Side-by-side comparison of Plague Inc and Pandemic 2 (2008 flash game).

[Threnix]

Screenshots: Plague Inc on the left, Pandemic 2 on the right (click links below).

1. North America [postimg.org]

2. Africa/Asia [postimg.org]

3. Disease customization [postimg.org]

4. Region demographic screen [postimg.org]

[Crackermachine]

Pandemic 2, vs this and you are crying. This is an awesome genre and and awesome game. Go cry about the SSDD that zombie games are milking before this ♥♥♥♥. This game is awesome

[Threnix]

Messaggio originale di RiftWalker:

there's a few thing going on how patents are there to ensure people want to work, but they don't understand that you can't patent a universal system, you can't patent the one-ness of the number one, and you can't patent what makes a pandemic game a pandemic game. that sort of patenting simply stops people from allowing to make their own inovations in the field.

to explain, you can't patent gasoline, but you can patent the device that can make gasoline. in other words you can't really patent a game, just the parts that make your specific game, like your logo, etc or the parts used to make your game(which are most likely patented by someone else and sold/is letting you use it).

allowing the patententing of these simply lowers competition, and does not protect the creators efforts.

another example of this was the automobile. It was patented so only people who paid the owner of said patent were allowed to create one. that meant anythign with 4 wheels and a combustion engine, regardless of how the engine worked or what the wheels were made of. This was struck down in a law suit where Ford motors tried to make cars on their own(before they were big, it was an underdog taking on a giant). This of course can be taken as a metaphore, if the (game)engine is made uniquely from the original then it is its own device seperate from the other, even if the function/look(apart from brand recognition) is exactly the same.

(mind you i'm purposefully ignoring the differences between trade marks, copy-right and patents)

I think you are absolutely right that it wasn't illegal, but that doesn't mean it was ethical. It was never confirmed that Vanilla Ice (see: 1:48) ever paid a dime to the members of Queen (lol Zep).

There are many arguments against patenting, but ultimately it helps to ensure that the creator of a successful idea is justly rewarded. Litigation is a drain on creatives, and the system is slow and imperfect, but without it, there is less incentive for larger innovation in favor of smaller, "safer" ideas.

Messaggio originale di Noesanity:

pandemic 2 can't be patented either, due to the fact that it was stolen in both name and concept from Pandemic the board game.

The concept of the Pandemic board game is to prevent the spread of plague. They have zero control over the disease itself, and have a completely different set of abilities and motivations. I'd say that those are pretty significant conceptual differences.

In addition, the Pandemic board game was published in 2008, the same year that the flash game sequel Pandemic 2 was released, so it doesn't appear that the name was stolen either. If anything, it was stolen by the board game.

[Riftwalker]

Messaggio originale di Supplysidejesus:

I think you are absolutely right that it wasn't illegal, but that doesn't mean it was ethical. It was never confirmed that Vanilla Ice (see: 1:48) ever paid a dime to the members of Queen (lol Zep).

There are many arguments against patenting, but ultimately it helps to ensure that the creator of a successful idea is justly rewarded. Litigation is a drain on creatives, and the system is slow and imperfect, but without it, there is less incentive for larger innovation in favor of smaller, "safer" ideas.

The concept of the Pandemic board game is to prevent the spread of plague. They have zero control over the disease itself, and have a completely different set of abilities and motivations. I'd say that those are pretty significant conceptual differences.

In addition, the Pandemic board game was published in 2008, the same year that the flash game sequel Pandemic 2 was released, so it doesn't appear that the name was stolen either. If anything, it was stolen by the board game.

Messaggio originale di Noesanity:

pandemic 2 can't be patented either, due to the fact that it was stolen in both name and concept from Pandemic the board game.

I'll kill two birds with one stone, first of all, you don't copy right words, you can only press claims agaisnt titles that are in the same general industry to avoid brand confusion. for instance i could make a video game called Walmart if it had absolutely nothing to do with the store.

Also, my point was it's completely Ethical and that there is a clear line between this and normal patenting. You can't Patent an object or idea such as gasoline or a automobile. You can CopyRight a specific Engine but not the whole car(as the engine alone is useless). when you do that, it creates a corrupt system that monopolizes anything useful keeping it from progressing.

as such, it is more ethical to let game developers create games around these systems that people think are copies/stealing. a single person can not own an idea, so it is impossible to have stolen it from him.

this basically has it's root in programming, which is what i am skilled in. You can't patent a specific way to program as there are a finite ways one can program the same thing. if say a Queue object was patented, any system that used a Queue would have to pay it's owner. in these instances, the creator is not entitled to the work of others, as the patent simply steals the work of others instead of making someone got their just rewards.

for instance, imagine if someone had a patent on some chemical common in food, even natural, like sugar(like the first discoverer was able to patent it or something). he could potentially charge even farmers for their growth of apples/crop, not the selling but the growth of them. in these kinds of situations, patents simply apply unneeded pressure on the economy.


after some additional thought, i believe the best way to describe this specific occurance, is you can't patent a function. if the internal systems are different but does the same thing, then it is it's own object. This allows for more effecient systems to be created (translating to funner games).

