How much 'lifting' is too much lifting?

[Naruzeldamaster]

Lifting: sometimes derogatory term in the gaming space used to reference when games 'borrow' mechanics/plot points/environments from other works without changing them much.
For Example: Metroid Prime 'lifts' a lot of things in it's DNA from 'traditional' first person shooters, but it's much more of a puzzle platformer.

I've stated many times I 'take' ideas from stories and/or characters I like, typically games (but also other media)
I just wonder how far I can make my resemblance in my story before it becomes 'uncanny'

Right now people are making a big stink about a game called Pal World (It's indie pokemon, but war crimes) and a large part of that is the insane amount of lifting it takes from Pokemon. It does quite a bit to stand out for itself, but some of the monster designs in it would absolutely fail the squint test. (assuming the judge knew anything about pokemon to begin with)

I don't plan to push the boundries as far as Pal World's devs have, but I do want to make it clear where the inspiration comes from.

 

[Finchbearer]

I sounds to me that you are just talking about copying here and breaking copyright rules and laws. How much copying is too much copying?

When you are using someone else’s idea for your own ends, or worse your own profit. Then there is the moral side of things, where someone else’s hard work is just being exploited. Inspiration is also different from copying too, and the idea of originality just doesn’t really exist anymore. However wouldn’t you want a creation to be coming from your own mind, and not a litany of recognisable ideas from other peoples minds? Of course we all do a bit of copying, such is the way of things, but you’d do better to at least try and generate your own ideas and come up with work that is being fuelled by your own investigations and insights into a range of topics. Research is a good place to start and a lot of asking why.

Pokemon was very clever because the creators knew that it would be a ‘collect em’ all’ situation where every kid wanted to collect every Pokémon. Make some of them ‘rare’ and you’ve instantly upped the stakes. I was the prime target age at the time of Pokemon coming out for the first time in Europe, and we went mental for it in the school playgrounds, and every newsagents had Pokémon cards on the counter because they knew it would mean children would beg their parents for the expensive playing cards. It was so so profitable. I’m just here waiting for my son to be into the next big profitable franchise and him asking me for every nutty little thing we see. That’s probably most of the reason it ever gets copied, and that’s not a very honourable reason, but it is understandable.

 

[Finchbearer]

This is Palworld? Yes I think they might be in for a few lawsuits.

 

[Prince of Spires]

There are no new ideas out there. Everything you can come up with has already been done. (almost everything...).

There's also nothig wrong with that. However, you should ensure that you put your own spin on it. I could write a story where the charactes have to go out into the world and catch wild animals which are then used to fight the wild animals of other characters. And I have to train them and improve. Nothing wrong with that as an idea. However, I should put my own spin on it. When it stops failing the "squint test" then you've gone too far in my opinion (unless you're going for parody, then everything's fair game).

It's tricky however. In the above example it might be obvious where the inspiration comes from. But when do space wizards who have gathered together to protect the galaxy agains their evil counterparts become jedi? There is no set answer to the question.

 

[Queshire]

Palworld.

Palworld, palworld, palworld.... where to begin?

Well, first off there's a difference between what's legal and what any particular individual might think is in good taste.

Legally Palworld is likely in the clear. Nintendo having a copyright on Pokemon does not extend to having a copyright on the idea of capturing 'mons as a whole. Similarly, while the artistic similiarities are obvious you can't copyright a particular art style.

They're also good when it comes to trademark since they're not trying to fool anyone into thinking that Palworld is made by Nintendo or is backed by Nintendo.

As a game, is Palworld in good taste? Different people are going to answer that differently.

There isn't an easy answer to how much lifting is okay. I think the important thing is getting a sense for your audience's expectations and always being honest.

 

[Finchbearer]

It might depend on what, if anything, Pokémon as a brand have trademarked. Cadbury famously trademarked the Pantone colour of purple they use across all their branding, but that is no longer trademarked after Hershey bought them out and cited that the trademark lacked definition.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

There are no new ideas out there. Everything you can come up with has already been done. (almost everything...).

