How to copyright a game concept [Best Answer]


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Last updated : Aug 19, 2022
Written by : Jamey Swarm
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How to copyright a game concept


Comment by Carmen Johal

so I started my game development journey in a pretty unusual way I think most people start making games because they have a bunch of ideas for a game that they'd like to make or ideas on how to improve one they're already playing I mean it's pretty tempting to sit down with the game and think I can do this better however I was completely opposite I'd never thought about game design or anything like that I just like making stuff and thought game development look fun so jump right from sandbox games into modelling coding and all that good stuff but as time has passed and I started making my own games I realized just how important game design really is so no matter if you like me and have been making games for a long time or if you're just starting out I think these basic tips on game design are really good to know but first this video is sponsored by Dennis pan Judah Dennis is an awesome game dove to do who's just launched a new course on udemy the complete c-sharp master class this course will make you super comfortable writing code in c-sharp and using it for programming your own games in unity it will give you knowledge on many different aspects of c-sharp and teach topics such as databases link in WPF and much more at the end of the course you will even have made three games on your own if this sounds like something you're interested in simply click the link in the description to get started and get a massive discount so often when making a game you start by setting a goal that the player has to achieve but how to get the player from the beginning of the game and towards that goal and most importantly how to get the player to enjoy this journey is where the tricky and also fun part comes into play now when it comes to game design it's very hard to define rules and guidelines that apply to all games simply because games are so different design choices that work for a MMORPG might not work at all for a competitive FPS and now comes a very important point everything in game design must fit the player's intended experience first off every game needs a foundation and in game design there are three main pillars that hold up this foundation player communication and appeal now this might seem obvious but understanding how to work with them is crucial really you can start by asking yourself what is the players role and how does he interact with the game the play always needs to have a purpose and it's extremely important that it's the player driving the game forward after all this is what distinguishes a game from if the player does not have a say an effect on the game he becomes an indifference simply completing tasks for the sake of it now just as important as giving the player purpose is communicating this purpose to the player without any idea of what the goal is and how to achieve it the player will quickly start to feel powerless and become bored so try to use the environment or leave visual clues that communicate the objective of a situation I've talked about this before but I think one of the most elegant examples of communicating purpose to the player is the beginning of half-life 2 here the developers do an amazing job of showing a world of oppression and making the player feel part of that world making him want to change it of course none of this actually matters without appeal which is why it's the most important pillar in the foundation if the game doesn't appeal to the player then what's the point and for me this is the hardest thing to consistently achieve because it's solely based on a feeling of being drawn to the game and if wanting to play more and I think this can greatly vary depending on the game and even depending on the individual player for some the appeal is action paced realism with stunning graphics and heart-throbbing sound design for others the appeal lies in an interesting story or a well-thought-out puzzle and rather than try to make impossible claims as to how to make your game appealing I think this is a good place to stress just how important it is to start every game with the prototype to test out your ideas in a simplified format to see if the appeal is there of course if your entire game idea is based around stunning graphics and huge open world levels a simple prototype won't help you out much but if that's what you're going for you should already have these principles under your skin along with 200 employees of course so with that you've now established the foundation of your game but that's of course still a bunch of design choices you have to make for example just like it's important to always communicate the player's purpose it's just as important to always guide to the main focus in other words you need to clarify what the players should concentrate on of course not all games lead the player straight from beginning to end when Stanley came to a set of two open doors he entered the door on his left for these so called nonlinear games it's just as important that you leave the player with alternate choices like going on a little side quest detour from the main storyline and when it comes to guiding player through the game something I've realized is the importance of anticipation if used correctly anticipation will help prepare the player for what's coming this could be as simple as adding a charge of animation to your enemies allowing the player to react accordingly and not feel cheated by the game take for example the ending scene of half-life notice how sound builds up electrical sparks start flying and the camera starts shaking right before the explosion and actually the whole sequence with g-man talking to dr. Freeman can be seen as one long build-up and therefore anticipation to the explosion and end of the game another aspect that has the tendency to get overlooked since some might consider it obvious is that the events in your game have to behave in a logical way along with living up to the players subconscious expectations of the game a system design example of this could be when shooting something bullet holes should appear otherwise it won't live up to the players expectations obtaining the right sounds of the physical events is also very important the more sound is considered the better experience for the plate the events occurring in your game should also follow general physics of course some games change the rules of physics but they do so consistently and that's pretty much all this comes down to rules are rules so once these rules have been established for a game stick to them however remember that games can cheat as long as the player doesn't notice a good example of this is the AI in the Arkham games these guys are told not to turn around with Batman sneaks behind them so it allows the player to ambush them in general a lot of shooters will alter the AI to give the player some sort of hidden advantage that rewards a certain play style also it's generally good not to make them too sophisticated just in case they feel like turning on the human race now another important point is that dynamic is lost when only one change occurs at a time for me this is what makes competitive games like


Thanks for your comment Carmen Johal, have a nice day.
- Jamey Swarm, Staff Member


