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.
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.