There's also nothig wrong with that. However, you should ensure that you put your own spin on it. I could write a story where the charactes have to go out into the world and catch wild animals which are then used to fight the wild animals of other characters. And I have to train them and improve. Nothing wrong with that as an idea. However, I should put my own spin on it. When it stops failing the "squint test" then you've gone too far in my opinion (unless you're going for parody, then everything's fair game).

It's tricky however. In the above example it might be obvious where the inspiration comes from. But when do space wizards who have gathered together to protect the galaxy agains their evil counterparts become jedi? There is no set answer to the question.

Yeah, that's the reason for this topic. In most of my ideas I tend to take what I like from x or y character/game/movie/show and usually put my own spin on it. Usually what I take is the concept or DNA, not so much the actual execution. Like how the concept of Zelda could be boiled down to: Legendary sacred artifact, grants power based on the dominant trait of the wielder, legendary blade that banishes evil dudes/monsters.

Copying was probably the wrong word, at least for this topic. Maybe inspiration/homage is the right word? Like how much of a homage could I do a concept before it becomes indistinguishable from the source idea. Pal world absolutely walks the line a bit too much for my tastes. But I brought it up because it was relevant to the discussion.

But I also want to make it clear to fans of whatever inspired the story (in this case, Rune Factory series) what bits of Rune Factory inspired my story.

This is Palworld? Yes I think they might be in for a few lawsuits.

You might be surprised what indie Developers get away with heh. That's not even the silliest moment in the game haha. The trailer makes it abundantly clear that it's parody/comedy I think. But I was not kidding about the war crimes joke. You can literally enslave the monsters to have them produce weapons/ammo for you lol

Instantly that particular pal makes me think of Electivire, but he's different enough design wise that I think he'd pass the squint test.
There are a few designs that are a bit more...blatant, but from what I have seen the pal world devs were pretty sneaky/clever. The mons they did that with (making them as close to pokemon as they legally could) were ones that weren't trademarked/copyrighted. There's quite a few of em that would fail the squint test 100% if the judge knew/gave a shit about pokemon. But there's a lot of other ones (There's one that's adorable as hell but also blatantly designed around eevee) like our gatling gun hero here that are juuuust different enough to pass the squint test.

 

[pmmg]

I dont know what to think of Pal World...I think they will make some money, get sued, and drift away or change. Who knows....I am not sure I care.

For myself, I would avoid 'lifting' anything if I can, and certainly to the degree that Pal World has.

When I am done, I want to know it mostly my own original stuff. I'd not be surprised if others have something similar, of course, cause the world is big. but I did not go looking at them from stuff to lift.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

When I hear the word 'lift,' I immediately start thinking about theft, because it's a term for picking someone's pocket. And the way OP describes it, it sounds like it certainly at least walks a fragile line between plagiarism and homage. My question is why do you want the elements you take from others' work to be recognizable? If you're aiming straight for homage, I get that. It's the whole point. But I get the feeling you're wanting to go another league further, and now we've moved past flattering the source material to Grand Theft World Building. What is your endgame, here?

 

[skip.knox]

>I just wonder how far I can make my resemblance in my story before it becomes 'uncanny'
I see at least two aspects to this question. One regards lawyers, the other regards readers.

With the former, there are laws and you very likely would need a copyright lawyer to give you a reliable answer. That lawyer would need to know the law for the particular country or countries involved. They would also insist on seeing the completed work, since they can't advise on a piece of work that does not yet exist.

With the latter, it goes to the same answer that applies in so many other areas of writing. Some will not care, some will love it, and some will yell at you. There's no telling until you've not only written it but also published it. At most you can write it and see what a few beta readers think. But so long as it stands at the idea stage, there's no very good advice to give. It's a bit like asking how far you can go with imitating a picture when all you have is a canvas and several tubes of paint. Everything is possible.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

When I hear the word 'lift,' I immediately start thinking about theft, because it's a term for picking someone's pocket. And the way OP describes it, it sounds like it certainly at least walks a fragile line between plagiarism and homage. My question is why do you want the elements you take from others' work to be recognizable? If you're aiming straight for homage, I get that. It's the whole point. But I get the feeling you're wanting to go another league further, and now we've moved past flattering the source material to Grand Theft World Building. What is your endgame, here?

