Texas Court Ruling States That Game Mechanics Can't Be Protected by Copyright

Didn't the Tetris Company sue someone years ago for making some smartphone game that was Tetris with bubbles?

Cool. I should be safe with my Werewolves of the Dark Arts thing, then. :3 I've always wondered, since I use a few roles from other versions of the game. I know the base game is open source, but when you reuse some of the crazier roles from other people's stuff, it gets tricky.

To a common sense limit, of course you can't copyright some game mechanics, Darth Nocturnal gives a sarcastic, but perfectly poignant reason why.

That being said, the only way to truly copy mechanics, beyond something as brain dead simplistic as what is in this article, is to steal the code, which IS protected by copyright.

Lets face it, the only way some western AAAA mook is going to get platinum level combat mechanics is

A: Hire platinum games.
B: Steal code.
C: Actually learn how to make an engaging and exciting combat system.

A is happening, b is punishable by law, and if C ever happens, that means they learned the skills to pay the bills, and it would be unique unto them anyways.

The only real problem with this article is this line right here, wherever it came from:

'The game mechanics cannot be considered as being expressive.'

In regaurds to videogames, this is blatantly false.

The mechanics of super mario bros very clearly convey the expression of joy and happiness. It is pure and dense in its gameplay expression, and extremely easy to see when watching someone play.

Similarly, zelda and once upon a time metroids game mechanics and design philosophy express concepts of adventure, discovery, exploration, triumph and victory,

the very erroneous concept stated here, is exactly why the industry is so homogenous and stagnant today.

Good, now Mikami could make a Resident Evil without calling it Resident Evil.

So it's legal, eh?!?!? * runs to game developing software *

While it is true you can't copyright game mechanics, they might be able to patent parts of the mechanics.

@Therad Like what?

The gate is lit for a worthy Super Monkey Ball-esque game to be made.

If SEGA doesn't want to make a good SMB game, then someone else might do it.

(Case and Point being Freedom Planet)

@MitchVogel of the Coast had patents on many mechanics in magic the gathering. Such as the infamous tapping (rotating a card 90 degrees) patent.

@Indy83 Glad you pointed out that bit about mechanics not being expressive. I was iffy about that too.

@Therad Like you said thats a patent, not copywrite. The main point of contention on this is that copywrite protection, which is specifically about works of art and protection for artistic expression.... And that gameplay mechanics are videogames purest form of expression, and their unique defining trait for the medium. This troglodite-esque, malinformed, primitive train of thought basically completely denigrates videogames, only acknowledging the parts of them that are easily recognizable from previously existing media mediums.

If game mechanics were able to be copyrighted, then I could see it being abused so quickly.

@crimsontadpoles Just as quickly as attempts were made for anything else (so basically instantly).

Fortunately this wouldnt be a brainless broken process like youtubes content id garbage.

Basically there would have to be a demonstratable difference applied to an arbitrary number (20%) which all just basically boils down to the common sense of the judge.

Things like trying to copyright 'push a to jump' would be written off as frivolous. Trying to copyright something like say metroidvania would be about as possible as trying to copyright the concept of comedy.

Straight ripoffs would be taken to task quite handedly though. Like all those lousy phone/steam games that are basically ripped mario levels with different characters.

@Therad They have patents on the Tapping Symbol and Name.
But every game can use the mechanic and pretty much every card game does. They just have to name it differently and use a different symbol.

So can we have minigames on loading screens now? I remember one company copyrighted that, but can't remember who.

Mobile games are gonna use this to it's fullest!

Is this a similar thing to not being able to copyright fashion?

That's opening a can of worms.

Wait.....what?

Probably necessary. It could be interpreted too broadly in the context of games.

@allav866 that was Bandai Namco. And it was incorrectly awarded. And it expired last year. Which is why Splatoon has minigames. 😂

@Indy83 I must say that Ninja theory comes close to being a good combat developer but their games do lack a bit of punch that Capcom and Platinum managed to deliver in their flagship fighters.

Told ya.

That's a general "Told ya" in relation to multiple conversations I've have around this general issue many times now.

And, this is why Nintendo's classic and oft' referenced case against The Great Giana Sisters was total and utter ******* all along.

Most people still think Nintendo actually had a legit copyright infringement case against the developers of that game and that's why the game was removed from market. Nope; it was removed because the guys that made the game didn't realise Nintendo was basically just bluffing and they pulled the game themselves out of sheer fear and ignorance. Nintendo knew it didn't really have a legal leg to stand on but it gambled on its sheer presence being enough to put the fear of God into the developers, and it worked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Giana_Sisters (See 3.2 Alleged lawsuit)

Now, how many games/companies (usually indies) can you recall that have been tricked and bullied similarly by companies like Nintendo in recent times?

