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[Sam]

I hope you don't mind me going back to the opening post. Mikejkelly, you don't really explain in your letter to the EFF how exactly your patent is protecting you. Lots of talk of American dreams and percentile based representations of relative wealth, but not many specifics.

I wonder what business/software method you have patented for your game? Looking at "Dreamcasters Duel": I assume it can't be a purely technical thing as you're using the Unreal Engine, so it must be an aspect of game design. I've read a bit about the game and watched a video explaining the mechanics. It's a third person fighting game which is a genre I'm not overly familiar with, but it seems broadly similar to GunZ, Devil May Cry, or Oni.

Stringing together basic attacks to form combos has of course been done in many games before. Gaining a resource ("concentration" in your case) from successful attacks that unlocks more powerful attacks has been done. Switching camera and movement controls from world-orientated to relative-to-targeted-enemy is also a well established mechanic. Although you could have applied for a patent for any part (or the whole) of these and it may well have been granted by an ignorant patent office worker, any such patent would not stand up in court.

Now that I've typed that I suspect you've actually been patenting mechanics related to "Yoshimi Vs. Face Punching Robots" if only because you keep saying how the mechanics are super awesome, but secret. I can't find any patents assigned to Nickel City Pixels on the US Patent Office, which is a shame as part of the point of patents is that they're not secret.

[Schrompf]

@VortexCortex - i didn't read all of your post (it's a bit long)

Then go back and read it. It was a nicely laid out argument to which I can only say: ++Vortex.

[mikejkelley]

I wonder what business/software method you have patented for your game?

It has nothing to do w/ either DCD or Yoshimi (or game mechanics for that matter). As far as disclosing goes, I'm wrestling w/ the conflicting motivations of wanting to protect it as a trade secret and wanting to publicize it for various reasons.

I can't find any patents assigned to Nickel City Pixels on the US Patent Office, which is a shame as part of the point of patents is that they're not secret.

It's currently a provisional. They only publish when granted (or if you don't check off certain boxes when filing the non-provisional).

The patent system and copyright system are totally based on legally enforcing artificial scarcity of ideas.

Your entire argument flows from several flawed premises. For one, while ideas are not scarce, good ideas absolutely are.

The patent system and copyright system are totally based on providing incentive for people who come up with good ideas. If there is no incentive (eg a bigger company will simply copy and ruin you), good ideas are much less likely to get to market (a ruinously costly proposition). People typically don't do things that will lead to their ruination.

When you move beyond opinion and deal w/ actual numbers, you can see that the GDP benefits of IP law can be quantified.
http://www.wipo.int/portal/en/news/2007/article_0032.html
Consider the source, sure, but consider also that they're using sound methodology, facts, data, numbers.

There's so much that's wrong with your argument that I quickly got bored w/ it. It's evident it's little more than back-door bragging about what a blue-collar champ you are. But just throwing some darts at it, here's what I come up w/;

Get in tune with EVERYONE else who works for money.

Let's say you work concrete, (it's like ditch digging, except that the lye in the concrete eats your flesh) a job I've actually had; it's still not as difficult as learning and implementing patent law in conjunction with developing an invention, building a business, and bringing it to market. You know, work.

Copyright and Patent law allows people to try and get paid multiple times for the work they did once,

You code once but get paid for each time your software sells. But I'm sure that's somehow different.

get paid enough up front

Lol, by who? A company like 6waves? Zynga? Why should they pay you when they can just steal your ideas?

you: I've got this great idea. A knife/fork!

corp: Brilliant! Thanks, goodbye!

you: Wait, don't you want to pay me upfront? 

(Any nonsense about contracts, tell it to Spry Fox)

And that's just it. Without IP law good ideas get stolen. If your ideas aren't getting stolen, that means they're not good enough. The only people unconcerned w/ good ideas getting stolen are those w/out good ideas. Unfortunately, that's the vast majority of people.

I can't be bothered with this thread but the offer from my first post still stands.

[VDZ]

And that's just it. Without IP law good ideas get stolen. If your ideas aren't getting stolen, that means they're not good enough. The only people unconcerned w/ good ideas getting stolen are those w/out good ideas. Unfortunately, that's the vast majority of people.

And as pointed out before, patented ideas will still be stolen from those who cannot shoulder the costs of defending it, and often even if you can pay for defending it, it's way too easy to get around it by changing some stuff. And if, for any reason, a big corporation can't steal your idea, they'll just buy your company and all patents it has.

