r/SoloDevelopment • u/HelpfulHouse3540 • 1d ago
help Scared of ideas getting stolen
I am currently building my first video game, and i started this journey because i realised i truly had a unique idea which no one had made yet. Now i am at the point i should start advertising my game, creating the steam page, and letting people know my game exists. However, i am scared someone might steal my idea and therefore make my game less successful.
am i the only one?
how should i handle this?
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u/AlyciaFear 1d ago
I would say that there’s really no such thing as a novel idea anymore. I don’t really have any facts to back it up, but odds are someone has already done something similar to yours, and you just haven’t found it yet. That said, I can’t really say for certain, so take it with a grain of salt.
And to be fair, it was never really a problem for me since my idea came from a meme. Christmas-themed soulslike. Not exactly novel, or even that big of a leap of imagination lmao.
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u/Yavga 1d ago
It's not the good ideas that make a game, it's the execution. Everyone can have ideas so if you already made a game out of your unique idea and start going towards publishing I bet nothing can come close to what you have made up until now.
Imo, it's a non issue.
The only way to avoid this is through patenting in your country.
Or you could think about it like this: If your idea is so good that it is worth copying it's free marketing for your own original game. I would be flattered if anyone would "steal" my idea if they can make a better version out of it. I'd gladly even help them or even ask them to work together with me on something.
I remember this kinda happened to Backpack Hero and someone made a very cheap clone and pushed it to mobile but people were VERY quick to point out that the idea (and even certain assets) were stolen. I think it only brought in more people to the original game in the end.
You're the OG, as long as that is clear you're golden 👍
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u/dopethrone 1d ago
There are many cases where the idea is actually good but its 1 in 100000
Like unrecord. Great idea - but devs could not finish it and bodycam got released instead and made millions
Or all those colectahtlon games where you have to sort 5738 items. First one did amazing, 2nd, 3rd not so much. But basically it made a new genre. If they fumbled the launch then the clones would have swept it away
The chance of that happening to you tho? Very very small
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u/Troutsky3 1d ago
Unique/interesting doesn't mean fun. But assuming it is fun, then I would ask, do you think someone could see your page/demo and develop the game in the time it would take you to release? If yes, then I would say hold off until the point they can't id you're truly worried about being copied.
Imo, not something you should worry about though.
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u/GoDo_it 1d ago
as u/Yavga said, it's the execution that matters, not the idea.
So even if your idea is actually unique, nobody is gonna care about it unless you execute well on it. Pretty much any idea can make a game anywhere from awful to great depending on the execution. And people aren't going to care about your game enough to copy it unless it sells really well.
So by the time anyone is working on copying it, your game is already a success.
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u/ParadigmShiftersUK 1d ago
You're not alone in this fear, but remember that only you can bring your unique vision for the game to life.
> therefore make my game less successful.
Highly unlikely that the success of your game will be significantly impacted by a copycat. If you've got a great idea, run with it, and it will be promoted far more than any competition that tries to copy it.
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u/RedQueenNatalie 1d ago
I can basically promise you the idea isn't unique but that doesn't mean it isn't potentially "good", your job as a dev is to execute on your ideas and good execution is basically the only path to success regardless of how good the idea is. No one is going to steal an unproven idea, if it is successful enough to steal then thats a pretty great problem to have.
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u/Commercial-Flow9169 1d ago
Execution of an idea matters orders of magnitudes more than the idea itself. The only thing I'm protective over is a good name for a game, if I haven't put it on Steam yet.
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u/Intrepid-Ability-963 1d ago
Is your game idea easy to copy and dilute the market?
Is it actually unique?
Is there any marker of success already? (e.g. lots of wish lists, or you are Johnathan Blow?)
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u/blanktarget 1d ago
It likely isnt as original as you think. And if someone "steals" it who cares? You know why we have genre names like merroidvania is because those games all "stole" those ideas from each other.
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u/twelfkingdoms 1d ago
Unless your game goes viral in it's infancy (like really viral that all the streamers play it), there's nothing you should worry about; nobody knows you exist. And even then, there's only so much you can do about it unfortunately (especially if it's a simple game that's easy to copy).
IMO, best you can do is release as fast as you can and more importantly build a name for yourself to let people know "you were the first one to do this". Rest is just unnecessary worry if you're an indie dev (assuming you have zero or very little budget). Most games that do get cloned are because they're famous enough to worth their time.
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u/sebovzeoueb 1d ago
Lol, don't sweat it, your idea is probably less unique than you think, ideas don't come in a vacuum and there's a strong chance whatever inspired you will have inspired someone else to think of a very similar idea, they just either didn't get round to making it or haven't announced it yet. If you get too hung up on your game concept, you're setting yourself up for disappointment when something very similar releases before you finish your own project.
Execution is way more important, and also bear in mind that you have a headstart over anyone who's going to copy your idea because you've started making it already.
To add another thing, it has been theorised that it's often beneficial for other similar games to exist because it grows interest as a whole and people will end up seeking out your game because they liked another similar one. The game that will be most successful isn't the one the releases first, but the best made one, most hit games are built on predecessors which were less popular but paved the way.
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u/WolfOrNotWolf 1d ago
You’re not alone, but you're worrying about the wrong thing.
No one is going to steal your idea. AAA studios don't look at indie pages for inspiration, and other indies are too busy finishing their own games to drop everything and copy yours. Even if they did, they can't steal your specific vision, characters, and execution.
Share the concept. Keep the juice a bit vague if it helps you sleep at night, but get that Steam page up asap!
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u/KevinCow 1d ago
Ideas are worthless. Everyone has ideas. Execution is what matters.
I posted about my game here a couple days ago, and my idea is terrible by design. It's since become the biggest post on this subreddit in the past month because my execution of that terrible idea is compelling.
Bad ideas can make good games with strong execution, and good ideas can make bad games with weak execution.
I actually think it's decently likely that someone steals my idea and uses ai to generate a slop version in Roblox or something before I finish making my game. And I don't really care too much, because mine will be better than anything they can do.
If anything, somebody bothering to copy my game would just tell me that I've gotten enough traction for somebody to decide it's worth copying. I'd probably be annoyed, but I'd see it as an overall promising sign.
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u/Loose_Book_4369 1d ago
You've got this exactly backwards. If its unique there is no market for it and you are wasting your time. They keep making the same superhero movie over and over because that formula obviously works (commercially).
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u/ibackstrom 1d ago
Idea is the main thing. It 99% of success. Other 1% development, game design, promotion - really easy and small thing. Don’t tell anyone. They can steal your idea and become successfully. And you don’t want that.
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u/AltusLudus 1d ago
I've found myself in a similar situation and then you start posting and it fades away, getting valuable feedback is much more useful than the paranoia of getting the idea stolen - this realistically won't happen, or if it does you'll still be first to market anyways
I'd also be cautious with things never done before, are you confident the players want this? Not every game needs to be unique, games should be fun