I don't know about making it as blatant as pal world. I already mentioned that that game and it's mechanics walk the line a bit too far for my tastes. (What I've played of it so far is actually quite good, it's like Ark Survival but with pokemon mechanics)

If we put this topic to numbers (for better figurative reference) Pal World is like an 11 and I would like my story to be closer to a 6 or a 7. You know, gives off the same/similar vibes as the source material, but readers who are 'blind' to the source material wouldn't notice the tidbits referencing it. Fans of the thing I'm basing my idea around will absolutely notice story beats (even if there's a different spin/execution) or particular character tropes, but it'll still be largely it's own thing. Even with the references I think I'd be fine, since they're not directly calling out what the thing that inspired the story is.

For an alternative reference:
It's kind of like how Space Balls is basically star wars, but it's still enough of it's own thing that you could enjoy it while knowing jack shit about Star Wars. Some of the star wars centric jokes might not land with those readers, but those jokes are more for the members of the audience who are knowledgeable about star wars.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I don't know about making it as blatant as pal world. I already mentioned that that game and it's mechanics walk the line a bit too far for my tastes. (What I've played of it so far is actually quite good, it's like Ark Survival but with pokemon mechanics)

If we put this topic to numbers (for better figurative reference) Pal World is like an 11 and I would like my story to be closer to a 6 or a 7. You know, gives off the same/similar vibes as the source material, but readers who are 'blind' to the source material wouldn't notice the tidbits referencing it. Fans of the thing I'm basing my idea around will absolutely notice story beats (even if there's a different spin/execution) or particular character tropes, but it'll still be largely it's own thing. Even with the references I think I'd be fine, since they're not directly calling out what the thing that inspired the story is.

For an alternative reference:
It's kind of like how Space Balls is basically star wars, but it's still enough of it's own thing that you could enjoy it while knowing jack shit about Star Wars. Some of the star wars centric jokes might not land with those readers, but those jokes are more for the members of the audience who are knowledgeable about star wars.

Spaceballs is satirical and makes no bones about it. Plus, it's not just poking fun at Star Wars, it goes after half of classic SciFi and even a little Disney with bells on its shoes and a song in its heart, and because it does so with flair we let Mel Brooks, with his reputation for irreverence and parody, to carry it off without criticism. I can appreciate it on a very personal level because my dad was an ardent SciFi fan and my mom was a satirist.

But you haven't talked about wanting to poke a pin in the balloon of your source material. Are you wanting to attempt satire, because that's a different kettle of fish from just pulling material from another's work or, I guess, waving a flag over your version of it to draw attention to the fact that it came from somewhere that isn't your brain? This all still has a weird vibe. Either I'm failing to understand what you're wanting to do, or you're not entirely sure, yet.

 

[Finchbearer]

Are you writing a story or are you writing a narrative for a gameplay? Because if the term ‘lifting’ is specific to gaming and you’re talking about lifting in terms of writing a story then we are just really in copyright theft territory here. The term ‘lifting’ doesn’t really have a place in my mind to replace the term ‘copying’. One sounds better than the other but really they are the same thing.

It feels bit like you are trying to push the definition to meet your own needs ~ what’s wrong with trying to come up with your own ideas? Your own ideas will be far better to conceive than someone else’s, only you can come up with your own ideas.

 

[Queshire]

This is hard to talk about in the abstract. What are you lifting from in particular?

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Spaceballs is satirical and makes no bones about it. Plus, it's not just poking fun at Star Wars, it goes after half of classic SciFi and even a little Disney with bells on its shoes and a song in its heart, and because it does so with flair we let Mel Brooks, with his reputation for irreverence and parody, to carry it off without criticism. I can appreciate it on a very personal level because my dad was an ardent SciFi fan and my mom was a satirist.

But you haven't talked about wanting to poke a pin in the balloon of your source material. Are you wanting to attempt satire, because that's a different kettle of fish from just pulling material from another's work or, I guess, waving a flag over your version of it to draw attention to the fact that it came from somewhere that isn't your brain? This all still has a weird vibe. Either I'm failing to understand what you're wanting to do, or you're not entirely sure, yet.

