History FollowTheLeader / Videogames

** Which is pretty funny considering that its road to success can be described as ''IndianaJones'' [[XMeetsY meets]] ''PrinceOfPersia''… [-[[RecycledINSPACE IN 3D]]-]. When the Prince and Indy made the jump to [=3D=], they were both seen as shameless ripoffs of Ms. Croft's efforts.

** Sony recently revealed ''PlaystationAllStarsBattleRoyale''. Cue Nintendo fanboys claiming it's a rip-off of ''SuperSmashBros'', even though the gameplay is very different; for example, the Nintendo fanboys claim the "supers" are rip-offs of Final Smashes, even though [[HateDumb the concept of a super attack is in almost every fighting game]].

->''"Well bugger my bumblebee's breadbin! First weeks of Twenty-Ten are going to be fun, aren't they? ''{{Darksiders}}'', ''{{Bayonetta}}'', ''VideoGame/DantesInferno'', and ''VideoGame/GodOfWar III''...''God of War'' clone, ''God of War'' clone,[[note]]A case of DidNotDoResearch. {{Bayonetta}} is a SpiritualSuccessor to DevilMayCry. He later rectifies this in his review.[[/note]] ''God of War'' clone, and...Well, ''VideoGame/GodOfWar''."''

->''Well bugger my bumblebee's breadbin! First weeks of Twenty-Ten are going to be fun, aren't they? ''{{Darksiders}}'', ''{{Bayonetta}}'', ''VideoGame/DantesInferno'', and ''VideoGame/GodOfWar III''...''God of War'' clone, ''God of War'' clone,[[hottip:*: A case of DidNotDoResearch. {{Bayonetta}} is a SpiritualSuccessor to DevilMayCry. He later rectifies this in his review.]] ''God of War'' clone, and...Well, ''VideoGame/GodOfWar''.''
-->--'''Yahtzee''', ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation''

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Picross}} Mario's Picross]]'' helped speed up the amount of nonogram games to soon follow, mostly in Flash form.

* The popular mobile physics game ''VideoGame/AngryBirds'' is rather similar to many other physics-based projectile games, most notably Armor Games' ''[[http://armorgames.com/play/3614/crush-the-castle Crush The Castle]]'', inevitably leading to some fans of the latter to become detractors of the former.

** 3.) There were games that hitched on the TeenageMutantSamuraiWombats craze. Mainly the ''{{Battletoads}}'' franchise is guilty of this, but it started on the home consoles and worked its way up to the arcades. The console versions used lots of NintendoHard platforming to differentiate itself from other brawlers, but the arcade game is just a more straight foward brawler and plays more like ''DoubleDragon'' with gory finishers. Wow. Now that's a doozy!

** Once ''MortalKombat'' made the scene, many of these knockoff fighters began featuring over-the-top gore and/or digitized graphics (including, somewhat ironically, ''Street Fighter: The Movie'' in the latter group). Some of the lowlights of this trend included ''TimeKillers'', ''KasumiNinja'' and ''TattooAssassins''.

** Sony recently revealed ''PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale''. Cue Nintendo fanboys claiming it's a rip-off of ''SuperSmashBros'', even though the gameplay is very different; for example, the Nintendo fanboys claim the "supers" are rip-offs of Final Smashes, even though [[HateDumb the concept of a super attack is in almost every fighting game]].

** Sony recently revealed ''PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale''. So far, it looks a lot like ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros.'' [[RecycledInSpace with Sony characters.]]
*** A staff member commented that the game wasn't like SSB because gameplay wasn't based on knocking your opponent off a platform. You have to use something that's suspiciously similar to a Final Smash. Still, one can argue that this mechanic alone isn't enough to consider the game "not just like Smash Bros.", while the concept and gameplay are pretty much the same.

* The massive success of Capcom's ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'' resulted in a massive glut of fighting games that continued well into the [=PlayStation=] years and switch to 3-D gaming. Indeed, {{SNK}} made itself a major player in the arcade market by imitating and refining the formula.

