Influence or Theft?

What do you say? Is a game ripping another off or do you take the opposite, more positive stance and say it is influenced? (this whole rant could go for any form of media really - books, music, movies, etc).

It's a respectful thing when a creator is confident enough to cite an influence. It shows respect for those properties and the fans. If someone has been interviewed about 10 timea at any length, and has never cited an influence, they are full of themselves or someone has it edited out. Maybe there is a person that takes care of finance, standing next to this creator/artist and whispering into his/her ear...

"Just leave that out. No need to admit anything. See it works like this, let fans who are ignorant of your influences, decide you are gifted for coming across these ideas on your own. Respect grows and will increase your value and standing in the long run. Then we reap the rewards! Capital!"

On the other hand, if you cite influences all the time, where does it end? Everyone rips everything off. Everyone is influenced by some predecessor in there certain art / trade. If you give credit to the previous, do you need to go back and give credit to the influence of the influence? Then it turns into an ass-kissing fest and you have no time to spread the word of your creation, which may be excellent in its own right. If every one pussy-footed around worrying about ripoffs, we would miss out on alot of good things. Falelorn posted a comparison of Hebert's classic Dune and how Starwars is heavily influenced by it. Most people love and respect both. Lucas doesn't come out everytime he speaks and say...."if it weren't for Dune, I'd be making a lesser living off my American Graffiti royalties! Hebert is GAWD!!!". Sometimes there are so many influences in your work, its difficult to cite them all. Then which influence gets left out?

People talk about how someone is "god" and "original, innovative", etc when they are heavily influenced, or getting most of their ideas from another. Calling "rip-off" is just as bad when the ripped off usually rips off someone else and what you think is original falls under that category as well.

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There should be certain amount of refinement or polish if your going to borrow ideas that have been done and done again. Ideally, a balance of innovation and refinement.

Perhaps if true original ideas were not such a "financial risk", things would not seem so recycled these days. This is one of the negatives of the growth of expensive new technology. The risk is higher due to tech expenses. So when it comes down to story and creativity...the safe bet is made over a new idea. A ton of money is being spent on games that offer nothing new. The more they repeatedly do whats been done, the more people expect perfection.

No doubt alot of innovative ideas get sqaushed for the safe bet. This is a huge reason why so many believe Nintendo's Wii is such a breath of fresh air. Some are willing to support anything that breaks the monotony even if it just promises to do so. That just screams the gaming audeince is tired of the the old formulas. Alot of which were not very good to begin with (see hollywood).