Closing the Lid on Fortresscraft

Oh, I just realized today that I had never gotten around to assessing the final product that is Fortresscraft, after the earlier controversial post.

Yeah, it's shit.

Sorry dude, but it's pretty plainly so.

Ignoring the incohesive art style, presentation, etc. the game does 2 things wrong that it very seriously needed to do right:

1) It lacks any actual compelling game-play beyond simply building.
As opposed to its "inspiration" which has a wealth of interesting mechanics to experiment with, you just build things with your infinite resources. It's nothing more than an "creative mode."

2) It lacks any features which set it apart from its "inspiration"

So, with these 2 things in mind, I can make a conclusion. There's not a single reason anyone would download this game other than wanting to play minecraft on their Xbox, being unable to, and settling this a close imitation, or any of the other indistinguishable imitators that have popped up.

It's a China-town hand bag. If anything, it's popularity speaks poorly for the Indie market on XBLA.

If it looks like an artless cash-grab, walks like an artless cash-grab...

In Defense of FortressCraft

Okay, as the preface to the last post states, I made a bit of a gaff with the last post. I'm going to come out and say that first. I insulted both FortressCraft and its developers based purely on playing Minecraft and watching videos of FortressCraft.

aaaand this is your face on uninformed journalism.

On the games, FortressCraft is not a complete product. Moreover, I have never played FortressCraft. There's the big rub noone's really bashed me on that someone should have. Yeah, we've seen videos, but as a group of people that is so often mislead by pre-release marketing that's something we should know never tells the whole story. Had I not played Nier I would have assumed it was identical to any other samey JRPG, rather than a flawed but eclectic spin on the genre as akin to Darksiders as Final Fantasy. Therefore, I have exactly zero place making any assessment of FortressCraft's actual status. Is it a ripoff or not? I duno - I'll have to wait for the release to find out.

As for the designer, I made some personal jabs that were uncalled for and entirely based in conjecture. Those I entirely retract and apologize for. Bashing indie devs based on the unfinished production they've shown is no better for the industry than the perceived issue I so lambasted previously. Furthermore, the guy had the balls to step up and state his case, which he did in a relatively civil manner. On the internet, that says quite a bit.

In the interest of fairness, I'm not going to retract anything. Online, it comes off as if you're trying to change history and  rewrite what you said. So the last article stays up - with this one as an addendum. Am I backing down? No. Was I totally right? No. Do I seek to align myself better with what is, in fact, right? Yes. Seems to often that people online are completely unwilling to modify their stances in light of debate. You're right - the other guy is wrong. Forever. No matter what. If that's gonna be the case though, what's the point of a debate at all?

So, what mislead me? Well, I made two mistakes.

1) I foolishly assuming that "independent" is always synonymous with "starving artist and dependent on the kindness of strangers" because, after all, some people aren't wannabe devs - but people who've been in and out of the industry for years and have DECIDED to be independent.

You see, I'm aware of the history of Minecraft, how their business model works, and I've played the game to explore its design. These were known quantities to me. I knew of its critical and popular success, but did not really examine its financial success. Now, I know that should not have any bearing on the matter. Steal a dollar from  homeless man or from Richard Brandson, it's all theft. Still, the fact that Mojang apparently turns $350,000 A DAY on their indie project at last count does tend to color the picture somewhat. It lends credence to the developer of FortressCraft's assessment that Minecraft is not so much a beta as a gold release with regular updates. It at least makes my casting of Mojang in the fragile victim position somewhat laughable.

2) I addressed a very specific case, not as an illustration, but as if it were the issue in and of itself. The SHOULD have been an article about how derivative works affect the medium. By focusing one one case, I made my argument here dependent on a subjective assessment: "is game A a ripoff of game B." What I SHOULD have done and will endeavor to correct shortly is spoken about this from a more theoretical perspective.

The basic argument here SHOULD have been that when you copy something directly, without innovation, you get one of two results:
A) You blow the original out of the water, either due to quality, marketing, or market control, and damage the bottom line of the other guy.
B) You don't succeed in beating the big guy at his own game, and produce something inferior with no more worth than what already existed before your efforts. It's just another piece of shovelware only selling to grandmothers who don't know the difference and buy purely by cover art.

