Star Trucker on Nintendo Switch (Space Truck Simulator)

[Stroller]

Just came across this one:

https://www.nintendo.com/en-ca/store/products/space-truck-simulator-switch/

Is this related to Star Trucker in any other way than beeing a (very obvious) clone of Star Trucker?

[AoFA | FightDrug *-* [GER]]

Looks like a cheap copy

[Stroller]

Originally posted by AoFA | FightDrug *-* GER:

Looks like a cheap copy :stradio:

Yea, had the same toutgh. I'm wondering if this is legal? I mean... even the missions board looks like it was taken straight from Star Trucker

[AoFA | FightDrug *-* [GER]]

Originally posted by Stroller:

Originally posted by AoFA | FightDrug *-* GER:

Looks like a cheap copy

Yea, had the same toutgh. I'm wondering if this is legal? I mean... even the missions board looks like it was taken straight from Star Trucker

I guess not as long it dont take trademark functions

[deltahazer]

Originally posted by AoFA | FightDrug *-* GER:

Originally posted by Stroller:

Yea, had the same toutgh. I'm wondering if this is legal? I mean... even the missions board looks like it was taken straight from Star Trucker

I guess not as long it dont take trademark functions :harveyastonished:

Runs on the legal side of the "grey area," but only just barely. As long as they use their own textures, entity names, and change up the models enough that they aren't clearly direct copy-n-paste they'll probably get away with it. Doubly so if M&M and Raw Fury don't intend to publish ST to the Switch, as a lawsuit against this knockoff would probably cost them a sizable chunk of cash.

If they have ever publicly stated that they don't intend to ever publish to the Switch, then all this knockoff would need to cover their butts would be a line about "Inspired by the PC & console game Star Trucker" etc.

[FDR'sThinkTank]

If I was Star Trucker, I wouldn't be concerned with a real knock-off. The question is did they steal the underlying code from Star Trucker, or did they make their own doppleganger from scratch.

If this company really just copied the things Star Trucker did with their game, I don't really see any specific element that Star Trucker was "first to market" on, considering there are many star-faring games that had cargo trading long before Star Trucker... and there are plenty of Trucking Simulators that also pre-existed Star Trucker and inspired most of the game systems it uses.

The fact that Space Truck appears to have directly ripped off the style and even promotional material is probably not worth pursuing in court alone.

The way coding is done these days, you can assemble it hiring work out to Fiver... and eventually it's highly likely A.I. will be able to perform many codiing tasks and brute force most of the coding work, eliminating the ability for people to prove who coded what.

What really surprises me about this Switch knock off is how ugly it is. It's strange they wouldn't try to side swipe at this game by making more Truck models for the player to choose from, rather than what they did, which involves deceptive box art and a really strange version of what the art design team for this game chose.

The best way to do a knock off of this game is to give players more trucks to choose from, rather than focusing on external customization of one. That way, even if they are all ugly, you have the argument of choice AND transformative concept.

Note the cockpit in that game: it doesn't have any normal truck features... it looks like a generic space cockpit that doesn't even align with the aesthetic of the truck itself. That's why most of the game footage was done in 3rd Person view of the truck.

One thing I will note here is that it appears the player can access the Job board from their cockpit at ANY time, rather than needing to specifically dock in game, since the console has a job board listing feature built in. This is something I would love to see in Star Trucker, even if it's a upgrade you purchase in game and/or need to spend skill points to unlock. The ability to get jobs without docking with a job board station would be neat. I could see even see the player needing to do special jobs to unlock job board encryption codes for each sector or even each individual system. I bet Space Truck Simulator merely did it that way because they didn't want to bother coding Job Board Docking out of laziness, rather than a game design philosophy.

[.s:u:l:t:a:n.]

Found that game today and the resemblance to Star Trucker is so shockingly close that I thought it was a "light" version of Star Trucker for mobile phones, developed by the same people. The design of everything is copied from Star Trucker!
The whole back catalogue (https://www.nintendo.com/us/search/#cat=gme&f=softwarePublisher&softwarePublisher=Testagamercreations) of "Testagamercreations" is a copy of already existing games, imitating the design of other titles.

I am naming just SOME of them:
Shark Attack = Maneater
Offroad Truck 4x4 Dirt Simulator = Expeditions - a MudRunner Game
Banana Clicker = Banana
Body Cam Shooter = Bodycam
Need for Drive = this is the best one, just lol!

[Unicorn]

Now, imagine Mareo Bros a 'legallly distinct' platformer starring a mustache'd plumber hopping around fungi kingdom... how fast Nintendo would act on that...

[deltahazer]

Originally posted by Unicorn:

Now, imagine Mareo Bros a 'legallly distinct' platformer starring a mustache'd plumber hopping around fungi kingdom... how fast Nintendo would act on that...

Yeah, but they've got the cash to burn on chasing down such knockoffs if they want to. Raw Fury (ST's publisher" probably doesn't, and for darn sure Monster & Monster (the developers) can't front the cash either.

[Unicorn]

Originally posted by deltahazer:

Originally posted by Unicorn:

Now, imagine Mareo Bros a 'legallly distinct' platformer starring a mustache'd plumber hopping around fungi kingdom... how fast Nintendo would act on that...

Yeah, but they've got the cash to burn on chasing down such knockoffs if they want to. Raw Fury (ST's publisher" probably doesn't, and for darn sure Monster & Monster (the developers) can't front the cash either.

My point is that Nintendo approves what gets listed on the eshop and their quality control for the entirety of the Switch's life has been absent.

[deltahazer]

Originally posted by Unicorn:

Originally posted by deltahazer:

Yeah, but they've got the cash to burn on chasing down such knockoffs if they want to. Raw Fury (ST's publisher" probably doesn't, and for darn sure Monster & Monster (the developers) can't front the cash either.

My point is that Nintendo approves what gets listed on the eshop and their quality control for the entirety of the Switch's life has been absent.

If by "quality control" you mean trying to guarantee that nobody publishes knock-off games to their platform, you might be correct-- or it might be that it just isn't perfect and what we see is what gets through the cracks. Can't really know without being on the inside ourselves. {shrug} Unless there's a clearly mandated legal responsibility for them to prevent such things going on the shop themselves, the company probably just files it all under "Let the buyer beware" and calls it a day.