Video game clone

A video game clone is a video game or game series which is very similar to or heavily inspired by a previous popular game or game series. Some video game genres are founded by such archetypal games that all subsequent similar games are thought of as derivatives.

The term is sometimes derogatory, implying a lack of originality, however clones can be anything from a pure "ripoff", to a legitimate derivative or improvement on the original or even a homage.

History

In the early video game industry, making a clone of a game was not illegal^{[citation needed]}, provided that no outright copyright violation or trademark infringement occurred. As the gaming market grew large developers gained the ability to sue the developers of clones which were too similar to originals. Look and feel lawsuits, such as the one Capcom filed against Data East over the game Fighter's History also began to be filed, however are not common due to the legal complexities involved. With the adoption of software patents in some countries, e.g. in the United States in the 1990s, clone games are at far greater legal risk.^{[citation needed]}

At times, games can be considered clones by the uninformed gamer if they resemble a modern popular game regardless of whether or not the game that has been "cloned" was completely original or not. An example of this is the way the majority of isometric RPG titles are considered clones of Blizzard's popular Diablo game, despite the fact that Diablo did not pioneer this style of gameplay and was in itself heavily influenced by Ultima VIII.^{[citation needed]}

Early arcade games such as Space Invaders have been cloned very widely especially in 1980s and still in early 1990s. Most clones have been published by freeware computer game designers, but there have also been many commercially released clone games. Freeware-released versions have often been almost exact copies of earlier games, with only some minor elements and possibly the game's title changed.

The Fedora operating system will not include any rhythm games (for example Frets on Fire and Stepmania) that may infringe on patents in Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution.

Many famous titles by Jeff Minter were clones of arcade games in which graphics were turned from the original robot/spaceship graphics to animal creatures.

Notable cloned games

• Famous early arcade games were cloned often, especially by freeware game designers
  • Gun Fight (clones include Outlaw, Boot Hill, and Sheriff)
  • Space Invaders (clones include Super Invader, Galaxian, Galaga, Phoenix, TI Invaders, and countless others)
  • Asteroids (clones include Stardust, Sinistar, Comet Busters!, and Minestorm, which was built into the Vectrex console)
  • Pac-Man (clones include Ms. Pac-Man, Munch Man (the most popular TI-99/4A game), and countless other clones)
  • Defender (clones include Star Ray, Attack of the Mutant Camels, and Datastorm)
  • Gravitar (clones include Thrust, Gravity Force, OIDS)
  • Missile Command (clones include Liberator, Bio-ship Paladin)
  • Qix (clones include Gals Panic, Xonix, JezzBall)
  • Tron (clones include Armagetron Advanced, GLtron)
• Commando (1985), a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up, produced many clones such as Ikari Warriors, Rambo II, Dogs of War, Leatherneck, Battle Isle.
• Arkanoid. The 1987 release of the computer conversion of this arcade game - which is itself a clone - triggered a flood of clones made for leading home computers of the day.
• Dungeon Master (1987) was an early first-person role-playing game (though early Ultima games contained similar dungeons). It was followed by many clones, though it took few years before the clones really start coming. Some of the clones took the game idea to a science fiction setting but most of them remained in fantasy world.
• Tetris has been ported to all but the most obscure platforms, often under different non-infringing names. See Tetris variants.
• Great Giana Sisters (1987), famous platform game for late 1980s home computers, was a Super Mario Bros clone to the extent that its publisher was threatened to be taken to court and the game was withdrawn from market.
• In the 1990s, first person shooters were called Doom-clones. Doom (1993) itself was the spiritual sequel to Wolfenstein 3D (1992), by the same designers.
• The success of the Grand Theft Auto series has led to many clones.
• Warcraft was originally a Dune II clone being an early game in the new real-time strategy genre.
• World of Warcraft has been cloned multiple times, commonly by companies that allow their games to be downloaded freely on the internet. Popular examples are Runes of Magic or Neo steam.
• Guitar Freaks has spawned a great number of clones: Guitar Hero, Frets On Fire, Freetar, Guitar Zero and Flash Hero are the more notable ones.
• Defense of the Ancients, a popular Warcraft III mod, has been cloned and emulated multiple times, leading to the genesis of the action real-time strategy genre.
• Minecraft, inspired by Dwarf Fortress and Infiniminer, has spawned a host of heavily-inspired titles based around the core mechanics of the game.
• Angry Birds, one of the best selling mobile games of all time, is a clone of Crush the Castle, which is also a clone.

See also

• Game engine recreation
• Video game remake
• Doom clone
• Grand Theft Auto clone
• List of Pac-Man clones
• Metroidvania
• Roguelike