Board Game Clone?
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Board Game Clone?
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| So I wrote a multiplayer game that represents a board game very close. How can I find out if I have violated any copyright issues? Do I need to contact a lawyer and pay them to investigate? Do I contact the company that made the original board game and ask them? Do I just release it and when they send me a cease and decist order, I discontinue the distribution of it? Any input would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you. |
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| Hi. I'm also developing a boardgame that closely, (but not identically) resembles an already published game. From browsing various different sites I get the impression that 'ideas' can't actually be copyrighted so the mechanics of a boardgame therefore also can't be copyrighted. Obviously, the Name and the Art of the original board game can't be used, but I think copying an idea is fine. There are plenty of Match3, Hidden Object and other game clones out there so I'm sure you'll be OK too. You could also post a message on boardgame geek and see if anyone there knows. |
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| contact the company in question asking if you can make a remake or if yours 'violates' thier copyright. Yes ideas cant be copyright BUT if your game is so identical that people have some confusion telling them apart then that is infringing copyright. Who remembers the Linspire problems when they called thier Linux flavor Lindows, M$ jumped on that one straight away. |
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| I wouldn't contact the company, because they will say no most propably, even if there isn't any legal basis for prohibition of your game. Make sure you haven't used any original art(eg. scanned) and don't name your game similar(even in parts) to the original. Try to change some things like the layout of the board or some rules, so you can argue that your game isn't identical if you get an email from a lawer. If they anyhow insist on stopping distribution of your game, you still can contact a lawer. This is my opinion, not a legal advice. |
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| whats the board game? monopoly has too many 'im monopoly' game mechanics ludo might be so old as to not be enforcable snakes and ladders hard to believe an adult came up with that one ;) chess its as old as the hills ive seen variants of guess who buckaroo operation all nigh on the same but with buckaroo and operation its the image/objects used that differ i saw a game called khet (i think) a laser chess game based on some old egyptian rules (and kinda reminded me of deflektor a game i cant remake due to the IP issues but i could hommage) if khet is just an ancient game remade with a lazer gimmic then its fair game (no pun intended) but if its loosly based on said game then id have to find out whats 'new' and avoid it if i must edit: added wiki links and found out there is a game called laser chess too :) |
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| So I wrote a multiplayer game that represents a board game very close. How can I find out if I have violated any copyright issues? If you need to ask, there's more than a fair chance that you've violated Copyright. Do I just release it and when they send me a cease and decist order, I discontinue the distribution of it? No, because they might not leave it there. They can pursue a claim for costs and damages.You need to refer it to a lawyer who specialises in copyright and trademarks. It won't be cheap. |
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| Hopefully it's not Scrabble. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7531669.stm |
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| lol, I read about the scrabble after I posted this also. Bad news is its like Yahtzee, same company, hehehehe. I just made it so me and the family can play across the home network. Here are some screenies... The Start Screen...  An ingame screenshot...  Thanks again for the input! |
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| >Who remembers the Linspire problems when they called thier Linux flavor >Lindows, M$ jumped on that one straight away. That was a trademark dispute though... |
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| I think the major problems Scrabulous had was not that their game played like Scrabble, but that they used part of the name Scrabble in the name, looked exactly like the game Scrabble, and became hugely popular on Facebook. Your "Dice Game" on the other hand would probably would go unnoticed. However, if you plan to rename it "Jiggie", which I see in the second screenshot, that might not be such a good idea. Also, I'd try to find something to spice the game up, make it different. Why not make one of the dice red with white dots, and make that one special somehow? Also, just a game designc omment... Putting the number of dots above the die is completely uneccessary. :-) And that space would be better used as it is in poker games... For a button which you can toggle to hold one of the dice. But I may be forgetting how Yatzee is played. Maybe you can't hold dice. But hey, that would be good, just another way to make your game different. And the more different it is, the better if you're that concerned about getting sued. |
