You can usually patent hardware patterns. It’s very difficult to be successful in court about gameplay mechanics themselves. Nintendo lost their lawsuits.
I’m not arguing that (and know about the Palworld case off course). What I argue is, that most companies big or small want to avoid going to court, and fight (possibly years) over patents. Or avoid getting sued if they use patented mechanics. Just like with the situation of emulators, it doesn’t matter if the developers are right or wrong, they fear going to court against Nintendo.
Now in case of Palword I have to say, bravo. Wish more had the courage (and money!) to fight Nintendo. It would make gaming better, because I hate game mechanics being patented.
To be fair to you, they needed a lot of resources to fight. They hit it big, which caught Nintendo’s attention. It’s suffering from success, but I agree broadly.
I think the parenting is very controversial and not altogether enforceable. I don’t know of anything that went to court over it, most of the patents are incredibly vague.
Nintendo famously sued Palworld over throwing balls to capture monsters and using them in battle. They had a lot of claims thrown out but the suit is still ongoing apparently.
Japans laws are a lot more intense about this. The only reason this happened is because both companies were Japanese, and most of it was still thrown out.
Exactly why this is still a problem. There are patents of game mechanics that prevented other devs to implement them, because they do not want to go to court or fear they could lose in a court. The Nemesis system is such an example often brought up in discussions like these. Or the ability to catch a Pokemon with the Pokeball in the way Nintendo does, and riding/flying with a monster are also patented. And on that note, I think Nintendo lost the case with the riding or with the catch mechanic, I don’t remember details.
Game mechanics being patented is enforceable as far as I know, but only if the patent is in that country and is valid (validity can change even after it was granted, but that is not common). The point is, if valid or not, most companies just stop using those game mechanics out of fear. And that still holding back innovation.
But patented.
You can usually patent hardware patterns. It’s very difficult to be successful in court about gameplay mechanics themselves. Nintendo lost their lawsuits.
I’m not arguing that (and know about the Palworld case off course). What I argue is, that most companies big or small want to avoid going to court, and fight (possibly years) over patents. Or avoid getting sued if they use patented mechanics. Just like with the situation of emulators, it doesn’t matter if the developers are right or wrong, they fear going to court against Nintendo.
Now in case of Palword I have to say, bravo. Wish more had the courage (and money!) to fight Nintendo. It would make gaming better, because I hate game mechanics being patented.
To be fair to you, they needed a lot of resources to fight. They hit it big, which caught Nintendo’s attention. It’s suffering from success, but I agree broadly.
I think the parenting is very controversial and not altogether enforceable. I don’t know of anything that went to court over it, most of the patents are incredibly vague.
Nintendo famously sued Palworld over throwing balls to capture monsters and using them in battle. They had a lot of claims thrown out but the suit is still ongoing apparently.
Japans laws are a lot more intense about this. The only reason this happened is because both companies were Japanese, and most of it was still thrown out.
Exactly why this is still a problem. There are patents of game mechanics that prevented other devs to implement them, because they do not want to go to court or fear they could lose in a court. The Nemesis system is such an example often brought up in discussions like these. Or the ability to catch a Pokemon with the Pokeball in the way Nintendo does, and riding/flying with a monster are also patented. And on that note, I think Nintendo lost the case with the riding or with the catch mechanic, I don’t remember details.
Game mechanics being patented is enforceable as far as I know, but only if the patent is in that country and is valid (validity can change even after it was granted, but that is not common). The point is, if valid or not, most companies just stop using those game mechanics out of fear. And that still holding back innovation.
The Nemesis system from the Shadow of Mordor games is an another famously patented mechanic.