Knock-offs: The Good and the Bad

Hey guys, today I wanted to weigh in on a topic that seems to be constantly debated and discussed, the topic of knock-offs. It is actually annoying to hear about it. But of course, I’m going to talk about it anyway. Like many other controversial issues, my feelings are very neutral. I think knock-off cubes are bad for basically only one reason. They steal somebody else’s ideas. I think that is awful because the original designer spent a lot of time, energy and knowledge about how cubes work to put it together, and the person that steals it uses little effort and gets it all for free.

            However, there are so good things that come from this. First of all, some people make slight adjustments to previous cubes to improve them. I understand that it isn’t a complete knock-off when people do it, but I feel like it still counts. A great example is the Moyu Aolong. If you look at the pieces of the Maru CX3 below (bottom) and the Aolong (top) u can see how amazingly similar the pieces look. Moyu did change the Aolong just a tiny bit, to make it faster with better corner cutting, but I am sure we can all agree it is at its basic level, a knock-off. However, I don’t think any of us would call it bad that the Aolong is like this, because its performance has proven to be effective for some of the best speedcubers in the world. For this reason, I have to accept some knock-offs as good things anyway, because they increase the cubing community and make it easier for us to have a selection of cubes.

            Lastly, a good reason to accept knock-offs is because almost all cubes are pretty much knock-offs of the original Rubik’s cube. While major changes have been made to most speedcubes, I just had to remind everyone that the roots of our community are basically based on knock-offs. So final opinion, Knock-offs are good, but leave a nasty taste in your mouth. That’s the only way I can describe it.

http://cubezz.com/images/upload/Image/YJ8210B-1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/EsDN15b.jpg