The fear of idea and game cloning/theft.

Im being realistic these days. There is no way my idea is a unique butterfly that should be protected. However, I am near testing phases for my game and I will need to finally have non family and friends do this. Normally I wouldnt care but I recently watched a series of youtube Gamedevelopment talks, panels videos, and a interview with Rami from Vlambeer. They say that cloning is rampant.

What has been this communities experience with this topic? Is this a unfounded fear? Are there steps I should take to protect my idea as long as I can.

Again, I know I am not sitting on the "next" game. This is less about me and more about the community in general and how everyone feels.

If you're worried you could always do a closed beta and only invite people you trust.

depends on the type of game.. if it's a game that can easily be cloned, then it probably will be if it shows any signs of success. If it's a game that takes months and months to recreate, then you're already ahead of other people, and if your game is successful, then who cares about the imitations- people will want the original.

Making easy quick simple games just makes it easy quick for others to copy..

So in other words.. the simpler it is, the less can get in the way of others cloning it..

the more complicated it is or time consuming to make, the more gets in the way, and people that spend considerable amount of time on it would probably want to personalize it a bit and not copy everything.

You shouldn't be afraid of someone else doing it, you should be afraid of someone else doing it better.

Prominent It is good to hear that people think the complexity, aka time investment in making it is one of the ways of protecting an idea.

newt I bet people can always do it better We dont let that stop us tho do we!