The government does not punish you for patent infringement; it's a civil offense, not a crime. As such, the patent holder must take action to counter any infringement; inability to do so makes your patent worthless. Taking action to infringe is cheap, while taking action to defend is costly. In other words, it pretty much comes down to the fact that only entities with a lot of money can actually defend their patents. Otherwise it might serve to discourage infringement, but a patent without money to back it up is worthless when it comes to actually preventing infringement.

[VortexCortex]

I wonder what business/software method you have patented for your game?

It has nothing to do w/ either DCD or Yoshimi (or game mechanics for that matter). As far as disclosing goes, I'm wrestling w/ the conflicting motivations of wanting to protect it as a trade secret and wanting to publicize it for various reasons.

What is your patent over?  You're protected by the patent system, right?  You're not afraid I'll be able to find prior art to invalidate the brilliant idea, are you?  If it's non patentable then it's not useful as a patent... So, what's the point of keeping it secret?  You don't have to fear anyone using the same idea because you created the prior art, right?

Unless... Unless the patent system doesn't actually work as advertized?  Isn't one of the aims of the patent system to keep people from having to hide valuable trade secrets by protecting them with patents?

You stated that you think it'll help you defensively against bigger corps with more patents.  Protip: 1 patent vs their 1000 patents is still a losing battle. 

You'll only be able to monetize a small number of patents if you're a non practicing entity (AKA Patent Troll).  If you actually make products, a few patents is as useless as having none.

The patent system and copyright system are totally based on legally enforcing artificial scarcity of ideas.

Your entire argument flows from several flawed premises. For one, while ideas are not scarce, good ideas absolutely are.

Sharing an idea is cheap.  Ideas spread at little to no cost.  In a digital enabled society duplicating bits is very cheap.  My argument flows from the idea that the artificial scarcity systems are inherently flawed.  Monetize what's scarce -- The ability to create good ideas, the ability to write code, not duplications of the ideas or code.  The latter are in near infinite supply -- Copies can only be monetized due to artificial restrictions placed on copying, whereas work is valuable without artificial restrictions in play.  Those who ignore copyright and patent law can not harm me if I do not rely on the artificial scarcity, and instead rely on the actual scarcity of my time.

From an economics standpoint it's a no-brainer. You can't sell ice to Eskimos.  Sharing ideas and copies is cheap.  You're rationalizing selling ice to Eskimos by pointing to legislation that states Eskimos can only get ice from ice dealers...

The patent system and copyright system are totally based on providing incentive for people who come up with good ideas. If there is no incentive (eg a bigger company will simply copy and ruin you), good ideas are much less likely to get to market (a ruinously costly proposition). People typically don't do things that will lead to their ruination.

The incentive to do work is the promise of payment for said work, not the ability to extort monies from others who come to similar solutions -- The latter is the tool of Patent Trolls.

Patents and Copyrights are totally based on providing the most benefit to society -- Says so in the US constitution, this section basically plagiarized the Statue of Anne (English copyright law).  I do hope this irony isn't lost on you.

Coming up with "good ideas" is fine, but if you're not solving anyone's problem or meeting anyone's desires by doing so then it's not worth anything to anyone but you -- Of course you'll have a problem selling something that no one wants or needs... Like a knifork.

When you move beyond opinion and deal w/ actual numbers, you can see that the GDP benefits of IP law can be quantified.

That's just an untested hypothesis.  Scientifically speaking it's worthless.  There's no experiment here at all to prove your point.  Correlation is not Causation.

Can you prove that removing said IP laws would harm the GDP, or that removing IP laws would increase GDP?  No, you can not.  Ergo, those numbers mean nothing in this context.  Come back when you've actually tested your hypothesis -- The only way to do so is to eradicate patent and copyright laws.  Personally, I think today is a much different world that when those arcane laws were written -- Copyright was created to keep greedy Publishers from exploiting Authors, and it did not restrict the general populous from making copies.  Now copy machines like computers are cheap and ubiquitous -- Everyone now affected by the laws meant only to restrict Publishers.

It's high time we tested the ancient hypothesis -- Working under these laws at this point without testing their premise isn't just illogical and silly, it's plainly Bad Science.


The Automotive and Fashion industries have no patent or copyright protections for their designs (just trademarks).  However, they're doing just fine.  If you look at the "numbers" they're even more lucrative than Software, Games, Books, Music, etc.  Other markets that do have these protections.  So, despite not having copyright and patent 'incentives' the Fashion and Automotive industries thrive.  Seems legitimate that software could also survive without patent protections since they didn't always have them (until the 80's in the US), and some countries don't recognize them (which has brought these countries more software developers, hmm).