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| i forget the rules to yahtzee too its not quite a board game but a dice game i have poker dice and as with any dice they are just cubes with 'face cards' drawn on them instead of numbers of spots they could say 1 2 3 4 5 6 or a b c d e f or the male female intersexed and any other symbol you fancy as long as players know that (C) is higher than TM when totaling scores ;) you roll 5 dice and count up the score well gosh darn that game could have been invented the same day as the first ever dice iir monkes invented cards so blame them for your poker addiction :P iir liars dice is the same but you dont show your roll and that was played (as shown in pirates of the caribean) hundreds of years ago if its for personal use and no one outside of your house is going to play it it could be as close to the bone rip off of any board card or video game as you want its only when it escapes that you have to worry about these things ive still got my deflektor screen grabs and an anim image of a spinning mirror and could one day make the damn thing, costa pangia (i forgot his last names propper spelling) would never know nor would atari whom i think own gremlins and by default vortex's IP's edit: im now going to have to make a gender cube ;) edit: i think ive posted enough wiki dice game links now ;) |
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| I am not a lawyer, but I believe Big Bug is correct; don't contact the company. 1. They will certainly refuse permission unless you are willing to discuss licensing terms (which they might do if they don't have their own recent computer version). But do the research before inquiring. 2. If you go ahead in spite of their refusal you will have established your intent to infringe their copyright by contacting them. I believe there are three areas of law in this area, of which two may be relevant: 1. Patent law (not relevant) 2. Trademark law Make sure nothing in the game has a similar name or insignia as the original. If you have a copy of the actual game the trademarks are probably listed somewhere. Also check ebay for pictures of older versions; there have probably been many versions over the years. 3. Copyright law This is the biggie: Make sure NO TEXT is copied from the game, especially the rules, even by accident. You must phrase the rules in your own words. Also, don't copy any identifiable look-and-feel elements of the original game; if the dice have red spots, yours should not be (since most dice have black spots), but you could have blue spots, for example. You can have a unique look and feel, just not the original game's. The scoresheet should also be as different as it can reasonably be. As a concrete example of this issue, the online community of the boardgame Diplomacy (originally by Avalon Hill, now Hasbro) has had to be careful in their automated online judging systems and various other software. They distribute maps that are similar to the original but not the actual map. The do not distribute the rules, claiming it would violate copyright. (Of course, there may be some agreement with Hasbro requiring this, since they do call it Diplomacy). Also, you could check to see how many other similar games are out there, download the demos and read the licenses. There may be an established licensing process for this game. Finally, be careful; in the law there's always more to the story than meets the eye and the bigger legal team will find it. -Pete |
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| wow! I really appreciate all the input on this one. I have searched the web and found quite a few little demos and home made programs that the authors are selling. None of them described any licensing issues but they were all selling them. I like to have the little dice values above the dice just to make it a bit easier to see what hand you have. It really helped me out on those late drinking nights, hehehe. I havent copied or scanned any part of the original game, it was all made by hand. I do like your suggestions to change the color of dice. Thank you guys for helping me out here. |
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| if the dice have red spots, yours should not be (since most dice have black spots), but you could have blue spots, for example. its a DICE ffs, go to any game shop that deals in role playing and you can buy uv clear large tiny multicoloured etc, im pretty sure ive seen a solved rubix cube that is also a dice the colour choice of the original game dice should not hinder anyone elses its not like anyone OWNS the patent etc of dice, not since they are 'king ages old if for example it was pass the pigs you could argue that it is going to be hard NOT to copy the pig/dice or if they made a novelty dice edition for adults which had 'rude' bits on each side then using said rude bits would be a no no playing cards have a copyright notice on them, not for the cards in general but for the image on the back and the ace of spades (the only non face card to get an image) and the royal cards and jokers there is nothing to stop you having a 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 j q k its not as if waddingtons are going to say hang on you cant have a j q k in your deck we own that idea have something else but if you use THEIR j q k image then you are in the **** |
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| cant help but notice that the dice on the screen dont follow the both sides = 7 rule i see a 3 on top and a 4 on one side when it should be underneath perhaps you are merely using an image of a dice to show what your random number generator is giving you but any player to see your perpectively drawn dice would think ... hmm if he cant get a dice right what else is borked? |
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| Good call on the dice facing issue; Xyle, what he means is that you can never see both a 3 and a 4 on a normal die, they are on opposite sides. I'm not sure if there is a standard beyond that; are the 1, 2, and 3 clockwise as you face them? As to copyright, while Hasbro doesn't own the idea of dice with red spots, the presence of dice with red spots in a blatant yahtzee clone could well tip the legal balance; that's the point. |
