What does and doesn't count for works to be "dueling"?

Looking at Dueling Shows, Dueling Movies, and Dueling Games, I see a lot of dubious examples.

I know these are trivia, but even that should have some accuracy standards. Heck, even the description for Dueling Games seems like a YMMV line: "games that are considered imitations of each other".

I think some strong parameters need to be set (or reestablished if the descriptions have been tweaked to decay the meaning of these pages).

I would say that the first Sonic The Hedgehog and Super Mario World count as dueling games, since they came out around the same time and were meant to be killer apps for their systems (and that's before counting that they are both platformers).

Yet how are Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire dueling? They came out over a year apart. The entry just says that do things that are similar, but that doesn't make a duel (not to mention the entry hasn't updated the sales numbers for Noire).

Or what about Noire and Driver: San Francisco? I don't even think the entry is accurate, since while the Wii version of Driver SF takes place in the past (a prequel to the first game in the series), the HD version seems to take place in modern day.

In short, I think we need to figure out what does and doesn't fit for Dueling Works.

My take: Dueling works have to be actively competing for the same audience at the same time. Otherwise there's not "duel" going on. One can start after the other, but there needs to be clear indications that it wants to share the same audience. So, two games both released within a couple of months of each other. Films that come out at nearly the same time. TV shows where the second one starts while the first one is still in first-run.

Does it count if one is a mockbuster, like Tornado to Twister?

I think The Mockbuster is a separate trope.

Attempting to cash in on a craze a year later or so would be different IMO, something like Trying To Ride The Wave Of Success or something.

Like The Lord Of The Rings came out and then later we have all kinds of movies trying to cash in, not Mock Busters, like say The Chronicles Of Narnia.

They really have to be at least in the same season.

To answer DQZ's question, I'd say "Yes, it still counts if one if a Mockbuster, as long as it's aiming for the same audience."

By analogy: You may have Dueling works if one person says "Let's go see/watch/play a <Fill in the genre of work here>" and another person could reasonably respond "Ok, do you want to do <A> or <B>?" where A and B are the possibly-dueling works.

So, Airwolf and Knight Rider — action-adventure with a high tech vehicle — assuming that their airdates overlapped, and I believe they did. Dallas and Falcon Crest and Dynasty — Night-time high-glamour soap opera. Fresno was a mockbuster, and would only not count because it was a 6-night miniseries, rather than an actual series.

Okay, but Fresno was an Affectionate Parody, not a dueling work.

edited 12th Apr '15 5:07:26 PM by DragonQuestZ

Right. It also was a one-shot thing, not an ongoing series. It wasn't looking got draw audience away from Dallas and Dynasty, it was looking to give that audience a chuckle, then let it go back to the real thing. Had it been a season-long regular series, it would be one of the dueling shows — it would have been trying to attract the same audience.

edited 12th Apr '15 5:27:59 PM by Madrugada

But a mockbuster isn't really competing for the same audience, it's more trying to trick them (or something. Honestly I don't understand the rationale behind them). It doesn't seem like the same thing as two works genuinely competing against each other.

Trying to trick fans of one work into buying another is aiming for the same audience.

The distinction between Dueling Shows and Follow the Leader is generally time frame. Dueling Shows are contemporaneous. That's pretty much it. Let's not go down the rabbit hole of the producers' intent; that only counts if supported by Word of God, which is Trivia.

edited 13th Apr '15 5:35:46 AM by Fighteer

Well this is trivia as well, but I agree with your point. That does mean that if The Mockbuster was released within a few months (especially since they are made cheap and quick), it counts. If done much later, it's simply Follow the Leader.