it's not OK to be heavily inspired by or pay tribute to games. Of course it's OK to build upon existing games, that's what the industry has been doing for 30+ years. This is where human discretion comes in, to define the difference between 'Doom vs Duke Nukem' and 'Tiny Tower vs Dream Heights'. One is an example of building upon an already great foundation to create something new and unique, whereas the other is a shameless move-for-move copy that simply switches a few things up and markets it better. I'm not a fan of the latter.

[Taylor]

I'm not really convinced it was a clone in the spirit of Zynga. It's similar to Piou Piou or Helicopter Game but it's not a reskin of those titles and it's certainly not in league with the 100% copies in the original post. Kind of worried we're going to get to the point where the whole genre is marked off-limits because Scramble on the Atari did it already.

 

His official reason for taking down the game was attention like this: https://twitter.com/EliLanger/timelines/432588181611892736

[Thrik]

It's probably worth highlighting (in case nobody's played them) that the traditional helicopter game is based around holding down the button to make the player vehicle go up, then when you release it drops. That was the only version of the concept I saw prior to Piou Piou, which introduced the idea of tapping instead. Flappy Birds takes that exact same mechanic, while also retaining Piou Piou's broad strokes in terms of art.

 

For me, Piou Piou is OK because despite being a clear derivative it introduced something new to the concept. Flappy Birds didn't introduce anything new at all that I've seen, in fact it implemented the concept worse than even the weakest of Flash versions I've seen over the years. Indeed, the only thing notable about Flappy Birds is the fact that its art is so blatantly straight from other games. When I kept seeing screenshots of it appearing on Facebook, I honestly thought that Nintendo must have released some mobile game.

 

It's only because of the game's success that we're discussing this at all, but my opinion would be the same even if Flappy Birds had never broken past the '10 downloads per week' threshold — it's just that if that were the case, nobody would ever have made this thread and I'd have never come across it. I'm just not into overly derivative works, especially when no effort is made to credit those the work was based upon.

[Rick_D]

I fucking hate this trend of the most popular games being so dumbed down that they boil down to just taping a screen on the right time to beat a high score.

 

These kind of games are very accessible to people who never played games, but to be honest they would be better off not playing games at all than playing crap like this. Example, I tried to download some cool games for my mom's tablet when I visited her last year but all I could find were those kind of games and to be honest she enjoyed the hell out of those. She and her husband were playing those games until 3 am every single day. I wish she would have the same interest and open-mindness to try simple DS games like Mario, Animal Crossing or anything else that's remotely mentally challenging, I dunno, maybe Sim City or even The Sims? But since those are on "game consoles" they automatically think it's a kids device and completely out of their reality. What good memories does one get from games like Angry Birds, Flappy whatever or fruit ninja? "Oh I remember that time when I beat my high score while I was masturbating" is the best one I could think of lol.

 

Just to make it clear, there's no problem with playing these games to relax a bit... I think the problem is when people (like my mother) only play those games and automatically shut their minds off to anything else.

 

 

maybe it's THESE games that are the pinnacle of art and all those other games (mario, zelda, animal crossing, half-life, cs, metroid, resident evil, duke nukem, street fighter, battlefield, call of duty, journey etc) are all wannabe art-shit games for losers who want to pretend that video games are actually worthy of anything other than taking a big shit right all over their pixelated faces?

[Rick_D]

It's probably worth highlighting (in case nobody's played them) that the traditional helicopter game is based around holding down the button to make the player vehicle go up, then when you release it drops. That was the only version of the concept I saw prior to Piou Piou, which introduced the idea of tapping instead. Flappy Birds takes that exact same mechanic, while also retaining Piou Piou's broad strokes in terms of art.

 

For me, Piou Piou is OK because despite being a clear derivative it introduced something new to the concept. Flappy Birds didn't introduce anything new at all that I've seen, in fact it implemented the concept worse than even the weakest of Flash versions I've seen over the years. Indeed, the only thing notable about Flappy Birds is the fact that its art is so blatantly straight from other games. When I kept seeing screenshots of it appearing on Facebook, I honestly thought that Nintendo must have released some mobile game.

 

It's only because of the game's success that we're discussing this at all, but my opinion would be the same even if Flappy Birds had never broken past the '10 downloads per week' threshold — it's just that if that were the case, nobody would ever have made this thread and I'd have never come across it. I'm just not into overly derivative works, especially when no effort is made to credit those the work was based upon.

