It seems a lot of people aren't understanding the difference between hotlinking and hyperlinking. Perhaps this example will help illustrate it a little more...
Games.msn.com has a huge selection of flash games. When you click on one it opens up a popup window with the game, along with a little line in the flash saying who created it. Did MSN create? Is it by Zone? Neither. The game i checked (Mah jong) was created by a place called Gamehouse. I've never noticed this before and I play it often. I access it through MSNs site, so why even check? But in this case MSN bought the rights to the game and put it up on their own website AND webspace. THIS IS WHAT RESPONSIBLE COMPANIES DO. If in the MSN case they popped up the game, serving it as their own, while it was hosted by someone elses site I expect the real creators would have taken down the flash game and sued MSN.
Could he have contacted them? Of course! This guy does flash games for the fun of it though, not for profit. Although i'm sure it was flattering for Fuddrockers to hotlink his game, if he hadn't been checking his logs he wouldn't ever have known. They SHOULD have done one of the following things: 1) Link to the guys homepage with directions to the game (click on this link, then that link). 2) Contact this guy and workout a plan -- where to host the flash file, $$$, maybe creating a new landing page specifically for Fuddruckers, creating an edit of the flash file specifically for them, etc...
One more thing -- people keep commenting that by popping up a number of other peoples site this guy is as bad as Fuddruckers. Calling him a hypocrite (to me) proves you're not thinking this through. He is not HOTLINKING these sites images, he's LINKING to their sites. This can be insensitive if you know your site is huge and you're linking to a site with small resources (like when Slashdot links to sites and they go down). The massive drain on the slaughterhouse sites IS the slashdot affect the long way around. Slashdot -> FuddRuckers -> this guy -> (slow slaughterhouse sites). I'm not saying Slashdot is doing anything wrong either, they're just linking it's what they do, but if you want to place the blame, put it in the right place -- where the traffic is comming from.
According to Google and Dmoz, DDR is classified in the Music and Dance genre. The Dmoz structure changed about 2 years back though -- before then the genre was called "Rhythm and Dance".
I'd just call it/them "Music Games" myself though:)
Simply because there are other music games does not imply that this is a copy. There is even "Music Game" category on google/dmoz (in games/video_games. However, all of the games you've mentioned are entirely different. It's like comparing a first person shooter to a top down shooter. Just because you're killing stuff doesn't mean they're the same. Taiko, for instance, is a completely original game by Namco.
Maybe i'm being a little too critical here, but after playing multiple music games (ones that you actually need to use a new controller instead of the default playstation one) you get the feel of a new game. If the controller makes a difference between banging something with drums, playing a keyboard or dancing, thats enough of a change to be entirely different on it's own.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems a lot of people aren't understanding the difference between hotlinking and hyperlinking. Perhaps this example will help illustrate it a little more...
Games.msn.com has a huge selection of flash games. When you click on one it opens up a popup window with the game, along with a little line in the flash saying who created it. Did MSN create? Is it by Zone? Neither. The game i checked (Mah jong) was created by a place called Gamehouse. I've never noticed this before and I play it often. I access it through MSNs site, so why even check? But in this case MSN bought the rights to the game and put it up on their own website AND webspace. THIS IS WHAT RESPONSIBLE COMPANIES DO. If in the MSN case they popped up the game, serving it as their own, while it was hosted by someone elses site I expect the real creators would have taken down the flash game and sued MSN.
Could he have contacted them? Of course! This guy does flash games for the fun of it though, not for profit. Although i'm sure it was flattering for Fuddrockers to hotlink his game, if he hadn't been checking his logs he wouldn't ever have known. They SHOULD have done one of the following things:
1) Link to the guys homepage with directions to the game (click on this link, then that link).
2) Contact this guy and workout a plan -- where to host the flash file, $$$, maybe creating a new landing page specifically for Fuddruckers, creating an edit of the flash file specifically for them, etc...
One more thing -- people keep commenting that by popping up a number of other peoples site this guy is as bad as Fuddruckers. Calling him a hypocrite (to me) proves you're not thinking this through. He is not HOTLINKING these sites images, he's LINKING to their sites. This can be insensitive if you know your site is huge and you're linking to a site with small resources (like when Slashdot links to sites and they go down). The massive drain on the slaughterhouse sites IS the slashdot affect the long way around. Slashdot -> FuddRuckers -> this guy -> (slow slaughterhouse sites). I'm not saying Slashdot is doing anything wrong either, they're just linking it's what they do, but if you want to place the blame, put it in the right place -- where the traffic is comming from.
Maybe Fuddfuckers can forward their hatemail to Google too. ;)
According to Google and Dmoz, DDR is classified in the Music and Dance genre. The Dmoz structure changed about 2 years back though -- before then the genre was called "Rhythm and Dance". I'd just call it/them "Music Games" myself though :)
Simply because there are other music games does not imply that this is a copy. There is even "Music Game" category on google/dmoz (in games/video_games. However, all of the games you've mentioned are entirely different. It's like comparing a first person shooter to a top down shooter. Just because you're killing stuff doesn't mean they're the same. Taiko, for instance, is a completely original game by Namco.
Maybe i'm being a little too critical here, but after playing multiple music games (ones that you actually need to use a new controller instead of the default playstation one) you get the feel of a new game. If the controller makes a difference between banging something with drums, playing a keyboard or dancing, thats enough of a change to be entirely different on it's own.