[Wolfen]

Thanks for the graphics. Right, the original maps was even more detailed. I guess i will search the homepage of Pandemic 2 and donate 5 bucks, thats better invested.

[Casual Pheasant]

Call of Duty <---> Battlefield... just throwing this out, so you whiney no-lifers can see how futile your ♥♥♥♥♥-whining is...

[special_snowcat]

Messaggio originale di Supplysidejesus:

In addition, the Pandemic board game was published in 2008, the same year that the flash game sequel Pandemic 2 was released, so it doesn't appear that the name was stolen either. If anything, it was stolen by the board game.

Yeah, having played the original Pandemic I can't imagine they stole that anywhere. It had a total of eight regions, with India being in "East Europe" etc. It was not a very sophisticated game. Pandemic 2 has more regions (about 20? a lot less than Plague Inc) but still has things like airports in the middle of nowhere because they just put some icons on the map. That's actually pretty obvious in the Africa screenshot, e.g. the airport in South Africa is in a very sparsely populated area in South Africa and the port is in a nature park in Namibia, whereas Plague Inc has South Africa as a separate region and the airport is near Johannesburg and the port is near Cape Town, which makes a bit more sense.

[Elethio]

Its worse than what you think, someone's even copied the name Pandemic and used it for a board game !!!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/playing-pandemic-the-board-game-11073768/

Not only that but I was looking through the oxford English dictionary and they've stolen the word Pandemic too !!

But on a serious note, the boardgame above ^ is a nice twist on his theme, when you want a break from playing Plague try the board game with a few friends (or on your own but its harder) the objective is to STOP a pandemic occurring and you play on the same team as your friends all trying to help each other against the game (the virus).
I've played it a few times and its a lot of fun.

[Dipnderps]

Messaggio originale di Elethio "China" Burton:

Its worse than what you think, someone's even copied the name Pandemic and used it for a board game !!!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/playing-pandemic-the-board-game-11073768/

Not only that but I was looking through the oxford English dictionary and they've stolen the word Pandemic too !!

But on a serious note, the boardgame above ^ is a nice twist on his theme, when you want a break from playing Plague try the board game with a few friends (or on your own but its harder) the objective is to STOP a pandemic occurring and you play on the same team as your friends all trying to help each other against the game (the virus).
I've played it a few times and its a lot of fun.

this sounds like something Table Flip should play (game grumps) id like to see a round played before trying myself

[[GRVTS]Fat Bastard]

Messaggio originale di Dipnderps:

Messaggio originale di Elethio "China" Burton:

Its worse than what you think, someone's even copied the name Pandemic and used it for a board game !!!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/playing-pandemic-the-board-game-11073768/

Not only that but I was looking through the oxford English dictionary and they've stolen the word Pandemic too !!

But on a serious note, the boardgame above ^ is a nice twist on his theme, when you want a break from playing Plague try the board game with a few friends (or on your own but its harder) the objective is to STOP a pandemic occurring and you play on the same team as your friends all trying to help each other against the game (the virus).
I've played it a few times and its a lot of fun.

this sounds like something Table Flip should play (game grumps) id like to see a round played before trying myself

Well actually the boardgame was first and the free flash game pandemic 2 was the copy. They got sued by the makers of the board game btw.

[Dipnderps]

Messaggio originale di GRVTSSlaggedfire:

Messaggio originale di Dipnderps:

this sounds like something Table Flip should play (game grumps) id like to see a round played before trying myself

Well actually the boardgame was first and the free flash game pandemic 2 was the copy. They got sued by the makers of the board game btw.

so then Pandemic 2 was meant to be an unofficial flash game sequil to the original boards game?

[Metal Izanagi]

Messaggio originale di Dipnderps:

Messaggio originale di GRVTSSlaggedfire:

Well actually the boardgame was first and the free flash game pandemic 2 was the copy. They got sued by the makers of the board game btw.

so then Pandemic 2 was meant to be an unofficial flash game sequil to the original boards game?

From what I can tell, they came out around the same time. Neither stole anything from the other, and anyone with a lick of sense knows that Plague Inc. hasn't "stolen" a damn thing from Pandemic 2. There's a difference between stealing and taking inspiration from something. Plague Inc. falls into the latter category. If you feel so strongly about this, go message Steam Support, and tell them that you think a game on their store, Plague Inc.: Evolved is guilty of plagiarism. Feel free to screencap the support rep laughing at you, and closing your support request.

[special_snowcat]

Messaggio originale di Metal Izanagi:

From what I can tell, they came out around the same time.

There actually was a Pandemic 1 flash game (just called "Pandemic") that came out in 2007, before the board game (2008). Of course they have nothing in common at all, they just both use a common word for their name that was in the news all the time because of SARS and H5N1 bird flu.

Neither stole anything from the other, and anyone with a lick of sense knows that Plague Inc. hasn't "stolen" a damn thing from Pandemic 2. There's a difference between stealing and taking inspiration from something. Plague Inc. falls into the latter category.

