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[Dinomaniak]

Long time game dev, first time working on a game for steam.

Our game is ready to go into marketing, and I have no idea what we need, so I'd like to ask advice from those of you that have been through this process and would be kind enough to share this experience.

My assumption is that we need a company, and some way to protect our IP, however, I don't know more than this, I don't know how to create our IP and how to protect it.

I'd be very grateful for any advice you'd be willing to share.

[s0]

i'm not sure what you mean by "creating an IP." it depends on where you live and your local laws.

but generally, there is

copyright which is automatic and applies to everything you've created. it means you have the exclusive right to use and distribute your work. depending on where you live, copyright may or may not be transferable from the creator to another person or legal entity like a company. game mechanics are not protected under copyright, but art assets, sound, code etc. are.

trademarks these include names, logos, slogans, taglines etc. simply put, trademarks protect you from other people using the same branding for a similar product. they may or may not have to be registered to be effective, depending again on local laws. at any rate, they have to be sufficiently unique to be recognized as trademarks (btw contrary to popular belief, you usually do NOT lose your trademark if you fail to "defend" it in court).

patents are supposed to protect inventors from other people copying their inventions. i think in the context of games this means you could theoretically apply for a patent for the tech behind your game if it's sufficiently innovative and the innovation is non-trivial.

trade dress is supposed to protect the "look and feel" of your product. this protection also has to be applied for. i'm not sure it can be used for digitally distributed videogames tho.

[Mahn]

To add to what Silbereisen says, in practical terms besides registering a company you'll want to apply for the trademarks of the names you'll want to use (be it game or company name) and... that's pretty much it.

Copyright is automatic (in that if someone copies you, you can take them to court and provided you can prove your game came first they would usually side with you, if the copy is blatant enough), gameplay and game mechanics usually cannot be patented (depending on your tech it's possible that you may be able to patent some of it, but afaik most game devs don't do that, so I wouldn't bother) and as for trade dress, I've never heard of a game dev applying for it either, so to be frank I don't think it's worth your time either.

[J-Snake]

My assumption is that we need a company

Legally you don't need a company to be on Steam, you can simply register as an individual doing business with Valve.

Also, I wouldn't worry about IP protection.

[s0]

copyright which is automatic and applies to everything you've created. it means you have the exclusive right to use and distribute your work.

oh i forgot to add: you can of course give others distribution and use rights even though you remain the copyright holder. that's what licensing is basically.

[Dinomaniak]

Thanks Silbereisen, Mahn, J-Snake

I'm going to put this out here as a big question mark :
We've created Mana Core : www.facebook.com/manacoregames (and manacoregames.com wip) . There is also https://www.facebook.com/ManaCore/ , which isn't ours .
I assume we're not in copyright since we added "games" at the end also the fact that they sell merchandise ( cards ) and board games, while we develop and manage software.
Am I correct ?

[s0]

I think that would fall under trademark law, not copyright law and it might potentially be a problem since both of you are in the "game" business even if it's different types of games.  Imo you should contact the other mana core people and ask if they're ok with you using the name (and rename your company they aren't). Even if they don't have a registered trademark on the name, you should still do it as a matter of common courtesy.

Also obv the reason to do it now is that you've just created your brand (i.e. no one cares about it yet) and you have nothing to lose by changing it if push comes to shove.

[s0]

The basic question of trademark infringement is: "Could this thing be reasonably confused with this other thing?" In case of a dispute, this for a court to decide.