12 hours ago, grumpyOldDude said:

you are a lonewolf developer or at most a small team of 3 developers...Anyways this mega team wisely nicks your ideas...

I understand what you are saying, the way the world works this probably happen before.

However from my own experience the ideas where I just posted a incomplete idea, was always received with huge criticism and very little funding. Once the design is revealed the critique diminishes and funding improves.

If you had a idea so great, you could literally go to a bank and take a loan from the bank, knowing that you would earn it all back; then yes, fine keep that a secret.

The main thing for me is that telling me someone is going to steel my idea, is like telling me someone is going to draw the same image I will. It doesn't matter because I do not believe they will draw the exact same thing that I want to.

Yes but I don't care.

Me and another guy came up with modern survival games as a mod for Oblivion way back when. It rolled on up from there, great for them. We didn't do much of anything with it beyond that first half assed mod that, I can't even remember what we did with the mod itself. It's the work beyond that first idea that also counted here, the execution. Just look at Day Z King of the Hill, first modern battle royale multiplayer out there. But the devs didn't put in the work, didn't put in the thousand other ideas that really build upon the first to make it into something great.

So now it's PUBG and Fortnight that are the winners, because they did do that. Don't get me wrong, the first initial idea is important. A lot of people, especially people that "do the work" for a living, vastly underestimate how important that founding idea is. You can put all the hard work you want into an idea but if it's stupid at it's base it's going nowhere. But you also do have to put in the work to get something out. You need both, so even if someone "steals" your idea and succeeds it's not like they didn't do any work themselves.

So trust me when I say all your plans are going to look silly at some point. You're going to get partway into building the game and realize this thing isn't working, so you have to re-arrange this, and change that, and eventually it's a mess and you wonder how anyone ever ships a game at all. That's the work part. Just worry about getting over that part before worrying about how great your initial idea is.

Saying your idea was, or will be stolen borders on paranoia. Having said that, yes, my paranoid lizard brain has found strange resemblances in the published works of others. This, after publicly displaying a prototype, and even after making a direct pitch. I'm not naming names because really, it doesn't matter.

Now, how many ideas have you "stolen"? Did you steal the ideas of others, or did you merely take inspiration from them?

The first thing you (should) learn as a game designer is that ideas cannot be copyrighted, and your ideas will be stolen.

In the above-mentioned incidents, the original "idea" was riffed on, changed, and built upon. I see it as validating my ideas. Even if they weren't actually "stolen", it tells me that the idea I had was marketable.

The concept of our modern game jams comes from the old school jam sessions, where ideas evolved from one person to another. That's how I see it -- we're riffing off each other.

Just reveal what you're comfortable revealing. And after you release, you'll find that there are copycats and clones everywhere.

The thing about the kind of businesses who are likely to rip off ideas and have the resources to do it well, is that they're generally after a quick buck and don't want to take risks.

When a game is complete and gets popular, there's absolutely a risk it will be ripped off - but you can't do anything* to protect it, because they can just buy the game.  See for example KetchApp with games like Threes. 

Your ideas? They're risky and unproven. The same people mentioned above are extremely unlikely to risk their resources on it.

And then, ideas are a bit nebulous and non-concrete.  Give the same idea to five developers and you'll likely get five different games.

Take a read of Why You Should Share Your Game Designs by Daniel Cook.

* You can of course take legal action against rip offs if you have the resources to do so.

49 minutes ago, jbadams said:

The thing about the kind of businesses who are likely to rip off ideas and have the resources to do it well, is that they're generally after a quick buck and don't want to take risks.

When a game is complete and gets popular, there's absolutely a risk it will be ripped off - but you can't do anything* to protect it, because they can just buy the game.  See for example KetchApp with games like Threes. 

Your ideas? They're risky and unproven. The same people mentioned above are extremely unlikely to risk their resources on it.

 

And then, ideas are a bit nebulous and non-concrete.  Give the same idea to five developers and you'll likely get five different games.

 

Take a read of Why You Should Share Your Game Designs by Daniel Cook.

 

* You can of course take legal action against rip offs if you have the resources to do so.

100% agree! This is why I would rather focus on making the best game I can, and take advantage of all the feedback I can get.

I just personally prefer to keep it positive during development because making a game requires so much self discipline and motivation to push through, the last thing you need is toxicity regarding idea theft creeping around.

I've had a few software projects get copied. One of them was a game. I don't really care if someone makes a derivative work from something I made. I hope they do a good job. However, I don't like to lose business. There's really nothing you can do to prevent people from ripping you off with derivative works. I like to take a cue from the business concept of "moat building" though. Make your product so good that anyone who tries to copy you will do an inferior job. If its easy to copy and reproduce, people will do it. If its hard to match, the copy cat will have a steep mountain to climb before they catch up to you. The good thing is that as an original creator, you have an advantage over the copy cats. You have the advantage of time. The clock starts for them when you release your product to the market, but you've got all the time you want until you decide to release. So, make the best product you can before releasing. Consider trade marks and patents where applicable, then defend them.

Quote

Have you ever had your game idea stolen?

Have you ever stolen sand from a beach?

Game ideas are so abundant and completely useless too, they're not worth "stealing". I say useless because they've not been put to the test to see if they even work or not, and even if they have, someone still has to invest 2 years of their life to make it a reality.

No, and in fact I have had a game not stolen once.

When I was around 14 I called LEGO to tell them about my fantastic wonderful game that I had designed, only to be told, "Sorry we can't accept ideas from outside the company."

It sucks not having your ideas stolen.


L. Spiro

3 hours ago, L. Spiro said:

"Sorry we can't accept ideas from outside the company."

This is actually a very common policy in the industry.  A company might already be working on a similar idea, or might independently work on one in future; rather than risk being accused of "stealing" someone's submitted idea, it's simpler to have a policy that submitted ideas are discarded unread.  It also saves time dealing with the mountain of submissions popular developers would likely receive.

32 minutes ago, jbadams said:

It also saves time dealing with the mountain of submissions popular developers would likely receive.

The rule makes sense, you’re just underestimating how naive I was: I didn’t even call a developer, I just called the LEGO customer-support number listed on the box.


L. Spiro