Fortafy Games Accused Of Plagiarization.

Pigeon Pop sounds better which is why they probably went with it. They do offer unlockable characters, one is a chicken. So basically they copied an idea and ran with it. I think it's somewhat shady, but it's actually unique enough to not warrant this kind of attention in my opinion. If you play through it, the copied portion barely registers since it's such a small portion of the game.

 

I do agree with a lot of your point @Christoph. I think we all can agree it was bad taste. Some of this is open to interpretation of course. The original animation is pretty basic in design so I'm sure there would have been controversy regardless of what the actual creature was.

My perspective was not that it wasn't wrong, but that we should reflect on everything that could be considered plagiarizing and have a clear idea how to recognize it and not make a misdiagnosis.

I think the context of it being a game and the animations referred having little to do with the idea itself and more of an added cosmetic touch made it more acceptable in MY eyes.

 

At least their pigeons were more eye popping in graphic style than the original, even if they recycled the compositional structure and animation design. I would rather look at these pigeons than the originals. It was a model and improvement in that aspect at least. Still, not enough to get me to play it... @Christoph I will dance like the pigeons at the next dance I attend, though. People will create news stories about how I stole the dance from some instagram pigeon.

 

Look at Voodoo’s Sloper and Ketchapp’s Sky Ball, both just released, to see the game development world we’re living in right now.

 

Wonder who was the first to develop the game. According to AppAnnie, Sloper was released first time under Tristan Camus developer on Feb 05, 2018. And then transferred to Voodoo account.

 

"Leveraging on the popularity of a meme" since it's basically Trash Dove. But blue. I wonder if Syd has anything to say about it

 

Syd is cool with it. Already took a public stand.

 

about ketchapp and voodoo i am pretty sure they join forces somehow, they release same games all the time, without even time to copy
they usually released at the same time
About Fortafy guys everyone copy everyone, so i know artwork and design is has some legal copyright laws, but come on that belong to the past, now no one can use thiis animation or a pigeon, next step ppl will copyright thier green button which you tap "play"
It like in sport coaches are copy each other "plays" at basketball football etc
Well look even in the cinema movies copies each other all the time
Copyright laws belong to the past, if you do something make sure you can do it better and publish it better

 

The disney / star wars example doesnt really stick here as disney owns star wars lol. It does seem that there is a very fine line on whats ok and and whats not. This is obviously a direct copy of original designers work. It would be like if i created a game maker and everything LOOKS similar to BB just better. And i called it CreateBox. Someone tried to take what was hot and instead of making something unique they just revamped it. It would seem a lesson is learned here. If you are willing to steal...be prepared to face the heat. Although it cant be Fortafys fault. There isnt really a way for them to check before publishing. Maybe google dancing bird or something lol doubt it will turn up anything. My final verdict...not fortafys fault...its the devs. And if the dev is willing to copy others work...he then must be willing to accept the shame too.a simple contact to the original artist saying you will credit them for the original would have avoided all this.

 

I'm pretty sure they are not joining forces but rather are in a very huge battle on who releases a game first. The old times with 1 year waiting time to release a game with Ketchapp are over. Thanks god haha...

What you say about copyrights, I think you have a point here. I'm not a fan of it either. Actually I think it is a very bad element of our society that restricts everybody and protects (mostly) the big companies and the rich ones. It is as you say, a thing from the past and does not even take into account how the world functions. It's a power tool implemented by first world countries and profit making corporates manipulating our governments. Having said that, this doesn't take away of the importance of ethics in the way we work. I think respect is very important. I mean yes, we want to make money, yes we want to be the number one. But do we want to do this on cost of others? Do you want to be the successful rich guy who only has enemies? Most of the time, if you expand on a concept or model and improve, working together with the original artist is the best thing you can do because it will help you grow personally as well. Making friends, helping out each other and collaborating on projects will make you achieve a creativity and level of satisfaction beyond the economic success. This is what life is about. Not success just because. So in this sense, the developers have missed a big opportunity here as well which is kinda sad.

 

Well said @Christoph. It would have been more beneficial to make friends with the original creator. Hey, they could have used their platform to promote the game.

 

You can't copyright an idea, only the expression of the idea. So the original creator has expressed "dancing pigeons" in his way, and the question is if the new expression in the game is different enough.
My vote is yes.
If it's not, someone who invented a walk cycle should be very, very rich.

Mickey Mouse is a different beast, cause he is trademarked...

