Capcom rip off Splosion Man?

Mr E

I know imitation is a form of flattery, but there is a fine line between imitation and completely ripping something off. Apparently Twisted Pixel pitched the Splosion Man concept to Capcom, and were turned down. Capcom then basically made a clone of Splosion man called MaXplosion. The similarities are unreal.

Although it fair to say that Twisted Pixel's game has a hell of a lot more character than Capcoms....

More info here (including comments from Twisted Pixel on the clone).

Here is what MaXplosion looks like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXXoHKCgPTQ

A longer 4 minute clip (and more commentary on the clone) can be found here.

NotorietyH

It's terrible. Such a blatant rip-off. Not from the usual sources either. Disgraceful that a company like Capcom is doing it.

Here's Capcom Mobile's twitter feed if you want to make your feelings know to 'em!

link

GothPunk

As Kotaku point out, isn't this sort of thing endemic to the App store? There are tons of 'homages' to popular games from the App store itself but also of console games. I don't see how this is much different. It'd be a lot worse if MaXplosion was on XBLA sure, but aren't the rules a bit different when it's a different platform?

If Gameloft came out with MaXplosion, wouldn't everyone just be going 'lol Gameloft'? It wouldn't be news. I guess the story is more about the fact that it's a Capcom game and one wouldn't necessarily suspect them to do something like this. Are we going to have Kotaku running a story about Explodemon next?

I realise this MaXplosion game pretty much clean rips the premise of 'Splosion Man, but most games are iterations of other games surely. In it's defense, it has a pretty neat art style, I like the 50's sci-fi look.

Mr E

Ah but the ripoff is so blatant here.

- the 3 bomb jumping mechanic
- wall to wall climbing
- closing vertical walls
- lab/industrial setting
- the music
- the insane main character

GothPunk

Yeah I realise that (admittedly I have only played an hour of 'Splosion Man), my point is just that doesn't the App Store lend itself to these sort of 'homages', rip off's or whatever it is I should call them? It's the Wild West of games development. We have had LocoRoco rip offs (Rolando) and God of War (Hero of Sparta), and I'm sure there are others. But I would think that people don't mind it so much because LocoRoco and God of War aren't on the App store, so it's not like the original creators are loosing out, especially when one considers the App Store imitations are likely to be more shallow or bitesize gaming experiences. Perhaps MaXplosion is a more blatant rip off than some of the other 'homages' we could think of, but it's not like Twisted Pixel have released any of their games on the App Store either.

Thinking about it in the light of this rip off and seeing the video, 'Splosion Man would work great on any touch device, they should have made an App Store version yesterday.

GTR63

Its a bad rip off nearly as bad as a game Konami are making called Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights.Its just a blatant Prof Layton rip off that if Level 5 looked for Royalties they'd get them in a instant.

super_furry

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/MaXplosion/news.asp?c=26628

Looks even worse on Capcom, Twisted Pixel actually pitched ‘Splosion Man to Capcom when they were making it for the 360.

NotorietyH

GothPunk wrote: »

Yeah I realise that (admittedly I have only played an hour of 'Splosion Man), my point is just that doesn't the App Store lend itself to these sort of 'homages', rip off's or whatever it is I should call them? It's the Wild West of games development. We have had LocoRoco rip offs (Rolando) and God of War (Hero of Sparta), and I'm sure there are others. But I would think that people don't mind it so much because LocoRoco and God of War aren't on the App store, so it's not like the original creators are loosing out, especially when one considers the App Store imitations are likely to be more shallow or bitesize gaming experiences. Perhaps MaXplosion is a more blatant rip off than some of the other 'homages' we could think of, but it's not like Twisted Pixel have released any of their games on the App Store either.

Thinking about it in the light of this rip off and seeing the video, 'Splosion Man would work great on any touch device, they should have made an App Store version yesterday.

I think what makes this rip-off leave such a bad taste in the mouth is that it's one of the big publishers ripping off an indie developer.

In most other cases it's a smaller company ripping off a very successful franchise.

I know Gameloft do it the whole time too, but they're not exactly looked at fondly either. What it does, it means that Capcom can never complain when Gameloft or some other company blatantly rips off their game. Looking forward to playing President Evil, Nega-Man, and Narwhal vs. Chapcom Free.

GothPunk

NotorietyH wrote: »

I think what makes this rip-off leave such a bad taste in the mouth is that it's one of the big publishers ripping off an indie developer.

In most other cases it's a smaller company ripping off a very successful franchise.

I know Gameloft do it the whole time too, but they're not exactly looked at fondly either. What it does, it means that Capcom can never complain when Gameloft or some other company blatantly rips off their game. Looking forward to playing President Evil, Nega-Man, and Narwhal vs. Chapcom Free.

I had to giggle at 'Nega-Man' and Narwhal! They're the unicorns of the sea!

I think I was just annoyed at the coverage of this story yesterday, but it seems the coverage today is much more fair, with Kotaku running a great story about Gameloft and their rip offs, complete with comparison YouTube clips. Edit: It seems the GameLoft CEO has come out to defend their games too.

What is it about the App Store that it ends up with all these rip offs? Because so many 'proper' developers are ignoring it? Square-Enix and EA are the only publisher/developers I can think of who have published their established or new IP on the App Store. (I don't have any 'iDevices' so I'm kinda in the dark.)

K.O.Kiki

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/13/capcom-saddened-by-maxplosion-situation/

Capcom wrote:

"While Twisted Pixel did have discussions with our console game team about publishing 'Splosion Man' on game consoles, Capcom Mobile is a different division of Capcom with separate offices and as such, had no prior knowledge of any meetings between the console game team and Twisted Pixel. 'MaXplosion' was developed independently by Capcom Mobile. Nonetheless, we are saddened by this situation and hope to rebuild the trust of our fans and friends in the gaming community."

:pac: :pac: :pac:

rizzla

This is pretty funny. Twisted Pixel "copy" The Maniacal Smile (Captain Smiley), and reference it in Comic Jumper saying that "What? 2 independent people can't come up with the same idea?"

johnny_ultimate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d8I6Hk-hDw

While the above looks a little less blatantly derivative, someone needs to start telling developers exploding men isn't that good of a mechanic.

Ciaran500

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

While the above looks a little less blatantly derivative, someone needs to start telling developers exploding men isn't that good of a mechanic.

That was in development before Splosion man