泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌
[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]
Similar or identical
In addition to video games, I've been investing in films for the last couple of years. Examining a film scenario is the most important thing when an investor receives a proposal. The funding decision isn't only made by the screenplay, however, it's an essential part of the proposal review. I had enjoyed reading scenarios for a good while. Different stories, a lot of materials, diverse subjects, and different types of characters, etc. were new to me.
A year or so later, the novelty wore off while reading at least two to four scripts a week. When I finished reading more than one-hundred screenplays, various scenes from different scenarios started to be mixed up. I used to find what I read somewhere and the stories are mixed while I was reading a new script. Scenarios themselves are not the problem. Most people experience emotions more or less the same way and they naturally think alike when they create a story.
A lot of hard work of screenwriters, film directors, and film staffs is really what makes new movies possible over and over, yet there are films with similar stories and subjects. There are many movies with a sad love story of a terminally ill woman or man who instantly falls in love and dies of the disease. Including Love Story (1970 American film), The Letter (1997 South Korean film), and A Moment to Remember (2004 South Korean film), there are countless examples of similar stories.
Recently released video games are pretty similar in terms of genre, character, and gameplay. As a video-game user of twenty years experience, sometimes even a newly introduced game looks familiar and lacks the originality and creativity compared to the existing ones. When visiting online game communities, I have encountered comments more often denouncing video games that plagiarized or mimicked other works. A simply identical game to another thing has a problem. But I don't like to condemn it because the new one is similar to the existing one. Like a film, a video game also cannot be made in completely creative ways.
In the same way that we should not throw a stone at all racing games with similar factors, we should not criticize every action RPGs having the same or similar characteristics like life-size characters, fantasy-style images, and 3D quarter view. If we find a quote "You've got to go to Hawaii!" in a new gangster movie taking place in the 1980s, we naturally suppose that the film copied the famous scene of Friend, a 2001 South Korean action film. Likewise, imitative copy in the process of developing game would be condemned. But Virtual Fighter is not blamed for a fighting game which copied Street Fighter. I expect to see similar but new games beyond imitation.
※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.
(http://www.khgames.co.kr)
Translation by Kim Ki-hui
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