Something I thought about last night while backing things up on my laptop.
Forgot who said it....but the post was basically.....
'I could take a game, make a map for a game that's all about custom maps, addd in features and more released maps then release it and you (audiogamers) would go crazy and thank the people for it'
That...is what's called a total conversion or a mod. It's more common than you might think actually in gaming, indeed....lemme point something out....
Counter Strike? Started as a modification for Half Life
Half Life: Started out initially on the Quake engine
DOTA? Started life as a custom map in the Warraft 3 map editor. That idea sounds familiar of a custom map becoming its own thing...where did I hear that before.....oh, right, total conversions.
If a big Brazilian publisher picked up DM and publshed it (as Valve picked up many, MANY Half Life mods) then there wouldn't be an argument. As for people screaming stolen code....take a very long, hard research of China's culture. They either outright clone things...or, in the case of Segway, buy up the firm in question.
Just my $0.02
Oh one more thing, acccording to videogame attorneys, you cannot copyright concepts or ideas or area layouts. Systems, mechanics, yes, but not a concept of running around on a2d plane and jumping. Just wanted to put that myth to bed.
Oh and as for the paraphrased comment above: That speaks way more to the small state of audiogaming than anything else, people go crazy over any new release then the glitter wears off so to speak and they realize exactly what they are playing.. Hype happens across gaming, but for audiogaming the problem seems much, much bigger because there's less to choose from. I compare it to the early 70s/80s in gaming as a whole...and.....the sad fact is post-Pong, a ton of small developers were throwing titles out there in the US, and the US market got flooded with so many quickly made, awful titles the entire market took a nosedive.
Why do I say this? Well....because....well, right now audiogaming can very easily be compared to videogaming in its very early days. And if history has taught us anything...well....