In the ultra competitive landscape of video games it’s hard to find a truly original idea. While they undoubtedly exist, for the most part the vast majority of games borrow from each other in one way or another. Gears of War‘s fine-tuning of the cover-based shooter has been borrowed from in one capacity or another by literally every third person shooter to enter the market.
It’s the uniqueness of these titles’ mechanics, there seamless blending of genres, that makes them worth borrowing from. Unfortunately, with so many titles borrowing from each other, there aren’t that many original ideas out there, but there are a few that uniquely combine genres. One of those is Borderlands, which this year is to be followed up by Borderlands 2, the half loot fest/half shooter title from Gearbox Software.
Part of Borderlands 2‘s appeal lays within that combination of traditional dungeon-crawling gameplay and solid shooting mechanics – it’s nothing too mind-blowing, but works so well when culled together. What’s more surprising to Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford, more than the appeal of Borderlands, is that nobody has copied their formula.
“I’m actually astonished that we’re about to launch a sequel and no one’s stole it from us. The formula’s right there. No one’s stolen it yet. That’s weird.”
Obviously Pitchford isn’t advocating for the copying of any IP, but the fact that we haven’t seen a “clone” of Borderlands in the past year or so is quite surprising. Borderlands was a standout title from 2009, garnering several Game of the Year nominations, and its sequel, while potentially being overwhelmed by the massive amount of Fall titles, is still greatly anticipated.
It’s only a matter of time before a game does appear that borrows heavily from Borderlands‘ example, but until such a time the franchise remains quite unique. There’s a certain quality to the game that would hard to replicate, but a Diablo-esque loot system coupled in with a first person shooter could do just as well whether it’s called Borderlands or not.
Why hasn’t there been a Borderlands clone? Are there any titles that, at least in some part, take from the game’s lead?
Borderlands 2 releases September 18, 2012 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.
Source: Gamasutra
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Just a tad bit over-confident though isn’t he? To think that the game’s formula is something people would want to copy?? I’m not making any judgment on the game itself, just saying for him to expect that…
just look at the onslaught of fps’ that copied the ‘idiot proof’ formula that CoD has:
crysis 2
homefront (to a degree)
MoH (again to a degree)
far cry 3
and a couple of more lesser known fps’
i think what he means is copied as in used the fps RPG mix that they’ve used in borderlands. that being said there is that one sci-fi shooter coming out soon that uses a similar concept (though doesn’t look as good as borderlands) i think it was called firefall… not to sure on the name.
In what way is Far Cry 3 copying COD? A non military open world FPS set on a remote island is nothing like any COD game I have played. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t see it.
And COD copied MOH. MOH’s first release was 1999 while COD’s was 2003.
i was strictly speaking about multiplayer. i know that the far cry series has always been somewhat open world, but the mp in them has felt somewhat CoD like (simplistic and boring). that being said, the mp for fc3 does look like it’s trying to walk down a different lane on the same road (if you know what i mean).
Ok. I haven’t paid much attention to the multiplayer of it. Im buying it strictly for the single player.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see more co-op RPG shooters if that’s what Pitchford is referring too specifically.
I’m sorry, doesn’t he mean that alot of people are copying ( inspired) Diablo? Such as Borderlands?
yeah b/c diablo is a SCI FPS with robots and natural looking creatures (creatures that are exaggerated version of what we have on earth).
there is a difference between ‘copying’ and using something as inspiration, borderlands merges 2 very popular genres (FPS and ARPG’s) and manages to keep what makes both the genres fun. there is nothing wrong with using someone’s work as inspiration, especially since diablo isn’t the only game with a loot system (but it is one of the originals).
what he is saying is that he is somewhat ‘shocked’ that others haven’t copied or been inspired to make a game similar to borderlands (hybrid of 2 genres).
You must have missed the point where I said “inspired.”
Now while you wrap your head around that here is another quote from Randy Pitchford. “We’re in an industry where people do nothing but steal from each other.”
Now he’s making a total arse of himself saying that everyone in the industry steals ideas from people except for his company Gearbox. See where I’m going with this? He’s mixing up the words inspired by and stealing together where it is making him look like a total douche. Borderlands is not all that great and not worthy of ‘stealing’. I loved my first playthrough, couldn’t get through the second because the joy I found in the first just wasn’t there anymore. Now a game like Diablo, which is where alot of Borderlands ‘steals’ ideas from, is a game where I can keep playing and playing without getting tired of it. Same to the shooter aspect of Borderlands and which games it ‘steals’ from.
Okay, so short and to the point, the guy is a hypocrite.
he’s right though, and you would have to be pretty ignorant to say that every game being released is ‘unique’ and ‘different’ from another game in the same genre. most developers only add 1 or 2 differentiating features that barely make their games appealing within the genre their game is based in.
and how does borderlands steal from diablo when all it did was take inspiration from the loot system diablo has, think before talking random bs.
Am I the only one who feels Dead Island copied a lot of the structure of Borderlands? Open world, tons of variable loot, similar quest structure, choosing one of four characters, co-op, choosing out of three categories of upgrades? It’s the same thing, except with more zombies and the graphics aren’t comic-bookish.
I agree completely.
What about rage. To me, it seems similar to borderlands.
how was is similar when the visuals and audio where different, narrative and game world where completely different. not to mention borderlands was a FPS ARPG and rage is only a FPS, plus rage didn’t even have deep RPG elements and borderlands didn’t have vehicle upgrades or races for vehicles.
so sick of everyone comparing something to another when they are miles away, just goes to show that gamers always judge prematurely and dont even play the game before passing the final verdict. it’s probably why a lot of games get trash scores b/c people are to f***ing lazy to try it out and instead just compare it to something ‘similar’ without bothering to see if it actually is like the compared game.
I beat borderlands and played through some of rage. I just thought they were similar because they both have an open world structure, they both use guns to shoot enemies, and you can use a vehicle to get around in the game world. however, I have not completed rage, yet.
so by that logic every game that has those features rips the other off?
not really. thats why I bought rage, because I thought it would be similar to borderlands. when I played rage somehow to me it felt familiar, guns, vehicles, and an open world, but it was different enough to keep me playing. I never completed rage though because other games came out and took up all my time.