Windward - a copy of Pirates!? @ Gamasutra

Windward is what happens when Sid Meier says it's ok to 'copy' his game

At GDC 2012, Michael Lyanshenko, founder of Tasharen Entertainment, attended a talk from renowned game designer and developer Sid Meier, whose name prefaces games such as Civilization and Pirates! In that talk, Meier mentioned how game designers are basically copying one another in everything they do, and how that's ok, because much of game development is about iteration.

After that talk, Lyanshenko decided to approach Meier.

“I just walked up to Sid Meier and I basically asked him, ‘Can I ['copy'] your Pirates! game?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah! Go for it! It’s cool,'” said Lyanshenko.

(…)

The game ended up climbing to the third spot on Steam, just behind massively marketed heavyweights The Witcher 3 and Grand Theft Auto V. “Honestly, I was hoping for the same [sales] result as Early Access,” says Lyashenko. During six months of Early Access, Windward grossed $150,000. After the end of the first week, Lyashenko had made gross sales of $720,000—far beyond his expectations. “I definitely did not expect that. $300,000 in total would’ve definitely covered development, and made it worthwhile. What it earned surprised the crap out of me.”

Originally Posted by joxer
Who cares if it's a copy. EA failed with SimCity, another dev made a proper city sim.
SM refused to make a new Pirates, someone else knew we need it.
Is it any good? Anyone tried it?