 

you're part of the problem

 

a guy makes a shitty game by some things he's inspired by, doesn't want to charge for it because of what it is so he dumps in some ads (common practice) and sets it free, just another turd floating in the cesspool of the marketplace.

a year later, and no doubt $5 made on adverts, something happens purely by chance - and the game blows up. this is way more coverage than he was ever expecting. i mean it's just a game he threw together over a couple of evenings for fun, some simple addictive gameplay that draws inspiration from things he likes and enjoys.

 

now the hate train is at full steam because people are angry that THEY didn't get lucky, or that he was inspired by some other gameplay or art. sure it's derivative, purile, pointless, etc - but who cares? it's a flash in the pan, and if it pisses you off so much maybe you should either lighten the fuck up, or go and try and emulate his success - if it's as simple as copying other games then anyone can do it, right?

[Thrik]

 

It's probably worth highlighting (in case nobody's played them) that the traditional helicopter game is based around holding down the button to make the player vehicle go up, then when you release it drops. That was the only version of the concept I saw prior to Piou Piou, which introduced the idea of tapping instead. Flappy Birds takes that exact same mechanic, while also retaining Piou Piou's broad strokes in terms of art.

 

For me, Piou Piou is OK because despite being a clear derivative it introduced something new to the concept. Flappy Birds didn't introduce anything new at all that I've seen, in fact it implemented the concept worse than even the weakest of Flash versions I've seen over the years. Indeed, the only thing notable about Flappy Birds is the fact that its art is so blatantly straight from other games. When I kept seeing screenshots of it appearing on Facebook, I honestly thought that Nintendo must have released some mobile game.

 

It's only because of the game's success that we're discussing this at all, but my opinion would be the same even if Flappy Birds had never broken past the '10 downloads per week' threshold — it's just that if that were the case, nobody would ever have made this thread and I'd have never come across it. I'm just not into overly derivative works, especially when no effort is made to credit those the work was based upon.

 

you're part of the problem

 

a guy makes a shitty game by some things he's inspired by, doesn't want to charge for it because of what it is so he dumps in some ads (common practice) and sets it free, just another turd floating in the cesspool of the marketplace.

a year later, and no doubt $5 made on adverts, something happens purely by chance - and the game blows up. this is way more coverage than he was ever expecting. i mean it's just a game he threw together over a couple of evenings for fun, some simple addictive gameplay that draws inspiration from things he likes and enjoys.

 

now the hate train is at full steam because people are angry that THEY didn't get lucky, or that he was inspired by some other gameplay or art. sure it's derivative, purile, pointless, etc - but who cares? it's a flash in the pan, and if it pisses you off so much maybe you should either lighten the fuck up, or go and try and emulate his success - if it's as simple as copying other games then anyone can do it, right?

 

 

I can't speak for the rest of the internet but I'm not angry at all, as I said I'm no indie game developer. I'm just giving my opinion on the whole matter. This has been the talk of the game nerd internet for the past week so it's a great opportunity for some discussion of the whole cloning topic.

 

With that said, I don't know if it's some kind of underdog phenomenon but I'm finding it hard to see what you find so defensible about him. You're trying to make out he's some kind of poor mistreated developer when the reality is that he unashamedly cloned an existing game and — while this is impossible to prove, the evidence is almost indisputable — gamed the app store review system to get it to the top of the charts. This isn't some dude whose random project got lucky. It's a dude who somehow very cleverly manipulated the app store, which in all honesty he deserves credit but not admiration for.

 

Maybe that's the part that those of you defending him don't appreciate. You don't think this weak clone got to the top of the charts through luck and viral sharing alone, surely? As Rick rightly says, if it were that easy then there'd be countless such examples.

[Skjalg]

How exactly did he manipulate the app store?

Not that I want to do the same.. *cough*

[Thrik]

There was a pretty in-depth article I saw somewhere at home yesterday that looked through all the reviews, and there was a very sudden surge of reviews about a month ago that didn't seem to make much sense (negative reviews all giving five stars, lots of positive reviews all using the same terms but in different combinations/variations, etc). It was that precise combination of downloads and reviews that caused the avalanche effect leading to the game's genuine success later during the month.

