The recent growth of popularity in the casual games sphere has resulted in some strangenesses, like people who assume Snood is original, instead of a clone of Bust-A-Move/Puzzle Bobble (thus the GBA has versions of the game by multiple developers), and that Zuma predates PuzzLoop.

For a long time this market has flown low enough under the radar that there was little chance of a lawsuit, but those days are practically at an end. I, for one, do not mourn it.

To me, the PuzzLoop/Zuma example is the most mind boggling. It is casual game cloning at its worst and I wish it would get more press.

I agree on PuzzLoop. I can't believe that it's been more or less completely swept under the rug with nary a word said about it until Magnetica came out (and even then it was just in short little blurbs in reviews).

Really, I can't think of any casual games companies that are devoid of cloning the shit out of other games without dishing out any sort of credit to the originators. Popcap is just my favorite to rag on because of how they handled the Zuma situation.

Hell, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Candy Train is a blatant copy of Loco-Motion and I'm sure if anyone got bored enough they could find the "inspirations" for a number of their other titles.

My beef isn't so much that they're cloning (because a lot of the games ARE fun), it's just that no credit is ever given to the original creators. That's just dirty.

My favorite redicilous example along those lines was Bizarre Creations actually threatening people for cloning Geometry Wars.

Given that GW is itself nothing more than a clone of far earlier games like Black Widow, the whole thing just looked utterly foolish.

And I agree that people seem to suddenly forget the past when it comes to the casual games sphere. I've honestly been rather disappointed with some of the "independent gaming" type awards, because most of the time it seems like the main winners are just cheap clones of old arcade games, with some new gimmick tacked on.

It's mind boggling to me how these clones are actually popular. Sites like Retro Remakes are a complete travesty to anyone who designs games, for a hobby or otherwise. It seems that if you write a game with even an iota of original content, it gets totally ignored, while these crappy, unoriginal remakes are given so much attention. Don't these people have ANY original thoughts or ideas in their heads, or are they just catering to the morons who actually play these games, who think that they're actually good?

Originals should not EVER be tampered with to the extent that they're merely exact clones with prettier graphics, whether its art, music or games.

Another thing that really pisses me off are these articles that are nothing but rulesheets for how certain games are supposed to be designed. Blather like "Introduction to Doijun Shmups" are polarizing, pigeonholing crap composed to put every sort of shooter into some neat, easily-consumed little category or label. And forbid if anything should ever fall into the first category outlined in that dreck!!

It's really sad that gaming has become yet another watered-down, spoon-fed commodity, such as what movies have become.

There should be more scrutiny from publishers as to how much of the same games and concepts consumers are presented. It only clutters the store shelves and selection screens, making everything else harder to market. It's good to see MSN Games acknowledge that and encourage some originality.

How much of the same crap clones do we actually want? How much can the market handle? It only makes consumers weary of everything else. We get tired of the same thing shoved in our faces over and over. It's like the movie business thinking audiences want another Rob Schneider movie, or another masked serial-killer movie starring Denise Richards. It all gets old, it all becomes a laughable direct-to-the-bargain-bin joke.

I can't help but think there is some plump stogie-smoking CEO sitting behind a desk saying "Sell some puzzle game with 'da shiny jewels on the PPP, I mean 'da PSP? Yeah, that'll work".

It all so strange, yet awkward. The industry better start scrutinizing itself or it's going to crash head first into a brick wall. Meanwhile, original creative games get shelved.