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| regardless of how true or accurate that may be its still making me chuckle a blatant yahtzee clone going unknoticed with a black dice but a red set oh woe begon ;) now if it was the case of ONE special dice that was a different colour then yes that becomes an issue, as it shares ancestry with other roll 5 dice games you could ditch one yahtzee rule in favour of another from an out of copyright game but as this is a local network version arnt you all in the same building to play with real dice and paper ;) (programming knowledge learning asside) a phantom menace style 1 vs 5 dice where there is one blue dot vs 5 red squares (or whatever was used in the movie) might come a cropper as afaik no one had ever made such a biased dice before a dice with the playstation symbols again is a bit of a legal no no, plus who is to know which symbol out ranks another |
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| a blatant yahtzee clone going unknoticed with a black dice but a red set oh woe begon ;) Pretty much, yes. ...as it shares ancestry with other roll 5 dice games... Hmmm ... Aha! Newsflash: See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahtzee (read the history section) and: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dice-play/Games/Yacht.htm The original game was based on Yacht, which was in turn based on Generala, both of which may be public domain (at least I see nothing to indicate that their authorship is known). So, if you just take care of the look-and-feel issues and perhaps adopt one rule from these original versions you'll probably be fine. |
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| Uhoh, I apologize for the borking of the dice, hehehe. All the times I have used dice I never paid enough attention to the fact that 3 and 4 were on opposite sides. Thanks for the help there. I welcomed the idea of changing the dice color just for the fact of having the option to change the dice color, just to add some more interactive function. I appreciate the recommendation. The game can be played over lan or internet. Its initial intent was just to say I completed something and to have something to play with the family, hehehe. Thanks again for the input, much appreciated. |
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| I was planning to create a 3D version of a board game too: Hotel. I wanted to call it Hotel3D, it would work the same way and all the properties that the players can buy would have the same names, but all the objects and textures would be hand-made. I could of course assign different names to the properties, but the game would work with the exact same rules. Then I guess I can't create that game and sell it. But would it be ok if it was freeware and open-source (the entire source-code included with the distribution)? |
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| Then I guess I can't create that game and sell it. No. Its still trademark infringement. But would it be ok if it was freeware and open-source (the entire source-code included with the distribution)? |
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| Ideas cannot be copyrighted. They can be patented but thats another thing entirely. If your game has the same idea but has a different layout different art and a different name then you shouldnt have anything to worry about. I did some checking on this a while ago and that seemed to be the crux of it. There are 1000000000000s of -exact- cloned board games out there. The only one recently i heard of legal action was a scrabble clone (and only because it was the EXACT same game under another name). Other (hugely successful) scrabble clones change the layout a bit and tweak the rules so get away with it. The other thing is if your game joins the ranks of 1000s of others will the company be bothered? If your game is hugely successful and sells millions they may attempt a legal attack. The law is not set in stone on this as many of these kinds of cases are tried and what works for one doesnt for the other. |
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| If your game has the same idea but has a different layout different art and a different name then you have nothing to worry about. Not strictly true. If it bears more than a passing resemblance - so much so that its obviously an intentional copy of the same game, you've got problems. Therer are 1000000000000s of exact cloned board games out there. Thousands of people get murdered. But its still not legal or even morally correct to murder somebody just because other people have gotten away with it. A magistrate would probably lock you up for a hundred years just for having the gall to use that argument as a defence. |
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| i see pong pac man tetris and frogger as game teeth cutting coding thats why there are so many of them but i dont see the point of slapping said version on the net for all and sundry to play cos it might not be the best of the bunch by far if it is never to escape onto the internet (or if it does dont say who you are) you could make a 100% authentic monopoly with all the cards coded in and shuffled if no one outside of your lan can play it then hasbro(?) wont know about it but if it were to get out then you are wading deep in it but as i already said, if you are able to play it over the household LAN then perhaps you REALLY need to gather round the table instead ;) working with existing game mechanics is good if you are planning on tweaking the rules anyway or making a "boardgame v2" mashup or whatever eg the board game upwords built on scrabble literally if you as a player never built up onto an existing word then you are kinda playing scrabble, but i think both sides lawyers (if it isnt the same company) decided it was different enough to not go to town on you can make risk but using the earth and our current boarders might be a no no (funny how the earth as is is copyrighted ;) ) but a new continent set and altered rules ... |
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| Hey EdzUp, Aren't you the guy who made the asteroids clone for the Blitz3D '\Game\' files?? |
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