Would games like Magic the Gathering and Gwent now be considered violating this patent? The wording in it seems ridiculously vague, I can barely understand what the patent is describing, and I’m not sure it means what “gamesfray” thinks it does.
The verbiage on this is RIDICULOUSLY specific (as patents generally should be) to the point that I refused to even pass the PDF through an OCR system and instead will trust that site’s transcription
(1) There must be a PC, console or other computing device and the game is stored on a drive or similar storage medium.
(2) You can move a character in a virtual space.
(3) You must be able to summon a character. They call it a “sub character” by which they mean it’s not the player character, but, for example, a little monster such as a Pokémon that the player character has at its disposal.
Then the logic branches out, with items (4) and (5) being mutually exclusive scenarios, before reuniting again in item (6):
(4) This is about summoning the “sub character” in a place where there already is another character that it will then (when instructed todo so) fight.
(5) This alternative scenario is about summoning the “sub character” at a position where there is no other character to fight immediately.
(6) This final stepis about sending the “sub character” in a direction andthen letting an automatic battle ensue with another character. It isnot clear whether this is even needed if one previously executed step (4) where the “sub character” will basically be thrown at another character.
All of those criteria must be met for this trap card to be triggered (shit… Yugioh lawyers getting revved up now).
Step 4 specifically covers the case where you summon your little guy to fight someone else. As worded, that actually would impact a Summon in every JRPG and Final Fantasy just got sweaty. Step 5 summons a character as an assist or to replace the main character in a fight (so… Pokemon).
What I find most interesting is that step 6 specifically says “automatic battle”. Which… to my Not A Lawyer brain, means this doesn’t even cover Pokemon since you specifically give your mons battle commands. Err, aside from S01E01 Pikachu who did not give a fuck. And then Charizard. And probably a dozen more pokemons after I stopped watching The Son Of Mr Mime’s Adventures. But, from what little I saw of it, it DOES cover Palworld where you just summon your pals to do work for you or fight for you. And it potentially covers Final Fantasy and Ichiban’s Like a Dragons (the Poundmates, not the Sujimon)…
Which is probably the most interesting thing and why I think Pokemon Co is going to be ridiculously selective of who they try to sue. Because any of the big hitters can just say “Dumbfucks, we were doing this before Game Freak even existed”. Whereas indie devs are small enough they don’t want to risk it.
It might be worth keeping an eye on MinnMax as Haley MacLean IS a lawyer who actually specializes in video game IP but I suspect this is too close to her day job for her to publicly speak about it even with the “not legal advice” disclaimers. Which hopefully guarantees she actually talked about it on one of the podcasts this week and I just haven’t looked yet.
For what it’s worth, the battle mechanics of pokemon scarlet and violet is as follows:
You can throw your pokeball to an empty spot to have your pokemon walk along with you. It will then automatically fight other wild pokemon in the overworld through extremely simple mechanics, which doesn’t require any actions from you. If you instead throw your pokeball directly at the wild pokemon, you end up in a normal, classical battle with that pokemon.
So it sounds like it’s specifically those mechanics that they are patenting, which has a significant overlap with Palworld.
It’s bullshit that this is a patent, and I know nothing of the system, but I find it completely idiotic if this will allow them to retroactively make legal claims against a game which was released before the patent was created.
I want to see Atlus mop the floor with Nintendo over this because Shin Megami Tensei had all these features 6 years before the first Pokémon game ever existed.
I just finished the demo of the upcoming Digimon game, and all of those points absolutely apply to it. But something tells me we’re not going to see Nintendo going after Bandai Namco any time soon.
And to your point about directed vs. non-directed battling, the most recent Pokemon games definitely have a system where you can be running around the over world, see Pokemon wandering around, and have your little guys pop out and go fuck them up.
How could an IP gained now, ever have impact on existing games? How would an IP even be gained, if they are not the only ones having this mechanic today?
Okay, but what stops literally any MMO with a pet class from challenging the patent and getting it thrown out the door? Definitely not a lawyer, but I was under the impression that if a property from before the patent proves it has existed as the patent describes before the patent came along, it just gets thrown out.
For the exact same reason that “fair use” is still so incredibly nebulous and twitch streaming/let’s plays still exist.
NOBODY is crazy enough to want to take that to the courts. Because maybe you get a judge who has “common sense”. Maybe you get an old white guy who thinks Pong was too complicated and decides that you are wrong. At which point you have now made a bunch of legal precedent for REALLY stupid stuff.
Its also kind of why so much stuff about video games actually never gets patented. It is playing with fire.
I was under the impression that if a property from before the patent proves it has existed as the patent describes before the patent came along, it just gets thrown out.
The US changed from first-to-invent to first-to-file years ago. It sounds bad, but I don’t think it’s meaningfully affected anything. I haven’t heard of any impacts, anyway.
If you are thinking in terms of building a widget or making an industrial process, it makes perfect sense. Something like a wristwatch is the kind of innovation a LOT of people more or less simultaneously made and it is just impossible to definitively prove what country the first watch was made in. Even figuring out who was the first to file becomes a mess. Same with factory processes where the players who would even have the ability to iterate are often counted on fingers and toes.
But software (and research) in a global society is a real mother fucker. Because now the entire world can more or less see everything and reproducing things is fairly trivial. And… it isn’t like the patents actually matter all that much when so much gets done overseas. China Don’t Care but also the EU doesn’t really either and so forth. Sure there are avenues to try to pursue a studio using the patented Nemesis System but… at best you are going to be tied up in courts for years trying to get a judge to insist that a company in Germany needs to send you a check.
