However, you can create a game where you have to buy real estate and build on it. You may not be using the names, places, or rules of Monopoly, but something very similar. Don`t Tetris-type games constantly get into legal trouble if they aren`t officially licensed by The Tetris Company LLC? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tetris_Company#Legal_enforcement Of course, The Tetris Company probably has a lot more legal resources to pressure Apple and Google Play to remove clones than the average game developer. I wouldn`t just say “you can`t protect ideas through copyright” because there are a lot of grey areas and if you end up with a company with enough legal muscle, then you`re going to have cloning problems. (or at least enough problems to revoke your distribution from different markets) Similarly, the name or title of the game would be protected by trademark law. The fundamental purpose of trademark law is to avoid confusion when distinguishing different trademarks/products. So if you were to call your Tetris clone something like Tetris Blast, you`d probably have a trademark infringement on your hands. Graphics, on the other hand, are subject to copyright protection. The underlying source code and artistic elements of the game (art, music and dialogue, etc.) may be protected by copyright. With that in mind, it`s not just about changing the graphics, it`s also about making sure the game as a whole is different. You can see it with the Tetris case linked somewhere here in the thread. Of course, classic games like Tetris will have an easier time claiming violations than a generally unknown game. Trademark law has been used by the video game industry in the past, but it may no longer be useful because the new cloners show a well-informed knowledge of intellectual property laws.
The lawsuit calls into question the fact that The City not only copies the game mechanics of The Sims Social, but also uses artistic and visual aspects of the interface that appear to be inspired by The Sims Social. Experts noted that, unlike these previous developers, EA is financially supported to see the case through; EA itself stated in the lawsuit that “Maxis is not the first studio to claim that Zynga copied its creative product. But we`re the studio that has the financial and entrepreneurial resources to stand up and do something about it. [85] The two companies reached an out-of-court settlement in February 2013 on undisclosed terms. [86] I am not a lawyer, but one important thing to know is that ideas cannot be protected by copyright. You are free to create your own Tetris game, as long as you do not use content protected by game copyright (e.g., images, sound, etc.). For this reason, Wordfeud can copy Scrabble without any legal problems. Lawyer here for a change. You can copy the entire gameplay hassle-free. This is not copyrighted or enforceable. The things that matter are assets – art, sound, music, video, etc. For example, if you take the ZX game and clone it with your own assets, you will be perfectly fine with this.
But if you take an asset and use it in different types of games, it could be enforceable. There are many examples of this in the industry, for example, Warcraft basically copied the game mechanics of Dune 2 and the genre was completely new at the time. For a more recent example, see Gameloft Company, the developer for iPhone. What they do is copy successful game ideas as close as possible to the original, but without using artistic elements from originals. This is their successful business model. They copied games like Halo, Starcraft, World of Warcraft and so on with great success in their field. It`s even funny that if you check their wow clone, you can see that the animations of the orcs and their appearance are very close to the original. Valve, which operates the Steam digital storefront for PC games, is also taking steps to remove games that clearly infringe clones of other titles on the service once they`ve been notified of the issue. [121] The Court notes that “unlike a book or a film plot, the rules and procedures, including winning conditions, that constitute a card game system do not themselves produce the artistic or literary content that is the hallmark of the protectable expression.” They note that past copyright victories have been won by parties due to violations of visual appearance or other protectable elements. Pac-man`s gameplay, they recall, was not considered protectable in 1982. Closed consoles weren`t the only cloned systems. The ZX Spectrum was released in the UK in 1982 and its low cost compared to other personal computers helped create the video game industry in the UK and Western Europe.
The system could not be imported into Eastern Bloc countries, but enterprising companies found ways to clone ZX Spectrum hardware at an even lower cost. As teens and young adults could afford these hardware clones, they were also able to start developing their own games and helped launch the video game industry in these countries. [24] However, there is no international consistency with respect to copyright protection of the entire video game as an entity.10 U.S. courts have ruled that a video game falls within the category of audiovisual works (including films) in the Copyright Act of 1976 (United States). The courts of England and Wales have described a video game as an audiovisual work (which is not a separate category of works in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (United Kingdom) – so the game is not protected as an entity) or a computer program (which is a literary work), but disagree that it is a film. Australian courts have described a video game as a film, but not as an audiovisual work. More recently, in the case of Nintendo Co Ltd v. PC Box Srl (PC Box), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that video games “have a unique creative value” that cannot be reduced to computer language11, clarifying that the scope of copyright protection for video games in the EU extends to both the Information Society Directive and the Software12. , the CJEU seems to be moving inexorably towards the position that the concept of distinct categories of works with different thresholds of protection in copyright has no place in EU law; On the contrary, copyright should protect any work that is its author`s own intellectual creation.13 I believe that words with friends and other Scrabble clones cannot use the same table layout (duplicate word scores, etc.). The reason is that if the rules are too similar, it`s illegal. How you define “too similar”, I have no idea.
I think all Scrabble clones also use slightly different letter values. The Pegasus, sold only in Eastern European states, was a clone of the Famicom, although it was named after the Super Famicom system, the purpose of the current research was to identify factors associated with the time people play video games. This study expands on previous research by examining this question with a variety of video game genres. Five hundred and seventy-three participants completed an online survey about their gaming habits, preferences and experiences while playing. Aside from differences in play hours associated with gender and game genres, it has been found that greater play time is associated with playing with others and higher experiences of skill, autonomy, and connectivity during play. The results are interpreted in light of previous research and the potential impact on the links between video games and well-being is considered. However, the bang! The General Court rejected that settlement in this case. Instead of being like the plot of a movie, the court compared the interactions of the characters of Bang! with something more like a basketball game. They felt that this was not protectable. According to the court, the plot and gameplay of something like The Legend of Zelda would most likely be protectable.