If someone else comes up with the same idea independently, preventing them from using their own idea is harmful to them.  Weaponizing the ideas for protection or defense is not the original purpose of the patent and copyright laws.

You're simply spreading FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt) because you can't say what it would be like with no copyright and patents in today's software industry.  We'd have to ban them first and find out -- You know, use logic and reason and the Scientific Method, instead of FUD and conjecture.

Additionally -- Jim Crow was a law.  Segregation.  Even Slavery laws have been on the books.  It's been proven time and again that established laws can be very flawed.  I believe laws granting idea monopolies are just as flawed as other artificial arbitrary restrictions, like segregation based on skin color.

In short: Prove the law is just.  Let's do without it for a while and see.  THEN you can prove if limiting our freedom of speech and creative output with copyright and patents is beneficial to society or not.

There's so much that's wrong with your argument that I quickly got bored w/ it. It's evident it's little more than back-door bragging about what a blue-collar champ you are. But just throwing some darts at it, here's what I come up w/;

Get in tune with EVERYONE else who works for money.

Let's say you work concrete, (it's like ditch digging, except that the lye in the concrete eats your flesh) a job I've actually had; it's still not as difficult as learning and implementing patent law in conjunction with developing an invention, building a business, and bringing it to market. You know, work.

I'm not bragging, just making a comparison to other jobs I've had that follow the same payment for work system.  It works everywhere is the point.

So, what you're saying is that creating software is more difficult and expensive due to the complexities of working with patent law...  I see.  So, without the patent system to worry about, it would cost you less to, you know, do your work?

Copyright and Patent law allows people to try and get paid multiple times for the work they did once,

You code once but get paid for each time your software sells. But I'm sure that's somehow different.

That's a pretty big assumption, and it's WRONG.  I don't get paid for each time my software sells.  I don't have to.  I get paid enough to create it in the first place, thus I only sell it once.  Hell, some of the code I get paid to create is released as free and open source software.

I am a problem solver.  I have a reputation as a good solver of problems.  My ability to come up with good ideas is how I market myself as a problem solver.  This is why I get paid to do work.  Once the solution has been created and I've been paid for doing so, I don't seek further payment for each deployment of the solution.  I get paid enough up front.  I can then begin solving other problems i.e. doing more work for more money.  That I'm able to post this is proof enough for me that software developers don't need copyright and patents to make a living.

I'm not saying my way is the only way.  It did take a bit of bootstrapping to get from "pay for each copy" to "pay for my work".  You have to make do with the market that you have available.

I may have to bootstrap myself again for the games market in order to build my reputation.  I believe free games will be an important component in addition to sales.  However, the primary objective will be to make sure each sale is made because people want me to make more games -- funding future development, Not arbitrary greed ($60 for a disk with bits on it?).  Thus, prices can be adjusted fairly, and eventually all the games I make can free -- The work to create them having already been paid for.

This method worked in business software, so I'm willing to try it on game software.

get paid enough up front

Lol, by who? A company like 6waves? Zynga? Why should they pay you when they can just steal your ideas?

I get payed because the idea hasn't been created or implemented yet.  Typically a problem exists that needs to be solved, I think about it a little and say: "Hey, I can solve the problem for _X_ monies"

In case you didn't know, this is pretty much the same way games and movies get pitched to publishers. So, I'm not sure why you have a problem with this established system.  Look up "Game Treatment", or "Movie Treatment", etc.

I've been paid by some larger companies you've probably heard of, but I'm not bragging, so I won't list them.  Mostly I do work for smaller companies with unique problems that need solutions the bigger software houses don't want to address.  It's a niche I prefer, and I'm able to afford to live comfortably working within it.  Other teams of developers tackle bigger projects than I'm capable of, but follow the same methodology. In other words: It's a scalable strategy.

I also hear that Kickstarer exists.  It's the same principal, except that it's enabling anyone to fund ideas that haven't been fully realized yet.   I believe there's also opportunity for other models where people get paid up front to do work... Eg: Perhaps users submit ideas -- These get voted up / down, and devs get crowdfunded to work on the good ideas.

you: I've got this great idea. A knife/fork!

corp: Brilliant! Thanks, goodbye!

you: Wait, don't you want to pay me upfront? 

