"Imitation is a kind of artless flattery." —Eustace Budgell

Seeing as how Mr. Budgell wasn't the first to put words to the sentiment (that distinction goes to messieurs Collier and Dacier, in their 1708 biography of Marcus Aurelius); but also not the most directly quoted (that distinction goes to Charles Caleb Colton who, 106 years post-Budgell, re-arranged the phrase into the more memorable "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"); the idea, at least, seems sound: being imitated is proof that you're Onto Something Worthwhile.

Unfortunately, the approval of people whose only talent is spotting the presence thereof in others is hardly desirable and, what's worse, has given rise to a bothersome trend-turned-market that's been bombarding us lowly consumers since Times Immemorial (and this time I mean way, way earlier than the '90s).

The most obvious (and funniest, by far) examples of this trend are "mockbusters": movies like Top Gunner, Atlantic Rim, Android Cop or (seriously) Transmorphers, which are uniformly low-budget garbage that (presumably) earn money solely on the basis of a bait-and-switch on the less discerning among us. I'm not sure how this happens (I mean, the cover art's a hint); but since mockbusters persist, I guess it does.

And while, for about 20 years after its inception as an industry, gaming has been free of these shenanigans, now that it's been established as an actual Money Making Venture, we are starting to see similar practices take hold.

Take Beamdog Entertainment, for example.

A wee tentacle of the Swedish Lovecraftian monster that is the Embracer Group (get it?), Beamdog is a Canadian "studio" best known for (and I quote) "bringing beloved Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying games like Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment back to life on desktop and tablets." It is staffed with some former BioWare employees, believes in "engineering excellence," crafts "compelling game experiences" and is "one of the largest game studios in Alberta."

The only problem, then, is – well – everything.

Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, have run just fine on Windows systems since, well, Windows 98, so they didn't really need any "bringing back to life" (copies I have running on Windows 7 today were installed from a CD I bought for Windows XP).

The Embracer Group is a holding company that doesn't produce anything – just owns stock in a bunch of companies that do. And Beamdog is a "studio" the way a forger is an "artist", with a catalogue of "releases" composed of seven "remakes" of classic hits (Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights and Axis & Allies) and one original game called MythForce, which looks like an uprated Wolfenstein 3D clone with co-op and is due to release in September (I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict it won't be very good).

Far from being simple technical upgrades that allow an old game to run smoothly on a new system, their remakes have a tendency towards poor programming, bad UI, regrettable optimization and the brazen introduction of "new" gameplay elements, such as NPCs or quests, which (on GoG at least) have been described as ranging from "bad" and "terrible" to plain, old "crappy." When someone releases a mod to take out the "enhanced" content you've introduced into a game, that's pretty plain indication you shouldn't have put it in in the first place...

I mean, remaking Baldur's Gate? Enhancing it? Possible, I suppose, but you'd better have the talent to do it... And considering the two BioWare "industry veteran" co-founders of Beamdog were programmers and technical artists – maybe don't waltz into the Sistine Chapel with spray cans saying you're going to touch it up.

While Beamdog's brazen remasters are the most obvious example of artless hacks cashing in on gaming classics, they are hardly the only ones in the industry. There's a worrying trend of studios homing in on expired IPs for some easy money.

Take Atom RPG with its none-too-subtle Fallout "inspiration." AtomTeam's "spin" on the classic basically lifts the entire SPECIAL ruleset – perks and all – sometimes bothering to change the names of skills, keeping an eerily similar UI and simply furnishing it with a new story.

Or NightDive Studio's System Shock remake, which took the "studio" seven years and 1.35 million USD – all to produce a game virtually identical to the original (outdated mechanics and all), with more modern graphics (which I guess beats their track record to date of merely publishing 14 remasters but – not by much).

Or Double Damage's Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw, which is a Privateer carbon-copy with a grating soundtrack, "ship Photoshop" and billiards that released to a resounding meh.

Or Front Mission 1st: Remake by Forever Entertainment, which – somehow – "updated" a 28-year-old SNES title into worse shape than the original game.

Don't get me wrong, if there's a market for this slop and people actually want to spend money on it, I don't begrudge anybody the opportunity or the work. If Beamdog is one of the largest studios in Alberta and good for their economy – I mean, it makes me a little sad, but – more power to 'em, I guess...

But if you're gonna go to the trouble of hiring talent, raising capital and establishing a studio anyway, why not go the whole-hog and come up with an idea of your own? Go ahead and make money, if that's your only aim, but at least have the decency to do it by putting in some effort and being original, instead of standing on the shoulders of people who actually were.

Because, if we're being honest, I think there's enough flattery going around, thanks.

We don't need any more.