Our greatest creations come from borrowing, plagiarizing, and reshaping

The title comes from a TED talk by Kirby Ferguson, a producer living in New York, titled "Creativity Is a Remix." "Nothing is original. All innovation comes from remixing. From Bob Dylan to Steve Jobs, our greatest creations come from borrowing, plagiarizing and changing their appearance." He said so.

Shanzhai and plagiarism have always been hot topics in the gaming industry. Once a typical example of the industry is caught, the whole world will come to step on it. "Shameless copycats" may be one of the few topics that can bring countless camps of the gaming industry to the same side. Whether the flag-wavers are motivated by an instinctive desire to protect their original works or by the pleasure of standing on the side of values, criticizing Shanzhai and plagiarism is the first reaction of most of us when facing imitations - sometimes even an extreme reaction. When we see any familiar gameplay, art style or even color matching, we start to sigh "It's plagiarism of XXX again" and "The domestic team really only knows how to copy"...

There is a logic behind the mainstream voice, that is, originality is justice, and creation from scratch has a natural superiority. They assume that all the conveniences we enjoy and all the beauty we appreciate come from the unique creation of some great minds - and our recognition and compensation for all this is the reward for creation. Therefore, plagiarism is almost equivalent to stealing, and it is an attempt to take other people's wealth and glory for one's own use.

However, the "creation" of human society is completely different from what most people imagine. Simple mutations from zero to one rarely exist, and most of human creations come from the accumulation, reorganization and transformation of countless knowledge in a long history.

Many game designers I know have a set of D&D's three treasures on their workbench, not necessarily for work needs, but more out of love, tribute and commemoration. Today, no one can deny that the D&D rules have deeply influenced RPG games and have a deep affinity with Western fantasy literature such as Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth". - This is a more decent description. In fact, this is a disguised "plagiarism", and the author also directly wrote the names of these literary masters in the list of thanks for the first edition of the rule book.

Obviously, game designers love D&D not because they admire it as a "great plagiarist", but because they regard it as a creation with great vitality. This is not because they are not clear about the historical evolution (on the contrary, this group of people are very familiar with the development history of RPG). It is precisely because they know the reasons that they appreciate the wonders of mixed creation. No one can reinvent the square and the circle - great creators never aim to do so. The reason why they can create excellent works is because they have a deep understanding of the past and a deep understanding of the present era.

Whether it is Newtonian physics, calculus, or the iPhone and Final Fantasy, no great original work is "completely original". On the contrary, it is precisely because their creators have cleverly organized and used a large amount of knowledge and creations that have long existed in the world that every ordinary person can feel its sophistication and convenience, generate intellectual resonance and emotional projection.

The actual creative process is less like the legendary flash of inspiration, but more like constant experimentation, mixing and matching, and feeling.

The plagiarism that disgusts us is usually not because they use the ideas that others have used, but because they are stupid or lazy. The result of not thinking is rigid copying, which can only produce poor results. For example, the magical domestic animation "Cars". I believe that even those who have not seen Pixar animation can feel that this domestic animation is insincere, because it is really ugly... I can't help but post a picture to disgust you.

On the contrary, few people say that Monument Valley "shamelessly plagiarized" The Corridor. The two games have some similarities in gameplay, but in many other aspects, they don't have much in common. Monument Valley has simple operations, beautiful appearance, fresh game temperament and a very short process... These seemingly random features are actually the result of the production team's careful thinking. The finished product of these characteristics is simply tailor-made for users of mobile platforms. Shouldn't this kind of thinking and creative process also be considered a kind of creation?

In fact, among the games we like, how many of them use purely original gameplay? Commercial games will avoid those particularly novel attempts for risk avoidance; even for independent games, if the focus of expression is not on the game mechanism, then adopting a non-novel mechanism and focusing on other aspects is also a common choice.

It is difficult to be a truly excellent "plagiarist". Such creators are generally knowledgeable, insightful and have excellent skills in their professional fields. Nowadays, the market is full of inferior knockoffs. From a certain perspective, it is not because the Chinese are good at knockoffs, but because their ability to absorb and digest is too weak, and they have no ability (or willingness) to make more satisfactory things.

I am not writing this article to justify copying and plagiarism, but to say that the best way to improve originality is not to call for a stronger copyright law, but to read more and learn more, increase your knowledge in various fields, think seriously, and create honestly. Strong originality is not only due to intelligence, but also due to having seen a lot after doing it for a long time.