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Protecting idea...I know, it's been asked before :)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by pixellegolas, Jun 25, 2018.

  1. pixellegolas

    pixellegolas

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    So, I have made a small demo of a game I was thinking about. I have tested it on colleagues and they seem to find the mechanics fun.

    What is lacking is of course a nice clean code because...I suck. But, the demo is there and working :)

    I would like to create a small team who can finalize this idea I am having. I want to polish graphics and don't know if I want to go for "monument valley" style or maybe some voxel-ish graphics :)

    I would of course like to show the demo but I also think I might have a small unique thing that I don't want to tell everyone before I can secure that I/we will be first on the store ;) I mean, just look at when geometry dash came. 100 similar games with similar titles and icons directly after.

    How can I start a small team without showing to much?

    For you who feel you are a bit curious the game world is simply:

    An isometric endless runner for mobile with simple nice graphics and simple design with a touch of new game mechanics. It will be easy but become exponentially harder where you need to be quick and have both thumbs ready and have multiple choices so quick thinking here

    Help me what to do here :)
     
  2. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    The idea is 1 procent of the effort, execution and polish is everything.
     
  3. xVergilx

    xVergilx

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    You cannot. In most cases there's no way to implement the game, and do not show it's design to developers.

    What you can do - is to make a team, and do it as everybody else do.
    NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) contract your employees, it might postpone information leaks. It's the best bet.
     
  4. pixellegolas

    pixellegolas

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    Got it. But to find a team is hard when they don't know what it means. The other way is just showing it here and hoping people want to join and that we make it so quick that noone copies :)
     
  5. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Anyone worth hiring is completely familiar with NDAs and signing them before finding out the actual details. I went into my current project knowing only the genre and that it would have features that were typical for that genre including multiplayer.
     
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  6. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    There are also people who do not want to deal with NDAs at all. (you can look online reasons).

    So, desire to "protect the idea" can be counter productive.
     
  7. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Money.

    If you can find a team of professional-minded people without money, that's pure dumb luck. If you want to get people who can bring the skill and determination to make a good idea into a good game, you'll need money. Lots of money.

    If you'll say, "But unfortunately I am broke." Then I would say, get un-broke, or alternatively learn how to do it all yourself. Either way takes time and means you'll have to do stuff you don't want to do. But, most likely, you are a smart person, and no matter what, you'll find a way to get the job done and done right.
     
  8. SnowInChina

    SnowInChina

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    usually people don't copy your game until it has hit the market and proven to be successful

    if you think your idea is so amazing and will be a sure hit, then pay people to code under NDA.
    with contracts and everything. big financial risk, but you keep all profits and usually professionals honor their contracts.

    if you're not so sure, you will have to take bigger risks and it will be harder to find good people without giving out any information

    its hard to judge anyone and give proper advise, because everyone thinks their idea is awesome and will be the next thing.
    usually that's not the case though
     
  9. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    Game ideas are a dime a dozen, and are next to worthless until they have succeeded in the marketplace. As already mentioned, use an NDA if you are so concerned.
     
  10. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    NDA also protects the code, I would never let someone in on our Git repo without first signing a NDA
     
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  11. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Unity's regularly let me in without NDA, although I've definitely signed a whole bunch of Unity NDAs over time for them. I don't think they worry much about me for obvious reasons.

    But for unknowns, I totally agree with @AndersMalmgren - there is no short cut there. Imagine his face if I stole his hot VR code...
     
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  12. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    Dual NDAs for you! :)
     
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  13. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    One for each eye!
     
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  14. pixellegolas

    pixellegolas

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    Well, the idea is really simple but I like it. I already have the demo working so now it is all about optimizing the code, making graphics....alot better :) I have not thought trough the whole game either when it comes to monetization. I would love to have someone to lift it up. I know it' stupid thinking that I have a unique idea that is worthy of keeping secret. Everyone probably feels that way :) I am almost thinking of just posting the S***ty game here and hope people will help me realize it. Better then getting stuck and nothing happens :)

    I actually have another HUGE game that I want to just post the idea because it will never happen unless a studio picks it up. I will post it later :)

    Thanks for your insights guys
     
  15. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    That's how it starts. Death by a thousand projects.
     
  16. pixellegolas

    pixellegolas

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    Yeah but that one was just an idea that I want someone to make. Not me, I just have the idea and want to see it done :)
     
  17. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    This. If you show up with an NDA before showing me a project, I'm not working for you. Firstly it indicates that I'm probably going to jump through all sorts of hoops to get anything useful done while working for you. I do games to avoid meaningless hoop jumping, I get enough in my day job. Secondly you are implicitly starting a conversation with 'I don't trust you and think you are out to get me'. I don't want to work with someone that doesn't trust me. Thirdly it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the law and profession. Your game and code are already covered copyright. Its industry standard that work for a client is confidential. Finally it shows that you have no understanding of the value of your product. Your idea is pretty much worthless on its own. No point stealing it even if I wanted to.