 

For anyone thinking or saying that this was the 'model and improve' formula, you are ABSOLUTELY wrong, and we are mainly talking about ethics here, very STUPID move from the H8games and a cheap copy-cat team member they have ( or had ) because I know from fact they have pretty good game designers, this was very, very stupid! I want to really emphasize that.

This also definitely shows how delicate it is for a Publisher to screw up for not doing a little research, as a boxer already said.

Think of it like if someone saw the Billy Jean or Beat It dance moves of MJ, got a different outfit, made a show imitating it but said it was its own, such a freaking champion isn't it? the source always pops up, and nowadays with social media these type of turds are screwed.

Also, we are NOT talking about animation per se, no one ''invented'' the walk cycle animation, that is just a representation and an artistic imitation of... our own walk! We are talking about a specific signature and moves an artist have with its animation and its character, all the ingredients and ideas he have planted into his brain, his creative efforts and all the time he had to put into making his own style, is what makes this a very bad, un-ethical move.

But hey, sure thing anyone can go on and steal whatever they want and be a cheap-ass turd if they don't know how to use their magnificent brain properly or doesn't value anyone else efforts, but in that case we would be talking about a bad theft, and those are pretty much human garbage.

 

Seems Fortnite isn't above this kind of behavior either. Probably a lawsuit here somewhere.

 

@brakewind723 I'll be honest man, these dance moves were actually originally created by ME and they have been stolen countless times. I lost the court case and I'm currently buried up to my eyeballs in legal fees, but my one saving grace is that I can still do these moves sooooo much better than anyone else.

 

Lol @ZackGriset Man I always knew you had a hidden talent somewhere. With these kinda moves you're probably drowning in hunnies

 

haha @brakewind723 I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

 

Haha!

There is as well a thing called 'homage'. It is french and it's a very cool thing to do (like french kissing?). But lets be clear as well, Pigeon Pop is not a homage. It's the center piece of the game. It relies on it, without it, the game wouldn't work, wouldn't be Pigeon Pop. What you show from Fortnite is a homage. The game has nothing to do with this dance move, they just pay tribute to it.

 

Wait now I'm a little confused again @Christoph . If we are referencing the exact animations that we all agree are stolen, those are not central parts of the game and are just dance moves as well. Only used on the menu and completion screen. If those animations were removed then could we agree Pigeon Pop can stand as its own property?

Fortnite charges people for most their dance and emote animations. Many that come from internet memes (Like Salt Bae) and dance choreography. Epic should be held accountable same as Fortafy if this is the case.

This is the "recognization" part I was talking about. I'm not claiming any of this is ethical at all fellas, but everyone should be held to the same standard if the cases are indistinguishable.


I know the consensus now probably is brakewind723 is advocating for art thieves....No, not at all actually.
This happened to me around 2 years ago by THE SAME GUYS:





The game to the left was a game I published waaaay earlier called Two Hard (some of you older members may remember), and the one on the right was Color Switches new game mode at the time. Same gameplay and ART. I'm sure some of you could imagine the immense anger I experienced
Edit: This was also right after I discontinued talking to one of the Fortafy dudes about a game I was pitching called Dodgey Dots. So they were well aware of who I was. Now maybe this could be the greatest coincidence of all time, but seeing this new claim, they might not be above stealing from smaller creators
I wanted to pursue legal action but I decided to drop it, out of respect for David (who I'm POSITIVE had no involvement with said game mode).

Fortafy is pretty notorious for this huh? Lol

I'm also realizing that my involvement in this thread has become bigger than I anticipated. I think it's healthy that users can have a peaceful back and forth to try to justify each other perspectives. I honestly appreciate the artists who have the passion and drive to fight for their work. The factors I lacked

 

Ok, I didn't know that they are making money out of the dance moves. But still it is not fundamental to the gameplay. Instead the dancing pigeon that eat at the same time IS the gameplay and is copied from Keke's essential work. For Kekes pigeons' this is as well a fundamental part of his work (at least as far as I understood). So the combination of dancing and eating is the core idea that they took to make a game out of it. Now again, I think more than one person can come up with this same idea, there is nothing wrong with it. But if you then copy as well the exact same animation it becomes evident that they clearly took his artwork and converted it into a game. And I can understand your point, there might be actually nothing wrong with it either. In fact, I think we all do it. So it's more the way they did it which was not correct. They easily could have done a dancing pigeon eating all that stuff if they would have taken a step back and made the design and animation their own and as said earlier, the correct thing to do would have been to contact the artist and build bridges instead of declaring war. I definitely don't like how the artist was turned down once he contacted Fortafy. But I guess we know only very little of how things proceeded so it's difficult to make a final opinion on that as well.