Hello. I am working on a game of a secret nature, and I'm wanting to know how to keep my ideas safe. I'm working on a design document, which I will have copyrighted... but that's probably not enough. What I would LIKE to do is to get the design document copyrighted and FINALLY post about my game and look for a programmer. Should I also get most of the characters designs copyrighted, too? And the story? What else should I get copyrought (bad joke)?
Thanks!
[edit]I hate what ":-D" produces...
that's the dumbest thing you can do.
I work as freelance programmer too and when someone start to tell me stuff like "i got a great idea for a game and i want you to work on it, but it's secret stuff so i cannot say more..." i politely tell them that their project is going to be an epic fail
In the end, nobody wants your ideas, don't worry about it, from an idea to a game that doesn't suck there are skill, design and several tons of work.
Also, you can't "copyright" anything that's not made
If you want to protect yourself you don't need anything like that, just make the people you want to talk with sign an
NDA (non disclosure agreement) before starting talking about the "core" of your stuff.
Only be sure to tell them before signing what kind of game is, what do you need from them, how much money they want to help you, how much time they need to spend and then after the NDA you can go into details... even if they'll be not interested the nda will be still valid too
If I were you I'd look for at least 4-5 programmers and give each one of them a partial view of the concept so that none of them can recreate the idea on his own
you know, that's plain impossible
you need someone to put together the pieces, and even if you manage to do so, the game will surely be a piece of crap