Comment by Jana

so welcome everyone to this quarter's games and interactive media seminar series this is sort quarter that we do it and we again have a great lineup of speakers as you will see all these speakers come from very diverse areas some academics some are from industry some are talk about music some are talking about education and today's speakers is actually talking about law so what he was notice is that we can really use games as a lens to look at all aspects of society and the other way around all aspects of society actually focused on two games and so today's speaker is Todd Smith line he is actually running his own law firm Smith line PC he's the principal and this company represents a number of clients generally in technology transfer and among those internet mobile devices and so forth and of course games are part of his portfolio as well and one thing he told me he's actually most proud of and that's also how I found him for the last six years and a seven year he is teaching a class at Berkeley to law students about video game law and so give it warm applause to Todd thank you anymore for having me I'm thrilled to be here how many of you are involved in one way or another in making video games and how many of you play video games okay great so this is gonna be perfect for all of you how many in the room any our law students lawyers law faculty anything like that okay and for the rest of you do you have any familiarity whatsoever with the notion of copyright okay great so today we're going to be talking about how the doctrine of copyright law is evolving based on cases that are moving through the system relating to mobile game clones and in particular I'm going to be making the argument today that these cases dealing with multiple game clones are changing how copyright law works and ultimately change for the worse I figured if I was going to come talk to you today I'd sort of make an argument about something instead of just trying to explain how copyright law and video games work so that's what we'll be talking about today I will tell you as I mean Ingmar says I teach video game law at Berkeley and we typically have 13 sessions of an hour and 50 minutes each to get through this material we're going to get through today in 40 minutes since you're a Stanford audience I'm assuming that's going to be okay but I will ask that we hold the questions until the end unless you have very important objections and then raise your hands and we'll address that otherwise questions objections thoughts comments at the end really quickly I am the principal of a law firm where six attorneys up in San Francisco we do technology transactions and IP licensing but today I'm here by myself not on behalf of my law firm certainly not Berkeley or anything like that so these are my views some of the decisions we'll be talking about today happen to add a preliminary phase in the litigation and I will point that out as we go but just so you know that's the case and finally I have a list of sources here they'll be at the end of the presentation and certainly if you're interested in the topic and you want to learn more I've got endless books articles and and and other thoughts I can refer you to so just let me know at the end okay so let's do it what are the rules of a video game again today I'm suggesting that copyright law is changing in terms of how the courts deal with the rules of the game traditionally courts have not protected the rules of the game under copyright and I'm suggesting that that is changing but before we take a look at the cases and before we look at the games we need to start with the question of what are the rules of a video game well let's start with board games first and I have two up here which we'll get to a little later in the presentation for a board or a card game the rules are the set of instructions that explain how to play the game and they may also include the method of playing as expressed through things like scoring charts the game board and the pieces so the rules of the game are what you get when you open the box and pull out the rules these are the rules of the game bang and these are the rules of the game legends of the Three Kingdoms and you fold out the rules and you learn how to play but as I'm also suggesting the rules can be expressed through the tokens and the pieces in the game board itself I think it's fairly easy to understand what the rules of a board game are so then what are the rules of the video game well for a video game the rules were often also expressed through the mechanics of the game or the gameplay these are functional rules which dictate how you can move a character how points are scored and when you win and lose Bruce Borden who's at marquette talks about the limits and affordances of the game and another way to think about the rules of a video game are to think of video games as systems and and again Bruce Boden's words you systems into which the users pour meaning when they play the game but in any event the rules of a video game are not a list of instructions per se although they can include instructions but are also that what you do while you're playing the game and what you're allowed to do so when you're playing Donkey Kong and you're Mario the rules of the game include the fact that if you get hit by a barrel you're going to lose a life and they include the fact that you can only get from one level to the next when you climb a ladder and they include the fact that you're going to clear a level if you get to the damsel in distress at the top these are all the mechanics of the game or what we'll be referring to today also as the rules of the game the rules of the game can also involve things like the fact that armor is very heavy and if you fall into water wearing a lot of armor you will sink to the bottom of the sea okay so we're talking about mobile game clones today so what's a clone well this is easy a video game clone is a game which follows another game to market and which copies as much of it as they can possibly get away with and we see this happen quite a bit in the mobile game space and you're all probably familiar with clones that you've seen in the Android Marketplace or in the Apple Store but essentially a clone is just a copy of a game sometimes comes very close that's trying to capitalize on the success of the game that came before here we have tetra on the left and a game called Meno on the right and we'll revisit these in a minute but these this this is a clone of a video game for purposes that we're using today clone is not a word and the copyright code but I think you all understand what it means so that's what a clone is alright so historically game rules were not protected by copyright so why do I say that well first we have case law to tell us that our F foster published a series of books about the rules of bridge and in one of the books he included the rules for a type of auctioned bridge called whist and after he publishes the book he hears from the whist game society which claims that he has copied their rules and infringed their copyright and the rules and the court look


Thanks Jana your participation is very much appreciated
- Jamey Swarm


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