The video games industry brings in more than $100 billion a year but not every game can be a success and as games are so expensive to make, that’s not a risk that all developers want to take. So, to save themselves some time and money on coming with a new idea, they create cloned games that blatantly rip off games that are on the market.
The Fortnite Clone: FortCraft
Epic Games Fortnite is one of the most popular cloned games because it makes so much money. A study revealed that Fortnite was the highest grossing game of last year, so it’s not surprising that so many developers have tried to make their own versions of the battle royale and crafting title.
There are so many Fortnite clones to choose from, but the most blatant and the most shameless is FortCraft, from Chinese company NetEase. In addition to the font and the name of the game, the soft, Pixar-style graphics of the game and the importance it puts on crafting are heavily borrowed from the Epic Games release. FortCraft isn’t available in the west but C.D., or Creative Destruction, is another NetEase game that does the same thing.
Every Pokemon GO Clone
The sign of a successful game is how many times it has been cloned and so by looking at that, and not just Pokemon GO’s multi-billion dollar revenue, the Niantic game is a hit. Several developers have tried to make Pokemon GO clones and AR games that take some cues from the Niantic release.
Some Pokemon GO clones, like The Walking Dead: Our World, don’t try very hard to hide who gave them the idea, but others, such as a Vatican-sponsored clone game called Follow JC GO! are bordering on ridiculous.
Genshin Impact
Nintendo doesn’t have the whole market on family friend open-world RPGs, but The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the best reviewed games in history and it’s one that many RPG developers have turned to for ideas of what to do well. One developer that seems to have done that is miHoYo, the company behind Genshin Impact, which releases on PS4 in 2020.
Genshin Impact isn’t quite a carbon copy of Breath of the Wild and it’s unfair to say that it can’t offer a beautiful world with friendly characters. However, the comparisons were enough to make one ChinaJoy 2019 attendee smash his PS4 Pro on the ground, so miHoYo will have much to do to prove its game isn’t a rip off of a Nintendo title.
The Mobile Overwatch Clone: Ace Force
Blizzard, the developer of hero shooter Overwatch, has stubbornly refused to release the game on mobile devices or the Nintendo Switch. Positively, for fans who want to open loot crates on the go, there are game developers lining up around the block trying to get people to download their mobile Overwatch clones.
One developer is MoreFun, the company backed by investment heavyweight Tencent. Tencent MoreFun has just released a game called Ace Force, which has gameplay and characters just like Overwatch. It does have one great new idea, though, which is a dog battle royale mode. Overwatch may have pachimari but it doesn’t have any dogs, so that’s one idea that Blizzard could borrow back.
Every PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Clone
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was one of the first battle royale games to find huge success when it was released in March 2017. While Fortnite has been called a PUBG clone by some, the PUBG clone mayhem really took off when the game was released on mobile devices.
NetEase, a repeat offender on this list, was sued by the PUBG development team over the games Rules of Survival and Knives Out. The PUBG developer accused NetEase of copyright and trademark infringement. Most PUBG players aren’t professional lawyers, but many didn’t have to look closely to agree that the PUBG team had a point.
Tappy Chicken
In 2013, developer Dong Nguyen surprised just about everyone when he released Flappy Bird on mobile devices. The game was incredibly difficult and millions enjoyed trying to get a high score as an aerially challenged bird trying to navigate its way through some pipes. When Nguyen removed the game from the App Store, some developers took the time to release their own Flappy Bird clones to try and make money from its popularity.
One unlikely company that released a Flappy Bird clone is Epic Games. The studio released a game called Tappy Chicken, which was the first title released on mobile devices built using the Unreal Engine 4 game engine. Tappy Chicken is no longer available to download and it’s unclear how successful the release was, but for a short while, it let people keep enjoying that pipe flying gameplay.
