Mr. King tells the truth, but not all of it. Yes, we do not live in a vacuum, we're all swimming in the same myth pool (as Mr. Kirby answered at SDCC when I asked him about George Lucas.) But I always feel very upset when a writer pretends something is all theirs when you can see where they "filed the serial numbers off." (Like that metaphor.) Here are my favorite examples of outright, shameless plagiarism.
Hunger Games -- Battle Royale
Star Wars -- The New Gods
Star Trek: First Contact -- Aliens
The Lion King -- Kimba, the White Lion
If you're gonna remake, show some class and give full credit to the original, as with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or The Ring. At the very least, acknowledge and throw some salutes to the creators who came before you.
Getting back to King, all writers stare at the finest examples from their respective genres with admiration and no little envy. But a good writer's mind is like a sausage grinder, it finds several things it likes and finds a way to fuse them, tell a new story from the disparate elements. That's why you hear Hollywood movies pitched as X meets Y. ("Cabin in the Woods, it's The Evil Dead meets The Truman Show.") Creativity is the opposite of analytical thought; where analysis takes something apart to find how it works, creativity welds existing parts together in novel ways. This new story, a Frankenstein's monster at first, takes on a life all its own. When it does, that's where the real magic happens. (It's like genetics, where elements of both "story DNA" merge into something new and unique, in contrast to the sterile "cloning" of plagiarism.)
So yes, Crey may be "generic evil corporation" meets GATTACA, but I still admire the creation, and will miss it and all the rest of CoH very much until NCSoftcore sells the IP. And yes, you can bet they'll sell the IP. (Edit: I've received a reliable assessment that says I'll lose that bet.)