Fine: you want the short version because the detailed version was too convoluted.
If we're being literal, in all of my writing, I am typically going for parody/homage but I usually want the story to contain tidbits that reference the thing that inspired it, but I want to do so in such a way that those tidbits are only noticeable to the people familiar with the writing/world of that thing. The rephrasing of the original question was how much of a homage could I make it before it becomes a carbon copy.

For example, if I was attempting this with Sonic The Hedgehog, it wouldn't literally be Sonic the hedgehog, but the writing, characters etc would have similar vibes with playful nods towards team SEGA's piss poor writing at times. I also probably wouldn't make all the characters anthromorphs and things.

This is hard to talk about in the abstract. What are you lifting from in particular?

For this current project I'm inspired by the Rune factory series.
There are a lot of common story beats in each entry and my story kind of riffs on those common story beats while still doing it's own thing.
Same with the characters, for some reason Rune factory really likes to make the same 8-12 character archetypes with slightly different spins on them each time. (That being said all of the characters are pretty good either way, albeit a bit on the simpler side) The characters are still great though, there's just not a ton of depth to them due to the nature of the game in question.

 

[Prince of Spires]

If you're going for true parody, then no lifting is too much lifting. Even from a legal perpective, parody usually falls under the Fair Use clause of copyright protection. Or to quote the US supreme court:

Parody needs to mimic an original to make its point, and so has some claim to use the creation of its victim’s (or collective victims’) imagination

Just look at all the Harry Potter parodies that are out there, like Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody.

So for Parody, go for it. But then the whole point usually is to be as obvious as possible.

 

[Jackarandajam]

For this current project I'm inspired by the Rune factory series.
There are a lot of common story beats in each entry and my story kind of riffs on those common story beats while still doing it's own thing.
Same with the characters, for some reason Rune factory really likes to make the same 8-12 character archetypes with slightly different spins on them each time. (That being said all of the characters are pretty good either way, albeit a bit on the simpler side) The characters are still great though, there's just not a ton of depth to them due to the nature of the game in question.

Sounds to me like this is a case of "this is good, but I think I could make it better."

If thats the case, I'd suggest doing your thing, making it better, and then stepping back and seeing how much of the original inspiration you really need. Use the inspiration, steal like an artist, then work backwards with your own additions as inspiration and what you'll likely be left with is something that falls comfortably in the "inspired by" category without the "ripped from" element.

I feel the same way about Mad Max. Borderlands and Fallout pushed into that aesthetic in their own ways but lost some of the gritty, cobbled, welded madness in the process. One of these days I'm going to take its bones and do my thing.

 

[evolution_rex]

It has been some time since this thread was made, but nothing has happened to Pal World. They were never successfully sued. Now that the dust bas settled, it’s clearly parody. I never understood this ‘they stole from Pokemon’ thing. Even it was meant to be taken seriously, the only thing one could really argue is copyright infringement is on the monster designs, otherwise, Pokemon does not own the monster collecting genre.

That does bring this back to topic though; Pokemon is the originator of a whole genre. So many games have ‘lifted’ the concept. If we’re using ‘lift’ in those terms there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. The fantasy genre lifted from Tolkien. At a certain point a piece of pop culture is so impactful it creates staples of its genre, and you’ll start seeing them be used in other works.

It is easy to say that for Tolkien though, it was so long ago. But people forget, modern interpretations of elves and dwarves are ripped from those pages. Orcs? He invented them!

Then you have Dune and Star Wars. The desert planet is an archetype now, and Lucas even mentions the existence of spice in the original Star Wars film.

To me, if you love a piece of fiction, you can take any element you want from it and integrate it into whatever you’re doing, so long as you’re not breaking copyright law and give credit where credit is do. Don’t be ashamed of yourself influences. I don’t need to explain stealing, that’s all pretty simple.

A modern version of lifting would be all the superhero stuff not made by Marvel or DC such as Invincible and The Boys (although The Boys includes elements of parody but overall it is more of a deconstructed superhero narrative), which borrows heavily from conventions made popular from two companies the own literally own the term superhero.

 

[pmmg]

Go ahead and post up your story. I need some ideas.