Also, I can tell you for a fact that if more people had the ***** to stand up to companies like Nintendo regarding the whole copyright infringement thing in YouTube videos (Let's Plays for example), they'd find that Nintendo wasn't standing on the law anywhere near as much as they've been led to believe in these cases either.

Copyright law isn't quite as black & white in favour of the giant corporation as most people believe (especially around the whole Fair Use thing), but most people don't know any better, and that is exactly what companies like Nintendo are counting on. And, if we keep letting them abuse the system like this, it won't be long before the law is subtly tweaked and morphed by slimy corporate lawyers to basically function exactly as they'd like us to believe it does already—and then we really won't have much of a leg to stand on.

But, for the record, I do think it's a douche move just to basically copy a game design directly and then slightly change the visuals and sound and act like you've not just ripped-off the other game. There should be some integrity in what you do, and basically copying and pasting another game's core design and gameplay is a slimy thing to do, unless you're doing it as parody or whatever, or you also bring something unique of your own to the mix too.

Here come the carbon copies of Pokémon mechanics on PS4, I guess.

@Kirk Well you have King who tried to sue Banner Saga for using Saga.

You're unnecessarily giving Nintendo the blame game here.

@Socar I'm on a Nintendo site. If I were on a mobile site I might use King as an example.

Interesting read

Yep, this law is (surprisingly) very clear in copyright. It's why there's a million Scrabble clones out there.

There had to be process in court to prove that?
As Kirk pointet out, Giana Sisters story got twisted over the years to utter BS, when in fact Nintendo was bluffing.
If you could copywright gameplay, then Nintendo would sue most of NES developers, because jumping and attack were assigned to the same buttons as in their games.

Aw, I thought Bang! was coming to a Nintendo system, but then I read the headline.

@SuperiorTech That is such a fun game though.

@SheldonRandoms Mobile games were copying everything in sight since their inception.

Guys, big difference between copyright and patent. Allot of peeps are confusing the two on here.

@Yorumi Legally speaking, I believe you could literally copy a game beat for beat (although not the actual lines of code*, as those are protected by copyright to a degree—as far as I'm aware), then change the graphics and sound and there would be no problem. It's a douche thing to do but it's perfectly legal.

*Which means, even though you directly copied the gameplay and stuff, based on what you saw and experienced, it's still entirely your own code.

@Yorumi The problem is that if they go too far with this kind of stuff then corporations, just like Nintendo, would basically abuse the laws and claim ownership over literally everything.

Jumping in a game—owned by Nintendo. Collecting coins in games—owned by Nintendo. Scrolling in platform games—owned by Nintendo. Top down RPG viewpoint—owned by Nintendo. And the list goes on. . . .

Note: Some of those probably weren't actually done the very first time by Nintendo but I'm just making my point. And it kinda makes it doubly, because if those other companies did them first and could own the rights to them then none of those Nintendo games would likely exist. Or they might, as long as Nintendo was willing to cough up the fees involved.

If it were like that we'd be at a point now where no one would be able to make any games without paying some douche corporations licensing fees. 99.999% of indie developers would be stopped in their tracks and go out of business fighting legal battles for what are largely original and unique games but that maybe use some popular mechanics—like all those match 3 games—and it's not like they're all just ripping off Nintendo or whichever other company's games.

So, you can protect a piece of art and design you created or a piece of music, and stuff like that, as these are a very specific things. But, to say you could protect a mechanic would be going too far.

I think there must be some things you can protect, however, as Nintendo holds a Patent for the insanity system in Eternal Darkness, and Sega holds a Patent for the multiple camera views in 3D racing games (or something along those lines).

@Yorumi I agree with you in principle, especially given the example you provided.

The thing with it, however, is you could just switch a few of the areas and platforms around and claim it's not actually the same. So where do you draw the line? If it's only an issue when you make an exact copy then it's extremely easy to get around—and the people douche enough to copy games directly would be quick to get around that. If it gives companies protection of general level layouts and stuff, broadly speaking, then a company like Nintendo could claim half the platformers out there violate copyright because some sections are very similar to their own Mario games, and that would be totally unfair and destroy any market competition.

Basically, the way it's set up right now is about as fair as it can actually get. But companies like Nintendo will still try to use other people's ignorance of the law to abuse it to their advantage, and douches will still try to basically ripoff entire game designs and act like they did something original.

But, I do expect there'd probably be a claim to be made if some copied literally every single level in Super Mario World to the letter and simply changed the sprites.

@Yorumi I basically agree with you in principle.

The discourse that has transpired here pleases me.

i love my state of texas, too bad it doesnt do the same for me sometimes...