 

Basically, it very much looked like the work of either bots or lots of people working somewhere like India to write loads of reviews. I suspect the latter, as we've actually had a lot of those posting spam on MapCore at times — because they're human they can circumvent absolutely any anti-spam protection. I know that viral things can grow all by themselves, but this didn't look remotely natural to me.

[Taylor]

I thought it was the Red Bull clone that was being accused of manipulating the app store?

[Thrik]

I don't know what the Red Bull clone is, but it was definitely Flappy Bird that I've seen being accused of it.

[Mazy]

And just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder...

 

http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/10/5397284/phones-installed-with-flappy-bird-selling-on-ebay-after-game-pulled

[Tisky]

http://www.dogetek.co/game/

Im not even mad.

[Minos]

 

I fucking hate this trend of the most popular games being so dumbed down that they boil down to just taping a screen on the right time to beat a high score.

 

These kind of games are very accessible to people who never played games, but to be honest they would be better off not playing games at all than playing crap like this. Example, I tried to download some cool games for my mom's tablet when I visited her last year but all I could find were those kind of games and to be honest she enjoyed the hell out of those. She and her husband were playing those games until 3 am every single day. I wish she would have the same interest and open-mindness to try simple DS games like Mario, Animal Crossing or anything else that's remotely mentally challenging, I dunno, maybe Sim City or even The Sims? But since those are on "game consoles" they automatically think it's a kids device and completely out of their reality. What good memories does one get from games like Angry Birds, Flappy whatever or fruit ninja? "Oh I remember that time when I beat my high score while I was masturbating" is the best one I could think of lol.

 

Just to make it clear, there's no problem with playing these games to relax a bit... I think the problem is when people (like my mother) only play those games and automatically shut their minds off to anything else.

 

 

maybe it's THESE games that are the pinnacle of art and all those other games (mario, zelda, animal crossing, half-life, cs, metroid, resident evil, duke nukem, street fighter, battlefield, call of duty, journey etc) are all wannabe art-shit games for losers who want to pretend that video games are actually worthy of anything other than taking a big shit right all over their pixelated faces?

 

 

No way lol.

 

Anyways, I'm not hating on FlappyBird (never played the game myself), I'm hating on the fact that a lot of people ONLY play these games. But then again, it's their free time and they do whatever the fuck they want with it

 

It's a shame the guy pulled the game though, he could have just changed the art assets quickly and sell the game to EA.

[KoKo5oVaR]

It's pretty much the fight between the dumb goliath and the virtuous david your doing guys. It's not arrogant at all to say that, but as big nerds we are already far advanced into playing videogames to have developed a (snobbish) complicated taste and not able to enjoy simple concepts anymore, we know the codes of what is a good game and what is not a good one (for us).

 

Flappy bird is the kind of things for people who like games but don't played many and who are far less exigent than we are and are of course far more numerous. And as such they are not driven by "game quality" or "pure good virtuous game art" (between quotation marks as this is completely arbitrary things) and not interested a single bit into the media other than getting quickly distracted.  There's nothing to be angry about.

 

You could very easily make the same analogy with "noble" and "working-class" movies. Or the same with literature (gamesofthrones/flaubert), music (daft punk/jean sébastien bach), painting(speed painters/manet) .. (where i'm not emitting a judgement of value, just presenting the oppositions)

 

Which means that videogames are doomed to become more and more an independent field with their codes for nobility and vulgar, classical, avant garde etc (that will be funny to see in 30 years).

 

I'm pretty sure there's people absolutely pissed off in the movie scene to have to work on robocop 3 when they could be doing "pure art" abstract conceptual short movies or the like.

 

Because in fine, I would not be pissed off because these games exist, i would be pissed off because they make money, and because of that if i want to find a job, i would have to work on them (and it's not what i like). So i kinda agree with the hate for that reason .

But still if you enjoy doing "good videogames" as you like them to be. You have to go into a niche market out of the worldwide domination point of view.

[blackdog]

Speaking of clones of clones of clones

http://hellogiggles.com/farewell-flappy-bird-5-games-to-play-instead

Flappy Doge ftw xD

To be clear i didn't hate on the guy. Just found it depressing that so much money can be made with something so simple and uncreative while talented guys/teams barely scrape by or break even.

Do you use Post-it?