Innovation and Imitation in the Games Sector

This 2-year study investigated the tension between innovation and imitation in the Digital Games Industry. In this project, we understand imitation as a basic social practice that informs our learning and making. This seems to be particular true for the gaming industry: Entire game genres (think platform sidescroller games or first person shooters) have emerged by re-making and extending on great games. While the view that imitation is a constituent part of innovation seems to be shared throughout the industry, recent tussles over alleged clones have sparked lively discussions about legitimate and illegitimate imitation practices in game development. Given a legal context that is far from being clear on these issues, studios and publishers face a considerate amount of uncertainty regarding the question which practises are deemed fair or legitimate.

Empirically, we have investigated this tension between imitation and innovation by means of a multi-method case study: A document analysis of industry handbooks, a discourse analysis of contested cases and extensive interviews with different professionals and stakeholders from the sector in Germany. Lead questions were: Are there implicit norms that are shared across the industry or within specific communities? How do designers, programmers, artists and marketers themselves draw the fine line between legitimate inspiration and illegitimate plagiarism? How do they react when seeing their ideas being taken up? What is the role of legal instruments (copyright, patents, trademarks) in this matter? Building on pre-studies analysing online discussions and industry handbooks, the study investigates these by means of qualitative interviews with ?