* In spite of {{MUD}}s and [=GMUDs=] languishing in obscurity for ages, their day would only really come in the rechristened form of {{MMORPG}}s. The entire MMO craze was started with ''UltimaOnline'', refined with ''{{Everquest}}'' and ''Lineage'', then given a further kickstart by the massive success of ''WorldOfWarcraft''.
** ''WorldOfWarcraft'' in particular has spawned a number of imitators, ''TabulaRasa'' and ''AgeOfConan'' among them, that copy not only its gameplay style, but major chunks of its interface (right down to yellow exclamation points over the heads of quest-givers.)
*** In defense of the poor [=MMOs=] that don't have eleven million subscribers, one of the things Blizzard is known for is taking existing formula and refining them into a highly polished product. ''WorldOfWarcraft'', at least in its original release, had very little that was actually new to the genre, rather it took existing aspects of MMO[=RPG=]s, fleshed them out and made them more accessible. It's not surprising that these refinements have propagated themselves to later games in the genre.

* ''GrandTheftAuto 3'' is credited with starting not one, but ''two'' threads of Follow the Leader: gritty urban crime games and "[[WideOpenSandbox sandbox games]]."

* You thought this trope was bad in ''video games''? Well, it's even worse with ''{{Casual Game}}s''! Seriously, just try and ''count'' how many [[TimeManagementGame Time Management]]/[[MatchThreeGame Match Three]]/{{Hidden Object Game}}s there are on the Internet! The games made by [=PopCap=] did this for the entire casual game genre.

** ''Gangstar'' (''GrandTheftAuto'')

* In the late 1970s to early 1980s, a large number of video game companies rushed to release their own ''SpaceInvaders''-like games. Some of these were hardly distinguishable from the original, e.g. Leijac's ''Space King'' and IPM's ''IPM Invader'' by two companies now better known as {{Konami}} and {{Irem}}, respectively. Of all the early imitators, [[NamcoBandai Namco]]'s ''{{Galaxian}}'' is probably the best remembered, while {{Nintendo}}'s ''Space Fever'' and {{Sega}}'s ''Invinco!'' may be regarded as mere footnotes to history. ''TI Invaders'' for the TI99, ''Avenger'' for the VIC20, and ''Space Assault'' for the ColorComputer were first-party ''Space Invaders'' clones for systems that never received authorized ports.

** ''{{Splatterhouse}}'' 1 and 2 somewhat count in this regard. Both games are single plane beat'em ups recycled in a horror video game. But in those two games, you can wield weapons unlike most ''Kung Fu Master'' clones. ''Splatterhouse 3'' on the other hand, plays more like ''FinalFight''.

* ''DefenseOfTheAncients'', an incredibly popular homemade custom map (bordering on GameMod) for ''{{Warcraft}} 3'', has spawned a commercial imitator in ''{{Demigod}}'', with more titles on the horizon. ''LeagueOfLegends'' is the product of the original creator of the map making a game out of it.

*** A staff member commented that the game wasn't like SSB because gameplay wasn't based on knocking your opponent off a platform. You have to use something that's suspiciously similar to a Final Smash. Still, one can argue that this mechanic alone isn't enough to consider the game just like Smash Bros., while the concept and gameplay are pretty much the same.

** This has in a strange way become somewhat of a DiscreditedTrope, as the first-person shooter has shed the "Doom Clone" image it had during the mid-90's and become possibly the most popular genre in all of video games, thanks in no small part to the way games like Halo, HalfLife and Goldeneye 007 refined and improved upon the classic Doom formula. Thus, the "first person shooter" has lost the Doom Stigma and is now its very own unique genre.

** Telekinesis (i.e. the ability to [[WreakingHavok pick up and move objects remotely]]), possibly due to the gravity gun from ''HalfLife 2''.

