Rubik's Brand vs knock-off's

[tikhung01]

Everyone who's part of the cubing community will say that you should never use a Rubik's brand, instead, use KO's brands such as Dayan, Moyu, Shengshou,...
But this raises a question: Isn't it ridiculous that KO's are BETTER than the original? Also, does Rubik's care about the cubing community at all, if they're so mad about the patience, why don't they just buy all the KO's brands already?

 

[Seanliu]

Well, maybe the KO's are attracting people who might buy the Rubik's brand? Not a chance ell

 

[FailCuber]

Rubik's doesn't target speedcubers. Rubik's made it tight and stiff on purpose so non cubers won't wine about popping and how it's corner turning. I actually never saw any non cuber who was complaining about how tight the Rubik's brand is.

 

[guysensei1]

Dayan and moyu aren't KOs of rubiks brands. The patents expired. And the mechanisms are vastly different anyway.

 

[A Leman]

Here's the thing, "KO's" have very different designs internally which make them a different, superior product. Also, the patent for the Rubik's cube has expired. What Seven Towns does have is a copyright on the color scheme, a larger market, and a well funded group of lawyers.

They occasionally also say that they have the right to the graphic image of any cube "coloured or uncoloured" which is complete hogwash and they know that it will not stand in court, but they also know that the cost of going to court is enough to damage small innovative companies so they use their legal manpower as a threat. This is also a reason for many pictures on cube boxes to be partially assembled.

Calling a cube like the Weilong a knockoff off of the Rubik's cube is like calling an F-16 or a Airbus a knock off of the 1903 Wright Flyer. Instead, they are called innovations. Patents,copyrights and intellectual property are used to protect someone who put has put significant time into a project from being eclipsed by a larger company that can create and sell his same "exact" product quicker, better, and cheaper than the inventor without his permission.

In comparison, the new Rubik's Speed Cube is a Very close knockoff of the old Dayan GuHong, but that doesn't matter because Seven Towns is very good at using a legal shield as a sword.

 

[qqwref]

Yeah, they're only knockoffs in the sense of the trademark, the mechanism in the Chinese cubes is completely different (and in fact, different from cube to cube). Rubik's has made a few brief attempts to keep up with speedsolving, and they provided the cubing community some support and money years back, but they don't seem too interested in the costs and research of making good hardware. I think their main priority is to advertise well and to have a good sturdy toy that won't break (popping counts) without difficulty. They don't have much understanding of the mechanics behind cubing at a high level, or what is really involved in solving it quickly.

It makes sense, though, if you think about the numbers. How many Rubik's Cubes have been sold worldwide, something like 300+ million? Speedcubers are a tiny, tiny minority of that. Rubik's is a big company and for them we probably don't even show up on the radar, except as a way to bring cubes back into the spotlight and get more people interested in buying their products. I think V-Cubes has gone in the same direction, realizing that the mass market interested in cool, durable puzzles is far bigger than the subgroup of serious speedcubers. Plus, the good thing about the mass market is that they won't all stop buying a given company's products if the company doesn't put tons of time and money into constant tuning and improvement of their puzzle. A storebought Rubik's is, quite frankly, good enough.

 

[CuBouz]

(and in fact, different from cube to cube)

How I wish this weren't so true

 

[dannah]

rubiks targets the non cubers who want to learn how to solve one, and then hopes they will wait a year or so before discovering the speedcubing community and speedcubes

 

[dannah]

and by the way i have twisted a corner (on purpose to prove that you can) before on the rubiks speed cube pretty easily so that anti popping and corner twisting statement is false

 

[cubeone]

It makes sense, though, if you think about the numbers. How many Rubik's Cubes have been sold worldwide, something like 300+ million? Speedcubers are a tiny, tiny minority of that. Rubik's is a big company and for them we probably don't even show up on the radar, except as a way to bring cubes back into the spotlight and get more people interested in buying their products. I think V-Cubes has gone in the same direction, realizing that the mass market interested in cool, durable puzzles is far bigger than the subgroup of serious speedcubers. Plus, the good thing about the mass market is that they won't all stop buying a given company's products if the company doesn't put tons of time and money into constant tuning and improvement of their puzzle. A storebought Rubik's is, quite frankly, good enough.

Even though it is true that speedcubers are only a small fraction of everybody who has ever bought a puzzle cube, I think that the effect we have is more than just publicity. For example, recently Rubik's completely changed their 3x3 mechanism, and although it is still quite sturdy, it's definitely more oriented towards speed. I average around 15 seconds, and with a fairly new storebought cube with no mods, just some lubrication, I can get sub-15 solves. If the speedcubing community didn't exist, there's a large chance this wouldn't have happened.