I have a bit more to add.
This thread comes up again and again on game development forums. Everyone’s worried about being copied. The first thing to remember is that life isn’t fair and if someone copies you, you’ll have to have some legal muscle to take care of it, if you even have a leg to stand on. But you can avoid all of that by not publishing your work until it’s ready. That way, at the least, you don’t have any carbon copies out there before you’ve launched. To summarise, if you’re worried about being copied:
- Be ready to fight for your content
- Don’t show people what you’re doing
The reality is though if what you’re doing CAN be copied that easily, what you’re doing is not that worthwhile. Smart ideas are well and good, but hard work makes good content. You can much more easily defend your content than you can a smart idea.
Although this comes off as negative, I think this should be the standard response to this question.