Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake Accused of Stealing Art

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by karios, Jun 26, 2014.

  1. karios

    karios Member

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  2. mr_bez

    mr_bez Well-Known Member

    Dec 20, 2012
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    The art styles are similar, but go ahead and do a google image search for game island map. You'll be hard pressed to find an island which doesn't have a cove in the middle, some mountains at the back, start with a grassy bit, then a snowy bit and a fiery bit; you'll even find quite a lot with skull-shaped rocks.

    This guy even seems to be claiming a monopoly on game maps where you start at the bottom left. Come on, really?!
     
  3. Echoseven

    Echoseven Moderator
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    #3 Echoseven, Jun 27, 2014
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2014
    The credits from MAMBC list a Justin Baldwin from Sleep Ninja Games under Art.

    Taken on its own, I can see how each of those elements may have been a result of convergent design. I don't necessarily think it was art theft, but the similarities are certainly numerous.
     
  4. otawong

    otawong Member

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  5. ColeDaddy

    ColeDaddy Silver Supporter<br>Moderator
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  6. slewis7

    slewis7 Well-Known Member

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    Is there some irony in that the game that the art is allegedly "copied" from (MonsterUp Adventures) is itself highly derivative of Doodle Jump?
     
  7. Hambo12

    Hambo12 Well-Known Member

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    Yeah i heard about this apparently the developer of monster up adventure says monster are my birthday cake copied their "map".
     
  8. slothwerks

    slothwerks Well-Known Member
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    What a ridiculous claim. Even in the "worst" case where MonsterUp's art style inspired Monster's Ate My Birthday Cake, there's no basis for a 'plagiarism' claim. If Monster's had copied the same characters, then they may have a claim. Since when do we accuse other artists of outright plagiarism for using a similar style? Should we allow a copyright for "cute monster vector style"? Aren't all artworks inspired by something?

    All I see is two games that use a similar vector style that is quite popular these days. Hell, Google search 'vector monster' and you'll find dozens of monsters that would look right at home in either game (on stock image sites, no less).
     
  9. BazookaTime

    BazookaTime Well-Known Member

    Just from looking at the pics provided I don't see any real basis to the claim.
     
  10. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

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    People will try anything for money and attention. It's like I sat there one day making up names for a Mud I was playing and thought I made up the name Dagon. Until months down the line people started telling me they love HP Lovecraft and I had no clue what they are on about. Apparently Dagon is a character in books, anyway my point being is there are so many people in this world people are bound to have similar art styles to each other and everything can't be completely different.

    At some point things are bound to end up similar either by accident or inspiration, unless something is a direct copy and paste style clone I don't think it matters.
     
  11. mr_bez

    mr_bez Well-Known Member

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    What a shame to see a thread for such a great game bogged down with a discussion like this.

    I'm part way through world 2 at the moment and looking forward to more time with this gem. Sadly I started playing on the iPad, which my wife tends to hog in the evening. :(
     
  12. Infinity89

    Infinity89 Well-Known Member

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    Well this was posted on AppAdvice:

     
  13. twenty6868

    twenty6868 Well-Known Member

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    Lame posts, there is no stolen art here!
     
  14. Royce

    Royce Well-Known Member

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    Apparently the artist doing the accusing was a big inspiration for the style of Incoboto. Anyway, I do see an uncanny number of similarities, but nothing is directly copied so I'm not sure he has much of a case. I would guess the artist behind MAMBC is pretty familiar with the guy's work though.
     
  15. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
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    FWIW, "We'll get back to you" is a very standard PR response. It doesn't mean anything good or bad, that's what big companies say if you ask them if the sky is blue.
     
  16. kmacleod

    kmacleod Well-Known Member
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    Perhaps they copied a little too close to the source, but jesus, it gets far worse than this. Seems like this whole thing is getting blown way out of proportion.

    How many space-marine-shooters have basically identical character and tech designs? How many fantasy diablo-wannabes use the same creature styles, same lore, same level layouts? How many pixel art games wouldn't exist without Nintendo?
     
  17. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
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    Stories like this come down to one simple fact: Anger is the internet's most powerful emotion. These stories get posted and blown up because people click them, share them, and comment on them. Those three thing equal clicks, clicks equal ad sales, ad sales equal dollars. Half stories with clicky headlines, some dude really mad about something that's easy to get readers mad about, and no response from the other side is literally dollars in your pocket. We don't do it on TouchArcade because it's too easy, and feels super skeezy to not just wait a day and get the full story... Which, surprisingly enough, is often way more reasonable than the original click-driven story leads you to believe.
     
  18. kmacleod

    kmacleod Well-Known Member
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    Yeah, I know what you mean. It's funny, I haven't been writing about this stuff for long, but the more involved I get in it, the easier it becomes to see just how clueless some of the more general purpose tech sites are when it comes to gaming. And even more than that, just how wrong some of the supposedly gaming focused sites are when it comes to mobile gaming.

    It probably comes down to the way gaming has always been a side topic on the big tech blogs, and mobile has always been a side topic on the big gaming blogs. When you have writers covering topics they don't understand or care about, it makes sense that they'd go for page views. The more layers of abstraction away from what the writer is passionate about, the less founded in reality is writing is.

    iOS gaming has the added burden of being about Apple, a company which analysts and writers are in the habit of writing the stupidest things imaginable. Such as CNBC running a story saying that if Apple doesn't release an iWatch in 60 days, they'll disappear (that story actually happened, and I'm not linking it, because links are exactly what they want).

    So yeah, combine gaming, which the tech sites don't understand, with mobile, which the gaming sites don't understand, with Apple, which is the king target for writing stupid articles to get page views… it's not a pretty picture.
     
  19. JCho133

    JCho133 Well-Known Member

    Jul 27, 2012
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    Oh dear! His map had round hills AND cartoony trees!

    I respect this guy's artwork for sure (it really is great), but these claims are honestly pushing it. Like someone said earlier in this thread, just google game maps and you'll find loads that look similar.

    In the Kickstarter video for MAMC the artist even showed his inspirations, which were things like Ugly Dolls, which are very recognizable in MAMC's art. Who's to say Ilias wasn't inspired by similar things? They were both trying to create cute monsters, odds are that in this universalizing world of pop culture, they found the same sources of inspiration.
     
  20. RevolvingDoor

    RevolvingDoor Well-Known Member

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    This is very frustrating to see. There's a world of difference between plagiarism and what the second artist appears to have done. At the top of the page with visual examples of similarities, Sounas proclaims things like "copies of my ideas!" and "no original creativity at all!"

    Let's take a look at some of these ideas.

    -An archetypal island that prominently features a giant skull. You know, kind of like in King Kong. I guess the two island maps also have a similar layout, as if they were both designed to suggest linear progression. :confused:
    -A bunch of similar looking small cute monsters. I invite anyone reading to google image search "small cute monsters" with me. The results suggest that the characteristics common in both designs are, in fact, pretty common in general.
    -Some scenery that is stylized in very similar ways. Striped hills, mountain tops with puffy looking snow caps, and so on. Much like the ones found in Yoshi's Island, which continues to inform and inspire many artists who attempt to convey a cute and quirky setting.

    In short, I'm seeing a big fuss, a game potentially being pulled, and likely a devastating blow to the second artist's career for the simple reason that he was unfortunate enough to be tasked with a similar goal: to create a cute island world populated by some cute little monster characters.

    Something in me says that if we don't want to see indies throttled by lawyermongering, we should take a stand against this kind of nonsense as a community.
     

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