Some say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.
Who am I kidding? If you think you just had one of your more original ideas hijacked by somebody making millions...you might be a little bit miffed.
So, what could I possibly be talking about? Today, I am just sharing a little of a perceived bit of idea stealing. Now, I want to start by stating that I know people often have similar ideas without ever having been exposed to the other.
For instance, I doubt I came up with the idea of some people being immune to the bite. I do know I had not read anything of that nature before I wrote Zomblog and DEAD series. I have seen it pop a few times in recent history, and have been told it is part of that Sy-Fy channel zombie series. It's cool. Hey, aren't we all sort of building off the Romero legacy? I can deal with that sort of thing. Granted, I have been told by MANY others that there seems to be a bit more idea borrowing in that Sy-Fy channel show of my Zomblog series to the point where my daughter says she refuses to watch it. Personally, I have not watched, so I can't comment either way. Maybe I will give it a spin someday and see for myself.
There is an actual dialog scene from another game called State of decay that basically steals part of the narrative from an early scene by Steve in DEAD: The Ugly Beginning. I even replayed it a few times. Is it exact? No, but it is close enough to really be suspicious. They just sort of re-word the following passage:
It may seem corny, but
no one I’ve met since it began can give me a solid answer as to how it all
rolled into motion. Sure, there are theories: Government Bio-weapon gone awry;
Super-virus; alien particles from space; demons from Hell; and global warming.
Each gets equal billing when you hear the topic come up. Maybe it’s a mix of
all of the above. Or, maybe God got tired of us messing up his toy. And if you
don’t believe in God…well then you can refer back to the list and pick your
favorite. Honestly, I don’t give a damn. I’m too tired from running. How I
ended up leading a band of survivors in this Romero-Hell is my new reality. The
time for blame has long passed.
Hell, maybe I am just being delusional.
However, the other day, I was playing this epic zombie game on my XBox One called Dying Light. It has an amazing story and is everything that DEAD ISLAND wanted to be, but just could not pull off. So, I was really floored when I was moving around the town and came upon the sound of a baby crying!
Any of you who have read my stuff know what i am talking about. And I can VERY safely say that I have never encountered anything like that before. Now, again, maybe I am just tripping, but I invite you to check out the video. You get a hint of it right around the 5:42 mark, and a much better hit at 7:44. Not only that, but I also introduced the idea of my child zombies being just a little different.
Now, do they use my idea in its exact nature? No, but still...
So, am I delusional? Or should I be flattered?...Annoyed? What do you think?
be flattered - doubt there is much you can do without sounding petty!
ReplyDeleteAgreed. There is a lot of genre borrowing that happens with games especially. This game dips its toes in several games that have come before and makes it better. It was just really odd to be moving around and hear the sound of a baby cry when I was playing. Actually kind of cool and creepy. So I got to experience what my readers have felt all this time.
DeleteI have always thought that a good story is in the telling. If someone likes your work enough to mimic it, that's a reason to feel flattered. If they take the language, the tone, the plot, and use it wholesale, that's more of a reason to be a bit angry.
ReplyDeleteBut... I think that someone could take your ideas and totally re-write your books using the same character names and storyline, and it still wouldn't come close to the original. The story is in the telling...
I agree with you on all fronts. And I also appreciate the compliment A LOT.
DeleteI haven't played Dying Light yet, so I'm just going off the video (and what I've read in reviews about the game). The baby cry at least came from what looked to be a child zombie, which was a surprise at that point of the video and freaked me out enough. If it had ended up coming from an adult zombie, that would've been blatant copying.
ReplyDeleteVix and Gregory already covered most of my other thoughts on the matter. I think a game set in the Dead universe would be really cool. So many possibilities!
It's funny that you mention Dead Island, because Dying Light and it are made by the same developer, Techland. I guess they did a better job on the second try! :-D Techland's main development office is in my wife's hometown of Wroclaw, Poland. I wish I'd known that the last time we visited her parents. I would've tried to find a way to visit them! :-D
I guess I never pay attention to developers in games. I just pay attention if I like the game. I think Dying Light is amazeballs. It gave me a few jumps. And I think everybody here has said what amounts to a very comprehensive commentary on the subject.
DeleteAs for a game in the DEAD universe...I would sell in a heartbeat!
I think you'll like this video. The Techland folks have a great sense of humor: https://youtu.be/3lHjdxSxJeY
ReplyDeleteI love the guys at Techland. I think Dying Light might be the most enjoyable game I have played in the Z genre.
DeleteWhen I started writing my series, I had an avid zombie lover / doomsday prepper that I would bounce ideas off of to make sure I stayed in the realm of relative realism. When I asked him how he would deck out at fire truck, he told me it was already used in that syfy series you mentioned earlier (I actually watched a couple episodes afterwards but couldn't remember the name for the life of me). I was originally going to take the truck out after he told me, then a week later, The Walking Dead had a fire truck. After that, I decided the hell with it. It was my original idea even if others had the same vision. I was also irritated to see that syfy show had someone immune to the virus, which is the basis of my main character. There was no way in hell I was going to change my whole story because of that, though.
ReplyDeleteIn the end I decided that if someone was going to say I stole an idea from them, there is nothing I can do but deny it. Of course, I can show records that have my original drafts dated from before that show came out, but why even bother. Besides, my protagonist is nothing like that one. He cannot walk freely among the dead nor does he have the urge to eat other living people lol.
That being said, the baby cry is suspicious (and one of the creepy things I love about the Dead series), along with Steve's opening. But with so many zombie stories out there, it's hard not to have things overlap.
I would check out Steve's statement. There are laws that say up to ten words can be used (I believe, though I am not a lawyer), but after that, it can be considered copyright infringement.
I think it is kinda cool in many ways to see "my" ideas pop up in other mediums. Like I said in the article, I am simply attached to the coat tails of George Romero, but I do not make any bones about admitting it.
DeleteAlso, there is really no way to pinpoint the origin of an idea. With the millions of variables out there, other people are going to have the same basic ideas, the end results and execution is where they will differ.
Everything I have read from your books has an individual realism of its own. I think people can tell original from copy & it is a huge compliment. An even bigger compliment would be if they asked to use your ideas first, then compensated you for it. This is a prime example of why I like animals more than people. Animals are much more honest. (except about things like peeing on the rug, bed or PILLOW, or if a steak bone is involved in the negotiation. I personally think cheating or copying is well, cheating or copying. The bummer in our world is that even if you had a video of a judge watching the crime take place & the idea stealer confessed & a settlement agreed upon, you cannot force someone to compensate you. You can't reach into their pocked & pull out whatever was the agreed upon. That makes the whole system meaningless. In a perfect world people would not be capable of telling a lie, right.? Oh well, at least that means the people are reading you! And they LOVE it!!
ReplyDeleteI dont like video games but that xbox game looks amazingly cool!!!!