I think the success of Aveyond is a step in the right direction. Hopefully it will pave the way for other games like mine.

There is nothing new about cloning in the game industry. Look at the A-list game charts and you see mostly gussied-up clones.

Good new ideas are rare for a reason, in every art.

I’d love for the casual games industry to have the same feel as the dōjinshi industry. At the aveyond forums amanda doesn’t seem to have a problem with people using/making fanworks of aveyond characters.

Alot of casual games are more theme than interaction. If you made a fangame using that games name/theme/characters then you’ve pretty much copied the entire game. So instead the mechanic is copied and the theme/graphics are changed.

To start answering the questions instead of rambling like a fool:

“Is dōjinshi hurting the mainstream manga market, or does it help?”

I don’t think it hurts. It might help a little if theres lots of dōjinshi about a specific manga, it might draw attention to that manga to see what all the buzz is about. There’s only a problem if people mistake the dōjinshi for the real deal.

“And how does this apply to us? Are our cultures so vastly different that what would help one would ultimately hurt the other?”

I don’t think this applies to us too well for some of the reasons I stated before. As for different cultures, I remember being warned alot in art class about not drawing Disney characters and such, or at least if you do don’t make it in a public place, painting, mural on a building ect. (and good luck with obtaining permissions for large corporations).

“Without any real proof, can we be sure Casual Game copycatting is actually causing any harm at all? Perhaps the clones create and support a market that otherwise wouldn’t have the stamina to survive. Is this a necessary crutch for a burgeoning industry, or is it a disease destined to rot its core?”

I don’t think the clones are supporting a market. I feel as if they’re fighting for an existing one. I have doubts that someone owns bejeweled and then turns around and buys a game that is bejeweled with a different theme. I have a feeling the clone’s sales most likely come from jim-bob who’s never played bejeweled. People who buy variantx probably wont buy varianty, so for each new variant the market share for that game-type(match-3’s) is split further meaning lower income for the developers. Then again thats just all feelings/heresay and no facts at all. What do I know, i’m just some random guy who reads your blog and hasn’t finished a game of his own yet.

Clones do bring incremental improvements to gameplay… sometimes. Which helps the industry at a wicked slow pace. I think it could be better by doing more than just re-skinning everything. But for now, thats the percieved path of least resistance towards money.

P.S. I gotta lay off the using the slash/slashes.