my "dream" has been shattered

[Runesong42]

Hey all,
So I started a campaign about 2 years ago. It was a solo campaign, just me and a friend. Very RP intensive, and the setting was pretty much a build-as-we-go scenario. The friend and I had a falling out, and we parted ways for about a year.

During that year, I had thought up more to add to the campaign as a whole, hoping that one day we would hang out again and we'd pick up where we left off. I had dreams of publishing my work as a novel, or perhaps a cartoon, or a comic strip, or even submitting a script to a video game company, and so the campaign created itself in my head.

Sure enough, the friend and I reunited, and I began preparing my work. Soon, once we began play and finished what we started, I could start work on finalizing it into some kind of published work.

Then, I bought a video game.

I began playing and was very pleased with it. It had anime style, combined with a great music, colorful imagery, and a plot that was pretty solid.

And then I started noticing things. Like the plot's focus was very similar to what I had in mind for my adventure. Like the fact that the same races I use in my game were present, and were working towards the same goals as in my campaign. Like elements used to create the setting of the game were the same elements I was using to create mine. Heck, even the cast of characters bore a strong resemblance to my own.

In short, I feel like someone put out my game before I did. Now, I feel as though if I went though the effort, it would be wasted, as someone already has a very similar product to my own.

Now, to be fair, the same elements have been used in other video games before, but it just so happens that the combination of elements in *this* video game happen to coincide with(and in many cases, duplicate) the elements I planned on using for my campaign.

I guess it shoudn't discourage me, but it really irks me all the same.

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

 

[Mouseferatu]

Frequently.

While I've rarely seen a product come out that was "exactly" the same thing I was planning, I've had to shelve numerous ideas for settings/adventures/supplements because something beat me to market that was close enough, on the most salient details, that there was no way to make mine seem anything other than derivative.

 

[Thundering_Dragon]

My father wrote a series of chords that he eventually heard on a top forty hit, to which his response was more or less "that's my song!". It happens. Two people invented the telephone at virtually the same time, for example. It lends credence to the idea that forces of inspiration or invention are there to be tapped into at certain time intervals, and that's what man is doing when he "creates".

 

[arwink]

At least twice in the last six months, and probably about a dozen times in the last three or four years.

 

[cmanos]

My father wrote a series of chords that he eventually heard on a top forty hit, to which his response was more or less "that's my song!".

Pretty much every chord progression and musical melody has been written before in classical music.

And as such, I think there are only like 9 actual literary plots.

Everything else is variations on a theme. Things may not be exactly as you dreamed, but thats what artistic interpretation is for.

Only goes to show, if you have an idea, get it copywritten. I'm going to get my comic book (C)'d very very soon, ntothat it will EVER see the light of a newsstand.

 

[Belen]

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

Sure. I worked for a d20 company from August 2001 until February 2003. They had me bring my campaign world into the fold and we were well on our way to publishing it. Then, the owner of the company closed shop one day. We found out that he had taken all of the material and sold it to another d20 company. He got paid well for the material and we got nothing.

About 8 months later, I watched as my material was published. No credit was given to me or any of the others who worked on the project. Not much had been changed.

It sucked.

 

[ZeroGlobal2003]

And that is why I feel uncomfortable working for PDF publishers. I'm working with one at the moment and everythings been fine, but they tend to be hobbist based "businesses" with little in the way of paper work.

If you had any kind of contract you need to scan it and send a copy to that company stating your grievence, he has commited theft. If there was no contract then its your loss.

Zero

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Happens about once a week to me, too. That's why I never get too horribly attached to gaming ideas.

When it comes to creative fiction of any type, here's something to hold on to:

EVERYBODY has ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Thousands of people across the country have great ideas every single day. What makes a writer is not that they have great ideas ... I know quite a few writers who don't have all that many great ideas at all ... what makes the writer is being able to DO the idea, to perform the production of the text, to have the cojones and dedication to actually see the idea into physical form, get an editor interested in it, get it accepted, deal with the editing process, and have it produced.

I'm still trying to move from the idea stage, myself. Can't see anything to completion.

--fje

 

[Mystery Man]

"Art is dead! There's nothing left to say. Style is exhausted and content is pointless. Art has no purpose. All that's left is commodity marketing." - Calvin and Hobbes.

Wish I could find the actual strip online somewhere. That particular one is a classic.

 

[JimAde]

The great thing about RPGs (as opposed to, say, writing novels) is that things don't turn out quite as planned. There's always at least one other creative input: the player(s). So I say go ahead with your game. Although your plan may be very similar to the video game you've seen, I predict the end result will be memorably different.

And yes, people psychically steal my ideas all the time. Gotta get a tinfoil hat.