Making a game
ssem:
I myself am exceedingly intolerant and see only the bad sides of people. in the case of role-playing games this is directed at various gaming companies. I will name those that my opinion look down on as examples: Steve Jackson, Wizards of the Coast, White Wolf and very personally Games Workshop. These companies, in my opinion, are very aggressive and highly prone to sue and attack others and heavily copyright everything they do even if its not something originated by them. With the exception of Steve I have actually seen these companies take some poor fool to court over some unimportant detail. I am actually terrified of going through with trying to publish my game and expect at any point for some company, most likely WotC to either tell me to stop or take me to court for trying to emulate basic D&D and claim my game is truer to the original game than any WotC product. I do take exception to the fact they are calling their AD&D 4th Ed D&D when i refuse to acknowledge any similarities. but then I'm a nobody and they are a vast company who only want more money and power. I can't do or say anything and if I stand up they will smack me down real hard.
As to people copying and using my game ideas. I am more than happy to share my version of D&D for free with everyone.
The purpose of me creating my game system is actually a worry for me. The purpose is to write adventure novels in a world of my own making. The origins of this fantasy world appeared in the mid 80s and while there was prior inspiration for it, I can dare to say that most of the world is fairly original and based on my own imagination rather than influenced by the world around me. In the 30 years that have passed, however, I have seen so many games and books and films and comics that bear an uncanny resemblance to my world. for a start I had to delete the name of the planet as that is now copyright of some manga comic. So many changes I have to make to avoid others screaming copyright at me that I am loathe to mention anything at all about my game world to the general public. it will forever remain...adventure in the land of Jan...a name coined by a fellow gamer, until I am finally able to publish it. this book, and world is my invention and it has suffered damage over the years. at this time I am cripplingly unable and unwilling to leak any info out about the world lest such info gets used against my permission. and that crippling fear is getting in the way of creating my game system. because the most common question people ask is tell us about the game world you are designing this system for so we can understand and help you.
I feel like a caged animal being imprisoned because I refuse to hand over the item I'm cuddling. The prison guards will free me once I hand it over, but I dare not lose my precious item.
MrNay:
Lol, that is kind of how I feel.
I have had this idea in my head since I was a teen and ever since Between the Shadows (Nightbane) I have seen so many "almost not quite" games, movies and comics come out.
Now I feel it is not really my idea but another branch of the same ur-genre that has been popping up since the 90s.
Chris_Chinn:
Hi ssem,
Quote
Steve Jackson, Wizards of the Coast, White Wolf and very personally Games Workshop. These companies, in my opinion, are very aggressive and highly prone to sue and attack others and heavily copyright everything they do even if its not something originated by them. With the exception of Steve I have actually seen these companies take some poor fool to court over some unimportant detail.
I'd love to see some links on this. I've never heard of this nor seen any reports about mass lawsuits or copyright hammers coming down.
The "big examples" I've heard of are Palladium Books sending cease and desists to fan sites and of WOTC sending the same for folks who had "power cards" for 4E, as soon as they started selling their own. Otherwise, I've not seen any reports, just a lot of gamers worried about copyright doom without much to back it up. Currently, several games are literal D&D clones as part of the "Old School Renaissance" which have suffered no legal backlash thus far.
Can you give some linked examples of what you're talking about?
Chris
ssem:
unfortunately I can't. technology and internet is from a different planet from me. I wouldn't know how to google something I've seen or heard to show as computer evidence to another.
Wizards took the creators of Master of Magic, the computer game to court for copying what they thought was a WotC idea in Magic the gathering. My opinion is that a tacky card game takes maybe a week to a month to put in a shop after someone comes up with the idea, where a computer game usually takes years of programming and testing before it can be sold. Both games came out at roughly the same time and I played the computer game before even hearing about card games. So my biased opinion is that WotC produced the card game before the computer game came out and Wizards use this to argue that they have the right to sue the computer game for copyright breach.
White Wolf took the creators of that boring film, Underworld, I think it was called for copying all the types of vampires and werewolves and the names of organisations in the film which exist exactly the same in WW games.
Games Workshop... hmm...my memory flickers in and out and so when I posted last I might have remembered something that GW did...this memory eludes me and might even exist. However GW copyright and trademark just about everything with their name on it. Orcs, Eldar Elves, Balruuks, even the bleeding pads of paper they sell! They absolutely refuse to allow anyone to create anything similar to GW products such as films and games and books. It was only through years of begging and grovelling that an on-line game was allowed to be made. I myself have personal experience with them in person as they live in the same county as me. they've demanded to know my purpose in buying their products because I've spoken to them in the past about my desires to create my own RPG. I had to be vague and elusive and lie a little when answering them but I could see they suspected I was using their products for my own games and they were looking for some opening to charge me. I also had 2 players in the employ of them and when these players saw I was using GW hex sheets (sheets which had the (C)and (tm) logos on them) for a game I was running of my own design, they complained loudly and threatened to sue me. Admittedly, unless I actually make any money from it. companies are reluctant to take action as all they can do is force me to stop what I'm doing. I do have a personal enmity with GW, they were the only gamers I could talk to in an official matter and when I asked for an interview with one of the founders they accepted and let me walk a few miles to their base, enter the door, say hello, shake hands, wait for me to begin the meeting, listen to me state that I am interested in designing an RPG...then suddenly interrupt me by stating RPGs are dead, good bye... end of interview.
Hehe sorry you asked me about Games Workshop... thats one of my many buttons that say ... don't press :)
Nathan P.:
Some perspective on companies issuing lawsuits...(standard caveat: I'm just a guy on the internet, not a lawyer. However, I am actually coming fresh from a seminar with reference to trademarks, patents and copyright in context of branding and manufacturing given by an IP attorney for a huge manufacturing company, so it's fresh in my mind. And the issues we went over hewed pretty closely to the research I've done on copyright and trademark for my own purposes, so...)
(oh, and, this all applies primarily to the US, I have no idea how it works in other countries)
There's a thing about trademarks, in particular - a company can lose their trademark if it's found to be "abandoned," which is a call that a court makes in context of the individual circumstances of the case. What this means in practice tends to be that companies will sue over a seemingly unrelated or frivolous thing, because if they don't, and later down the road some other company infringes on their property, the infringing company can point to the earlier case of the original company not protecting their trademark as evidence of abandonment. This was one operating theory of why White Wolf sued Sony over Underworld (which IIRC was settled out of court).
Don't get me wrong, this means that companies will bring suit for stupid reasons, but there is (usually) a logic behind it greater than "screw the little guy just cuz we can"
To be more on topic for this thread - another thing is you can't copyright game mechanics, just the expression (i.e. the actual textual writing) of them. Which is why the retro-clones (like Labyrinth Lord) are generally legally good, even though they're basically repackaging early D&D rules. So, sure, theoretically someone could take your idea and write their own version of it, and there's not much you can do, especially if you don't have the financial resources to bring suit. If you are really seriously worried about someone sharing your work before you're ready, you can ask readers/playtesters/etc to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA), which gives you leverage to sue them if you can prove they divulged anything to a third party. This is generally what most mid-tier-and-up publishers do.
However! As other have pointed out, the hobby gaming community is really startlingly good at respecting other peoples work*, both by not intentionally ripping each other off, and in terms of being inspired by others work and incorporating those inspirations into their own games. One of the trends that has really helped out the indie games scene is that your early readers and playtesters will actually form your initial marketing force, talking about your game because they have experience with it before it gets out to a wider circle. So, there's that to consider as well.
Hope that some of that is helpful and/or useful!
*outside of some art-related shenanigans
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