Again, proving that the ideas themselves have little value...

If all the game and movie remakes / clones are anything to go on, different people can use the same idea for profit...  The idea is not its execution.

Simple things like a knife/fork hybrid or removing expired entires from a hash tables as you iterate it, etc don't deserve patents for many reasons -- Yet absurd things do win patents all the time.  Swinging on a Swing sideways was patented, as well as the hash-table cleaning software -- Thus proving that patent examiners aren't a good judge of obviousness or prior art.  "Winning" a patent isn't impressive in the least, you can get a patent on anything.  It really is for the courts to decide if it's actually a patentable idea.  This is why without a big legal budget having a patent is useless.

Fully formed implementations of games, software or mechanical devices can't be expressed in a sales pitch -- The funding will be based on your credibility via past works, and whether or not the idea sounds like a good one or not.

"Hey, I'm a game creator.  You might have played __X__, which I created, so I have some credibility.  I have a good idea for a game, which I'll make if you give me __Y__ monies"

^- Doublefine's Kickstarter pitch in a nutshell...

Who cares if someone uses my idea for a knife/fork?  In this fictitious example I would have been employed by a dinnerware company to make innovative cutlery.  Even if other companies make a knifork it doesn't prevent us from selling our own higher quality or cheaper version.

And that's just it. Without IP law good ideas get stolen. If your ideas aren't getting stolen, that means they're not good enough. The only people unconcerned w/ good ideas getting stolen are those w/out good ideas. Unfortunately, that's the vast majority of people.

If you can't make money with your idea without extortion, it's not a good idea.

I can't be bothered with this thread but the offer from my first post still stands.

Protecting game ideas with patents won't work.  It doesn't work because gameplay isn't patentable.  Even if you win a game patent, it's useless as protection against Zynga because they have a bunch of other bogus software patents that you're likely infringing (having independently "invented" the same things).

It's sad that you can't be bothered to examine your own stance.  I'm not sure why you even created the thread if you didn't want to learn something new.

Honestly, I wouldn't have replied if not for this interesting Groklaw Article about how the legal fiction that enables software patents to exist is totally bogus.

They break things down to a fundamental level and show just how ridiculous the idea of software patents is to those who know how it all actually works.  You can enriched your mind, but it unfortunately seems very closed and tied to the established system no matter how flawed it actually is.

It's a good thing we all weren't as close minded about slavery and segregation, eh?

[pelle]

OP has 1 patent in his game, while no doubt violating 10-1000 patents owned by big coroprations (probably including Zynga). Good luck in court.

[Oskuro]

Patents exist to motivate innovation by granting exclusive rights to whoever markets an idea first.

In the context where they first cropped up, technological innovation, the pros outweight the cons, since creating hardware products is costly in of itself (if only due to the materials), and said barrier to entry would stop many developments if there wasn't a guarantee of profit.

This applies to many industries, like the pharmaceutical industry where, like it or not, big enterprises are needed to make advances (as they are the ones with the money to burn in research), and the unfair advantages of said patents are the way to motivate them (although it is a case where the cons are closer to overtaking the pros).


In software, it is different, because software is intangible. The barrier of entry for innovation is way lower, to the point that kids on their spare time can manage to pop out innovative algorithms. In this scenario, patents would be disastrous, as rather than foster innovation, they'd become a tool for larger entities to crush smaller ones (Take a look at how Apple competes with Samsung... by getting their tablets banned on grounds of them looking too much alike the iPad... you know, a touch-enabled black square).


The scenario where one developer copies the mechanics from another changing the assets is nothing new. It happens in movies, books, music, cars, fashion, other software products... The point being that, in that situation, improvement (creativity) is fostered by a lack of security. Since anyone can come up with a clone of your game/movie/song, you need to keep innovating to stay on top.

The word you might be looking for, rather than patents, is plagiarism. There should be a stricter sense of what is plagiarism in videogames, and at which point the combination of game mechanics and assets are way too similar to another published product to be allowed.

But it is a matter of degrees, not absolutes like patents would.


To put an example, a software patent would be to actually patent the FPS mechanic. Would it be good for the industry if everyone wanting to develop a FPS had to pay royalties to use the mechanic?

There have been cases where graphics algorithms (The Marching Cubes algorithm, for example) were patented, and people needing to use them had to come up with alternate implementations.


