"Plagiarism" and Video Games

Lethem's article about plagiarism and influence reminded me of things I have heard/read about video games. An interesting thing to note, however, is that you don't really hear about game developers going to court for copyright infringement.

Lethem mentions influence and how musicians are influenced by what they hear of other musicians and the like. Games are the same way. Take Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War for example. RE4 was released in earl '05 and Gears late '06. They both have a similar over-the-shoulder camera angle and invlove heavy use of weapons. They are quite different apart from some key genre elements. Gears designer Cliff Bleszinski stated once that the camera angle for Gears of War was inspired by RE4.

This is not uncommon in the game world. One game borrows a concept from another or games like Mario 64 completely revolutionize the entire industry (Mario 64 is said to be the basis for all 3d games that followed it's 1996 release). What one game does so-so, another will come along and do it better.

That being said, new innovations are always on the horizon in the game world. Be it Microsoft's Project Natal (controller-free motion control) or the upcoming Wii Vitality Sensor (worn on your finger, nobody knows what it does yet), technology is enabling us to play games in ways never before imagined. Should be interesting to see where we go from here...

~JV