My assessment was really that when A happens to an independent developer, it's not only unfortunate but bad for the industry as it discourages creativity and innovation.

That being said, being informed by something is not the same as ripping it off. Darksiders, for example, takes several gameplay mechanics whole hock from other games. They, however, congeal into a wholly original and new whole. Anyone who's played both Portal and Darksiders' "Portal section" will tell you that, though the latter's inspiration is clear, the gameplay mechanics are entirely different.

FortressCraft is Bad For Gaming (?)

(edit: Full disclosure - the ? in the title is new. In discussion, I've learned a bit more about this than original research had turned up. Check both the comments and the next article for discussion on that. In summary though: I retract my assessment that FortresCraft can objectively be called a "clone" of Minecraft and the idea that FortressCraft will significantly damage Minecraft's bottom line. The bit about it scaring other developers away from that business model though - that's still sound.)

You all know Minecraft right? Indie game? Big hit internet sensation? The current darling of artsy game connoisseur types - a title previously held by the likes of Limbo (meh), Braid, and Portal?

Alright, NOW we're getting pretentious.

Well, have you ever heard of FortressCraft? No? Well, it's the thing that looks to dig a hole in the roof of your mine and use it as a cistern.

This is your indie game on FortressCraft.

You see, FortressCraft is Minecraft. The difference? Graphics, some as-of-yet unspecified extra features which do not yet exist, and, the big one, an XBox Live release.

This is bad for the gaming industry, developer and consumer alike.

Why? Well, Minecraft has been successful largely due to its unique business plan. It allow users to pay for a work in progress, on faith, in order to fund the completion of the project. It provides investors for a product which would otherwise never be made, and players don't have to wait for a finished product to enjoy its parts. It is, in theory, great. In a world where this were common practice, we all would have been playing Duke Nukem Forever for years, rather than anticipating it, "abandonware" would just be "unfinishedware," and more such software would actually have the funds to never go on hiatus in the first place.

Maybe the original, abandoned version of Daikatana WOULD have. (Check the link to actually find out!)

FortressCraft destroys this. You see, if the designer of Minecraft had not used this business plan, none of us would have played Minecraft, beyond the original two week demo project which it has since far outgrown. Even that original project would never have received the attention it has. The developers would not have the funds to sustain the project. They could not simply hope, without funding, that, upon completion, they would recoup their losses and produce a profit. Minecraft simply would not exist.

By extension, of course neither would FortressCraft. Without this business model, he would have never seen it, never had time to capitalize on the situation, and apparently never developed a interesting game concept of his own. Yet, he'll be the one to profit from the Xbox market. That might not seem like a huge deal, but one must recall that the vast majority of gamers aren't "in the know" enough to know all of this. This is especially true for the console market. Almost every sale of FortressCraft will be an individual who will no longer need to buy MineCraft. In other words, that's pay the designer should have gotten for his work that he now never will. It might not seem like a big deal, but for an indie developer that's a financial hit that's incredibly hard to take.

By doing such a project as FortressCraft, its designer has all but doomed all future chances of success for such business models. Even if it's a bomb, or never releases, its effects will be felt. You just can't risk the chance of some guy swooping in and aping your work at the last minute, making great profit for little investment. It doesn't promote "competition" because it denies Minecraft's team any opportunity to compete. Competition has a positive economic effects, unjust enrichment does not.

So, let's move beyond the subjective. We can argue all day over whether or not FotressCraft is a "clone" or represents copyright infringement. That's an extremely complex legal matter I'm not qualified to comment on. Let's focus on what this objectively means for gamers and designers.

-Designers: It has gotten that much harder to fund independent projects, and thus that much harder to create original and experimental products.

-Gamers: There are games - games you would have loved - that will now never exist.

And all for what? A minor financial flash in the pan for one man, a one hit wonder unlikely to be followed up by future creative success once he's wrung the creative juices out of someone else's work.

In short, if you're anyone other than the creator of FortressCraft, FortressCraft has hurt you.

(edit: Some text redacted for being unnecessarily personal and entirely based on my own presumptions)
(edit 2: I'd also like to add that, while this article is about a particular case, this isn't a new practice. Oh how creativity is rewarded in the industry we so often decry as bereft of original ideas.)