Should Developers Be Familiar With The Competition?

[Anguille]

The developer might feign ignorance to avoid claims of "stealing ideas" or "copying features" from a competitors product.

I don't think there's anything wrong from being inspired by good ideas....Mankind has evolved thanks to it.

[Grim.Reaper]

I don't know guys, I think LZ's response is understandable and not unexpected in this case....assuming he did not participate as a designer and/or developer in the game like he states.

LZ said his "people" did the research so they did appear to review the competition, which is fine by me.  I wouldn't expect a CEO of a company to do that kind of hands-on work if it is other people's responsibility to do so.  I know for sure my senior executives of my company would have their "people" do this and would not come close to conducting hands-on analysis themselves, which is certainly understandable.

I also think there would be a lot of people (maybe not all) that would be put off if game development companies started giving their opinion in public about the competition's product.  It likely wouldn't come off well and to what degree it would be honest anyway and not bias.  Therefore, I do agree with LZ that the consumers and/or testers who have played all the various games are probably the best judge of doing a comparison that will likely seem less bias.

[tgb]

I was insulted that he felt the need to point out that it was a different game, as if I didn't already know that.

[Lord Zimoa]

If you feel insulted, I apologize.

Cheers,

Tim aka LZ

[Boggit]

The developer might feign ignorance to avoid claims of "stealing ideas" or "copying features" from a competitors product.

I don't think there's anything wrong from being inspired by good ideas....Mankind has evolved thanks to it.

I agree with Anguille. I love games that innovate and improve - look at Paradox's EU, HOI, CK series etc., or AGEOD's game engine, or Battlefront's CMx2 engine, or John Tiller's game engines for Squad Battles, Pz Camps etc... all of which have responded to ideas from the fanbase to make a better game.

[bayonetbrant]

I can't imagine any commercial enterprise at least keeping an eye on what the competition is doing.  That doesn't mean that everyone in the organization is spun up on the goings-on, but at least someone is.

However, it is equally improvident for a developer or anyone else in a creative endeavor to admit to investigating the competition too closely, lest they later be challenged in a legal venue.

Dancing around the question shouldn't be seen as an insult to anyone's intelligence, just safely covering their legal backsides in our overly-litigious society.

I'm happy when we have developers and development studios here talking about their latest and greatest, and interacting with their customers (and prospective ones, too).  I hope that discussions don't get overly heated so as to chase anyone off.

[airboy]

I agree with Lord Zomia.  I would have my development team play/be familiar with directly competing products (except I would not have them examine their programming codes).

It would be foolish and destructive to comment on competitors products unless you plan to do a direct head-to-head comparison.  This is seldom done in entertainment software, but is common in business software.

[Herman Hum]

The developer might feign ignorance to avoid claims of "stealing ideas" or "copying features" from a competitors product.

Especially since ideas cannot be 'stolen'.  "Geez, that game uses NATO icons, map hexes, and is organized into platoons and companies.  It must have been stolen from my game!"

[Lord Zimoa]

On a side note our first brainstorming sessions on doing a WW1 game were in May 2008... there were no real alternatives on the market or in development as far as we knew at that time at least.

We worked almost 4 years on this game and the new engine. Calculated in we took a break when working on Panzer Corps and Battle Academy, nevertheless it has been quite a long ride.

But I`me glad we did, it was a great learning curve and a relieve compared to all the WW2 work. WW1 deserved some proper wargames. I hope in the end, you all enjoy it.

[son_of_montfort]

I think many here will. The years of work into the new engine shows significantly, IMHO.

[Jack Nastyface]

IMHO..tough call.  Competitive analysis is agreeably of cardinal importance when there are "standard" or mandatory business requirements for a software system, but I'm not sure that process would necessarily apply for the entertainment industry, where creativity, look and feel, and funtionality frequently decide product success.  For example, most of us have played any number of WWII-based FPS games, and we each would have our own favorite, based on the features we each like to see:  grand sweeping panorama's (Call of Duty), gritty small-unit actions (Brothers in Arms), or "realistic" team-based games (Red Orchestra), or bunny-hopping shoot-em ups (Day of Defeat).  Trying to create a "best of breed" out of all these platforms might be a unrealistic or difficult effort, and the winning features of one game may not necessarily translate into another format.

Additionally...a big component of the games development process represents artistic or creative expression; another component is hard programming (graphics, UI, AI, etc).  Given that few games have limitless funding sources, most developers have to decide where they are going to spend their programming dollar.  Minecraft and Dwarf-fortress are two games with average / crappy graphics, but feature a robust gameworld.  Conversely, there are simply too many games that feature awesome graphics but suffer from brutal AI (think Project IGI...where guards seemed to have IR/Zoom/X-ray vision and fired heat-seaking 7.62 rounds, or Soldier of Fortune III where you could pretty much break-dance behind a guard before "surprising" him with a stealth kill).

And finally on a personal note...some of you may know that I am a quintessential frustrated game developer myself (lots of "ideas books" but nothing developed past paper-based wire-frame stage).  Over the past year, I have been filling out a new idea book for a game that I though might actually have some legs...but was gutted when another game came out that had many of the same ideas / concepts.  I have not yet played that newly released game...and I am conflicted as to whether I ever will.  On the one hand, if there is too much overlap in game ideas, I may just get discouraged and throw in the towel.  On the other hand, I might see weaknesses in the design, or perhaps be encouraged to develop or expand on areas that they have not.

As I said...difficult question, but thanks for posting it, as it provides much "food for thought".

Yours in gaming,

Jack Nastyface