http://greyaliengames.com/blog/why-i-made-a-match-3-clone/

Naturally I’m building up skills and contacts in this “game” (excuse the pun) so that I can branch out and try some other things later on. In fact my next game may be a little different, but I feel “safe” doing this as I’m working with BFG on it.

Our first game, Constellations, was trying to invent a mechanic, and we did a really crappy job with it. It bombed.
We don’t have day jobs, so we had to succeed with our next game. We tried making a few prototypes (that were much closer to regular casual mechanics than our first game) and sending them to portals to see if they thought them likely to succeed, and were basically told that it was extremely risky to do this.

We decided to do a regular match-3 game and focus on the surrounding feeling of progress. In the beginning it bothered me that people were so unwilling to try something new, but after having worked on it for a while, I started realizing something.
I am exactlly the same.
I prefer first person shooters. I have played a boatload of them, and as long as they are well produced, I don’t seem to tire of them. If you look at it, the core gameplay mechanic is the same from game to game, with minor variations.
What really changes is the level design, the graphical theme, etc.

This is exactly how it works with casual games - people prefer a mechanic very close to what they are used to (match 3 for example), so they don’t have to move too far outside of their comfort zone. Yet they like the new music/levels/powerups.

I don’t expect every action movie to find a fundamentally new story, or every game to be a new engine or a new game mechanic. I find something I like, and then I enjoy the variations on the theme, until I get tired of it and look for something else.

I think there is still room for being inventive and breaking new ground within a theme, like Cradle of Rome did (and prospered for), and I have plenty of admiration for really well-crafted games, even if they don’t invent a completely new type of gameplay.

As so many others, we chose the safer path, which we certainly hope is only a stepping stone until we have a stable enough situation to actually go out and create the next big hit.

Innovation is much more risky, and more costly - it will take more time (maybe years, like Bookworm Adventures and The Sims) to get to a both innovative and salable gameplay. Many prototypes will be thrown away, and you can’t be sure when exactly you will have that design that will nail when implemented on a final form. However, the final game, for its uniqueness, can potentially outsell any ultra-polished clone, like Peggle, Chuzzle and Alice Greenfingers. And sell for years and years - hell, Bejeweled is five years old and still sells so much!

In the end, deciding on cloning or innovation could end on an economical choice, even if unconsciously:

- Will I take the safer path and sell a fair number of units for one or two months, but with a somewhat already built fan base?

- Or will I invest my savings on a potentially more profitable project, but risking on ending up with something not fun enough (poor sales) or that will demand more investment and time than predicted?