Having played Pandemic 1, 2, and 2.5 (the mobile port of 2 which did not really add anything beyond the ability to run on an iPhone) as well as Plague Inc from when it came out on mobile, it's completely beyond me how anyone can think of these games as equals. Pandemic was there first, but when Plague Inc came out in 2012, it was a superior game by leaps and bounds even without the features that have been added since then.

OP's screenshots are actually a bit misleading. The region borders in Africa have somehow become invisible (they're there on the store screenshot), the disease customization shots only show symptoms and not the other two skill trees, etc. So what remains is that you can see that two games that take place in the real world have similar shaped continents...

[Threnix]

Messaggio originale di some danny:

OP's screenshots are actually a bit misleading. The region borders in Africa have somehow become invisible (they're there on the store screenshot), the disease customization shots only show symptoms and not the other two skill trees, etc. So what remains is that you can see that two games that take place in the real world have similar shaped continents...

I pulled the screens from the dev site, not steam, thus the differences. No intention to mislead, of course.

What's your comparison of the icons and port placement on the maps, and what's your comparison of the elements of gameplay?

Thanks, by the way, for your respectful post.

[special_snowcat]

Messaggio originale di Supplysidejesus:

What's your comparison of the icons and port placement on the maps

For starters, Plague Inc doesn't have icons for water plants and hospitals on the map because these work differently.

Airports and ports seem to be loosely inspired by where big airports and ports are in the real world. For example, it makes sense to have an airport in the middle of South Africa because that's where the busiest airport of Africa is (Johannesburg). It makes sense to have a port near Perth in Australia, it makes sense to have an airport near Delhi, or a port or airport near where Hong Kong or Tokyo are, etc.

Plague Inc is a bit more constrained because it has more regions. For example, the islands between Australia and China are three regions in Plague Inc but only one in P2. So they need their own ports in Plague Inc, or you wouldn't be able to infect them. Or P2 doesn't actually have a seaport in China, because its China region is larger and they just put it somewhere else.

The only similarity I find odd is that both games chose to put an airport in the middle of Saudi Arabia (in Plague Inc, it's at least near where Riyadh is) and a port a bit to the South of where you'd expect it. Dubai (UAE) has one of the busiest airports in the world and one of the biggest container ports. But neither game put the icons there. Maybe both didn't want to obscure the Strait of Hormuz, and Plague Inc does have less freedom again because Saudi Arabia is its own region that doesn't include the rest of the Middle East like in P2, but it's still odd. But since it's only one thing that's odd, I'd treat it as a coincidence.

Messaggio originale di Supplysidejesus:

what's your comparison of the elements of gameplay?

Obviously, in both games you play a disease and try to infect and exterminate humanity by evolving the disease, while humanity will eventually detect it and try to develop a cure.

Plague Inc is more active. It starts when you choose the country where you start playing (because you don't get to do that in P2). You get more direct feedback, and you have to click on bubbles to get DNA points or prevent humans from researching even faster. It feels a lot better than watching P2's mostly green world for a long time until everything turns orange rapidly and you just hope no region stays green. Plague Inc makes you acknowledge each new country that gets infected, and there's always something happening on the map somewhere that's not just background noise, even if it's only a red dot that shows you someone's getting infected somewhere. There also are random events that affect gameplay, and your disease randomly mutates as it spreads.

The biggest difference for me as far as gameplay is concerned is that Plague Inc has proper skill trees for transmissions, abilities, and symptoms. In P2 you can basically buy them randomly; in Plague Inc it's closer to actually evolving your disease because you develop it along paths. The most visible example of this is transmissions. In P2 you have four buttons that let you buy transmission via rodents, insects, water, and air, and that's basically it. In Plague Inc you have a complete separate skill tree that doesn't only start with more paths than these four but they're also grouped in a way that if you buy all transmissions in one group, you unlock an ultimate one. Something similar goes for abilities and symptoms.

There are more different disease types, and they change gameplay more significantly. For example, funguses spread slowly but can infect random countries, nano viruses are known to humanity from the start, bioweapons become more lethal as time progresses, and so on, and all have their own abilities. The two disease types that are only in the mobile version at this point even have completely different skill trees in every way, and e.g. the necroa virus goes as far as changing the game into a zombie game when (if) you evolve the symptom that turns the dead into zombies, to a point where you raise zombie hordes in one region and send them to another and try to be one step ahead of Z-Com.

Plague Inc is also much more of a progression game. Beating the game unlocks the next disease type. It also unlocks new genes that let you customize your diseases further when you start a game. There are achievements for beating the game in specific ways, and for finding hidden things like specific combinations of symptoms that have additional effects. There are more difficulty levels (four) and the game of course remembers the highest difficulty you beat the game on for each disease type.

Once scenarios are in, they will again provide significantly different gameplay. For example, in the mobile version, there are scenarios where you play as specific historical diseases (the black death, smallpox, swine flu) that each have their own abilities and naturally have symptoms you can't get rid of, and there are scenarios where the world changes in some way or another (temperatures, or rich and poor countries swapped, etc.)

[Hologramix]

If anything, you have just shown how much the Differ.
None of the images look even close.
It's like holding a picture of Michle Jackson in the 80's and then holding a picture of Him now!