> The early moves of Pincus were very impressive
His early moves were deplorable. He cloned-- pixel by pixel-- emerging games built by small developers, then seeded them with traffic from other Zynga games.
His early moves were deplorable. He cloned-- pixel by pixel-- emerging games built by small developers, then seeded them with traffic from other Zynga games.
If the copy wasn't close enough to be considered a copyright violation, then what's the problem? Everyone takes inspiration from others. We're all standing on the shoulders of giants. There's nothing wrong with deciding you want to compete with someone and making a similar product. Not every idea for a new company or product has to be (or even can be) completely original.
Do you remember the tower-breaking game on Kongregate and iOS that Angry Birds cloned? Or Backyard Monsters that was the original Clash of Clans?
Except perhaps the dev with the initial idea? Stealing someone else's idea might be widespread, but it doesn't make it right.
Zynga shows me exactly why I don't share my ideas early on: A company with more money and more resources can bring the idea to market much faster than a 1 or 2 person shop.
I think the people that keep spreading this idea have the resources and money to 1) create their own ideas quickly and 2) take someone else's idea.
At some point you have to put your ideas/implementation/whatever out into the open (you might even have to advertise its existence). At that point, anyone better resourced than you can probably just mimic your work.
What alternative does anyone really have?