Would games like Magic the Gathering and Gwent now be considered violating this patent? The wording in it seems ridiculously vague, I can barely understand what the patent is describing, and I’m not sure it means what “gamesfray” thinks it does.
I ANAL and am not a lawyer.
The verbiage on this is RIDICULOUSLY specific (as patents generally should be) to the point that I refused to even pass the PDF through an OCR system and instead will trust that site’s transcription
(1) There must be a PC, console or other computing device and the game is stored on a drive or similar storage medium. (2) You can move a character in a virtual space. (3) You must be able to summon a character. They call it a “sub character” by which they mean it’s not the player character, but, for example, a little monster such as a Pokémon that the player character has at its disposal. Then the logic branches out, with items (4) and (5) being mutually exclusive scenarios, before reuniting again in item (6): (4) This is about summoning the “sub character” in a place where there already is another character that it will then (when instructed to do so) fight. (5) This alternative scenario is about summoning the “sub character” at a position where there is no other character to fight immediately. (6) This final step is about sending the “sub character” in a direction and then letting an automatic battle ensue with another character. It is not clear whether this is even needed if one previously executed step (4) where the “sub character” will basically be thrown at another character.All of those criteria must be met for this trap card to be triggered (shit… Yugioh lawyers getting revved up now).
Step 4 specifically covers the case where you summon your little guy to fight someone else. As worded, that actually would impact a Summon in every JRPG and Final Fantasy just got sweaty. Step 5 summons a character as an assist or to replace the main character in a fight (so… Pokemon).
What I find most interesting is that step 6 specifically says “automatic battle”. Which… to my Not A Lawyer brain, means this doesn’t even cover Pokemon since you specifically give your mons battle commands. Err, aside from S01E01 Pikachu who did not give a fuck. And then Charizard. And probably a dozen more pokemons after I stopped watching The Son Of Mr Mime’s Adventures. But, from what little I saw of it, it DOES cover Palworld where you just summon your pals to do work for you or fight for you. And it potentially covers Final Fantasy and Ichiban’s Like a Dragons (the Poundmates, not the Sujimon)…
Which is probably the most interesting thing and why I think Pokemon Co is going to be ridiculously selective of who they try to sue. Because any of the big hitters can just say “Dumbfucks, we were doing this before Game Freak even existed”. Whereas indie devs are small enough they don’t want to risk it.
It might be worth keeping an eye on MinnMax as Haley MacLean IS a lawyer who actually specializes in video game IP but I suspect this is too close to her day job for her to publicly speak about it even with the “not legal advice” disclaimers. Which hopefully guarantees she actually talked about it on one of the podcasts this week and I just haven’t looked yet.
For what it’s worth, the battle mechanics of pokemon scarlet and violet is as follows:
You can throw your pokeball to an empty spot to have your pokemon walk along with you. It will then automatically fight other wild pokemon in the overworld through extremely simple mechanics, which doesn’t require any actions from you. If you instead throw your pokeball directly at the wild pokemon, you end up in a normal, classical battle with that pokemon.
So it sounds like it’s specifically those mechanics that they are patenting, which has a significant overlap with Palworld.
It’s bullshit that this is a patent, and I know nothing of the system, but I find it completely idiotic if this will allow them to retroactively make legal claims against a game which was released before the patent was created.
I want to see Atlus mop the floor with Nintendo over this because Shin Megami Tensei had all these features 6 years before the first Pokémon game ever existed.
I just finished the demo of the upcoming Digimon game, and all of those points absolutely apply to it. But something tells me we’re not going to see Nintendo going after Bandai Namco any time soon.
And to your point about directed vs. non-directed battling, the most recent Pokemon games definitely have a system where you can be running around the over world, see Pokemon wandering around, and have your little guys pop out and go fuck them up.
How could an IP gained now, ever have impact on existing games? How would an IP even be gained, if they are not the only ones having this mechanic today?
Okay, but what stops literally any MMO with a pet class from challenging the patent and getting it thrown out the door? Definitely not a lawyer, but I was under the impression that if a property from before the patent proves it has existed as the patent describes before the patent came along, it just gets thrown out.
For the exact same reason that “fair use” is still so incredibly nebulous and twitch streaming/let’s plays still exist.
NOBODY is crazy enough to want to take that to the courts. Because maybe you get a judge who has “common sense”. Maybe you get an old white guy who thinks Pong was too complicated and decides that you are wrong. At which point you have now made a bunch of legal precedent for REALLY stupid stuff.
Its also kind of why so much stuff about video games actually never gets patented. It is playing with fire.
The US changed from first-to-invent to first-to-file years ago. It sounds bad, but I don’t think it’s meaningfully affected anything. I haven’t heard of any impacts, anyway.
If you are thinking in terms of building a widget or making an industrial process, it makes perfect sense. Something like a wristwatch is the kind of innovation a LOT of people more or less simultaneously made and it is just impossible to definitively prove what country the first watch was made in. Even figuring out who was the first to file becomes a mess. Same with factory processes where the players who would even have the ability to iterate are often counted on fingers and toes.
But software (and research) in a global society is a real mother fucker. Because now the entire world can more or less see everything and reproducing things is fairly trivial. And… it isn’t like the patents actually matter all that much when so much gets done overseas. China Don’t Care but also the EU doesn’t really either and so forth. Sure there are avenues to try to pursue a studio using the patented Nemesis System but… at best you are going to be tied up in courts for years trying to get a judge to insist that a company in Germany needs to send you a check.
Good thinking!
Microprose MTG came out in 1997, one year after Pokemon in 1996, but that was in Japan as Pokemon Red/Green.
Pokemon Red/Blue was released in the US in 1998.
So in the US technically, Microprose published first.
I have no idea who owns Microprose’s IP these days.