** Two often-overlooked mechanics that ''Halo'' brought to the table were melee and grenades always being available and having a dedicated button to use them. Many previous games like ''HalfLife'' had grenades and melee, but only as specific weapons in the character's HyperspaceArsenal (for example, Gordon Freeman only hits enemies with his crowbar, while Master Chief can club someone with anything he can pick up). Most newer [=FPSs=] incorporate a dedicated melee and grenade button whether they have a traditional HyperspaceArsenal or modern primary/secondary weapon layout. Some games (like ''F.E.A.R., GearsOfWar,'' and ''{{Darkwatch}}'') have built explicit melee options or even enitre combo systems based on a dedicated melee button.

->--'''Yahtzee''', ''ZeroPunctuation''

* Activision quite obviously copied the ''CookingMama'' concept to a T and made it into ''Science papa''.

** 2.) This also lead a couple of "me too's" on {{Ninja}}s with weapons and 4 player co-op. Taito's ''VideoGame/TheNinjaKids'' (most of them wield bladed weapons) and Irem's ''NinjaBaseballBatMan'' ([[BatterUp all fight with baseball bats]], [[CaptainObvious duh]]). One of the stages in ''The Ninja Kids'' looks like April's burning apartment. The final stage in ''Ninja Baseball Batman'' takes place on top of a scaffold in New York, at night, just like the first stage of ''TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesTurtlesInTime''. Both games failed in arcades not because they were bad, but due to poor advertisement and being over shadowed by other, and more popular beat'em ups and fighting games. In fact they had decent (''Ninja Kids'') and excellent (''Ninja Baseball Batman'') game play respectively.

* The ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' series is huge in Japan, and has already inspired a handful of multiplayer-party-vs.-giant-monster successors, namely SquareEnix's ''LordOfArcana'', NamcoBandai's ''GodsEaterBurst'', and now GameArts' ''{{Ragnarok|Online}} Odyssey''.

** So far, we have ''FUEL'' (a Open Sandbox racing game set in post apocalyptica,) ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' (where the developers have gone so far to say they loved ''{{Fallout 3}}'', and decided to make the game, 'but with co-op'. [[XMeetsY It gets a little more confusing then that.]]), and ''VideoGame/{{Rage}}''.

*** A staff member commented that the game wasn't like SSB because gameplay wasn't based on knocking your opponent off a platform. You have to use something that's suspiciously similar to a Final Smash.
*** Still one can argue that only this mechanic isn't enough to consider the game different from smash bros, while the concept and gameplay are pretty much the same.

** And it was confirmed after the reveal of the [[WiiU Wii U]], with sony [[SarcasmMode "creating"]] the Ps3/psvita combo, and microsoft with their smartglass.

* ''ResidentEvil'' may not have invented the SurvivalHorror genre, but it ''did'' invent the name, and it proved the concept could sell. Cue ''SilentHill,'' ''FatalFrame,'' Capcom's own ''DinoCrisis,'' and so on.
** The guy who came up with DinoCrisis is the same guy who came up with ResidentEvil. So would that be considered chasing his tail?

* The ''MonsterHunter'' series is huge in Japan, and has already inspired a handful of multiplayer-party-vs.-giant-monster successors, namely SquareEnix's ''LordOfArcana'', NamcoBandai's ''GodsEaterBurst'', and now GameArts' ''{{Ragnarok|Online}} Odyssey''.

** ''Sacred Odyssey: Rise of Ayden'' (''[[TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'')

** ''[[PowerGigRiseOfTheSixString Power Gig: Rise of the Six String]]'' (745 Studios)

** ''Sacred Odyssey: Rise of Ayden'' (''[[TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' and ''[[TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'')

** ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood]]''

* ''SuperMario64'' started the "Collect-a-thon" genre of platform games, spawning games like ''DonkeyKong64'', ''BanjoKazooie'', the latter two ''{{Gex}}'' games, ''TyTheTasmanianTiger'', and the first ''JakAndDaxter''. As with most instances of this trope, the quality varies wildly.
* ''KungFuMaster'' led to other single-plane {{Beat Em Up}}s starring {{Bruce Lee Clone}}s: ''Dragon Wang'' for the SG-1000 and ''China Warrior'' for the TurboGrafx16.