I agree that plagiarism is an issue that needs to be looked into, but patents are extremely detrimental to an industry that thrives on the free flow of ideas. Consider that this forum would most likely have to be shut down if software patenting came around, as posting algorithm ideas, or code examples could be considered piracy.


Also, the audience isn't that stupid. If they can't tell the original great concept from the  copies, then maybe the original wasn't such a great concept. For example, Minecraft is still the prime voxel-builder game out there, despite the inordinate amount of clones cropping up, some of which don't even bother pretending to be something different. DooM survived an era where FPS games where known as "DooM Clones", Mario survived the onslaught of platformers.... The whole plagiarism thing isn't new at all.


Darn, got into rant mode. 

[VDZ]

Also, the audience isn't that stupid. If they can't tell the original great concept from the  copies, then maybe the original wasn't such a great concept. For example, Minecraft is still the prime voxel-builder game out there, despite the inordinate amount of clones cropping up, some of which don't even bother pretending to be something different. DooM survived an era where FPS games where known as "DooM Clones", Mario survived the onslaught of platformers....

...and Crush the Castle became one of the best-selling games ever while clones like Angry Birds remained obscure...oh wait.

That only works when the original game is successful enough, and in game development, quality does not guarantee success; marketing is much more important, and other factors such as connections and simple luck also count. At least Angry Birds added some things to CtC and CtC was at least somewhat successful, but last year a company called Gamenauts released a functionally identical (everything the same except for the graphics) iOS clone of Dutch indie developer Vlambeer's obscure flash game 'Radical Fishing' and it became a top-seller, leaving Vlambeer with their unfinished iOS sequel which will no doubt be called a clone and probably be nowhere near as successful as Gamenauts' clone.

Also, regarding your Minecraft example, I'm not one of the idiots who's saying it's a clone just because it looks similar, but its signature voxel look was not 'the original'; It was based on a game called 'Infiniminer':

[pelle]

At least the clones bring a little attention to obscure/failed original games few had heard of anyway. It would of course be great to see more developers be more open about what games they borrowed from, but with trigger-happy IP lawyers everywhere I can see why that is too risky.

Don't see a problem with reusing ideas. It's how it always worked. Angry Birds is 99 % old artillery games (Wikipedia says the first one was Artillery in "mid 70's") plus a physics engine.

[Oskuro]

...and Crush the Castle became one of the best-selling games ever while clones like Angry Birds remained obscure...oh wait.

That only works when the original game is successful enough, and in game development, quality does not guarantee success; marketing is much more important, and other factors such as connections and simple luck also count.

Of course, if the original was somewhat obscure or poorly marketed, or simply didn't click with audiences, it will be surpassed by copycats who get those things better. And I know this is not a popular opinion, but I think that is a good thing, I think it is better for copycats to make the idea work, than for a promising idea to vanish into oblivion because the patent holders lock it down (The Fox holding on to Firefly effect, if you like, even though that's Copyright, not patent).

Now, a harsh reality is that making something successful is, nowadays, more dependent on how much money you have to throw into the project than actual talent (which is why marketing is so pivotal today, no need to be good if you can make people aware only of your products), so well-funded copycats can and will drown out the originals in a very unfair manner.

And the harsher reality is that, even if you have a patent on something, the big corporation with a massive budget will crush you in court, so a patent system, anyway you look at it, only benefits the big and powerful.


So in my opinion, a refining of the concept of plagiarism is better (along with the utopic idea that courts should not be exploitable by the powerful, but that is another discussion altogether) than just opening the floodgates for a mad patent rush, which will inevitably lead to big corporations owning all the patents, and thus new developers needing to pay them for the privilege to use simple concepts in the creation of new ideas, rather than them buying out the new ideas that work.

Also, regarding your Minecraft example, I'm not one of the idiots who's saying it's a clone just because it looks similar, but its signature voxel look was not 'the original'; It was based on a game called 'Infiniminer'.

I know about Inifiniminer, the thing is that Notch did what pretty much everyone does, he played the game, thought "Hey, this would be cool if...." and went ahead and made his own thing. If the guys from Infiniminer could've claimed a patent on voxel block-building engines, we wouldn't have Minecraft (which is a sandbox/survival game, not a multiplayer action game as Inifniminer was), nor would there be a lot of people looking into said engines and making new stuff.


Yes, it sucks when it is your idea that someone does something better with, but that's the nature of human creativity, we all base our ideas on someone else's, and when we can't make one idea work, we just learn and move to a new one. Harsh, but better than the alternative.