    The point of an NDA is to specify what things are secret, when and how they can be revealed. and what isn't secret. It doesn't actually prevent anyone from revealing secrets.

    Consider the following suggestions instead:
    • Pay well. Make working for you more profitable then stealing from you.
    • Hire from reputable people in reputable countries. Lowest cost countries are often a bad idea.
    • Be a professional and ethical employer. Behave in a way that keeps employees onside.
    • Get a physical office with local employees if at all possible.
     
  18. Ryiah

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    Thanks for the detailed explanation. :D
     
  19. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    Thats a bit vague, you mean like actual unity project (Basically git access) or showing screenshots / youtube clips etc?
    About git access, its not personally distrusts, its just that you want to set the rules first. For the same reasons you sign a contract before the freelancer starts to work.
     
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  20. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Screen shots, video clips etc. Which is pretty much enough to give away the idea most of the time.
     
  21. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    That's not what NDA is for.

    Your code is automatically protected by copyright, code license and contract and does not require an NDA. Same covers your art assets, by the way.

    An NDA is usually "you can't tell anything about our project to anyione, ever" (and also, sometimes "I can't trust scum like you without putting a gun to your head first"). Which creates problems to the contractor.
    It also frequently means that you can't put the project onto your portfolio - because of the damn NDA, Meaning that once you're done and paid you have nothing to show. I have worked on more than one project like that.

    Requiring an NDA is a red flag, pretty much, that may indicate that the employer is overestimating uniqueness of their project and is being paranoid. If the money is outrageous it is something I may put up with, but honestly, I'd prefer to never deal with this idiocy ever again.

     
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  22. AndersMalmgren

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    True, but its the same reasons you have EULAS, in the end EU law wins over them so they are complete useless. But they do tell people what the company do think is OK.
     
  23. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    EULA is not an NDA and serves different purposes. It usually is:

    * You can't sue us.
    * No warranties.
    * We can terminate the service.
    * You can't hack the service.

    More or less defensive. It is also "we provide the service for you in exchange of you behaving properly"

    An NDA is:

    * We'll put you in jail if you ever tell our project exists or existed and that you worked on it.

    It is also "We put a burden on you and make demands, in exchange for nothing". So, no. I'd rather never deal with this nonsense ever again.
     
  24. AndersMalmgren

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    I never said they are the same thing. But they are similar, both try to override EU law (or the local law where ever you are). In the end both are useless if the case is taken to court. But most people dont have money and time to invest for taking everything to court. Then its nice to have your own contract. EULAs and NDAs are both contracts. They are both invalided by local law. You can say in your EULA that you have 2 week guarantee, doesnt matter since EU invalidates it and you need to give 2 year guarantee. Same with NDA, doesnt matter what you write, local law wins
     
  25. Kiwasi

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    Which typically applies both ways. NDAs are much like restraint of trade clauses in contracts. They are very difficult for either party to enforce. In order to get any action, you have to go to court. In order to get the court to take action, you have to prove that significant harm was done to you business. In most cases you can take someone to court over significant harm to your business without an NDA.

    NDAs are useful for spelling out what can and can't be shared, who has to give permission for something to be shared, and all of that other process stuff. They are useful for highlighting things that aren't obvious trade secrets (in my home industry its not always obvious which pieces of information are secret). But they don't actually make your IP any more secure. They mean nothing against a person who is deliberately trying to steal IP.
     
  26. pixellegolas

    pixellegolas

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  27. snacktime

    snacktime

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    That's been going on since like forever. On mobile it's just business as usual. If you are going to base your business around novel and/or easy to duplicate ideas, especially as an indie, you should expect people to copy you. If the idea is really worth a lot, then large studios are going to come in and crush you with better quality duplicates and much larger marketing budgets. Being first and protecting your stuff until launch is good, but eventually your idea is not what will make your business successful.

    You should have an NDA. You just need to understand as others have already pointed out that signing those is a real risk for the developer. It has actual monetary value attached to it. So it's a negotiation. If the developers are just low tier which is likely all you can afford anyways, most of them will just sign. If you get someone more experienced, be prepared to give quite a bit.
     
  28. JohnnyA

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    For clarity's sake, thats a bit of a simplification, an agreement can't be outside of the law but there are a multitude of provisions that are within the law. That might be what you are saying but it reads like you are saying there's no clause in any NDA that would ever stand up in court, which is patently untrue (excuse the pun).

    There's also the grey areas where a clause may be outside of the law, but where its not so clear that it can be easily dismissed. Unfortunately in many cases this makes it too expensive for one party to contest and thus a clause might effectively stand even though it is outside the law.

    For the OP: If you are paying market rates then having an NDA in place would be considered pretty standard. But in the end this is not necessarily going to protect you, particularly if you don't have the means or inclination to pursue it. But I think @Joe-Censored hit the nail on the head: there are very game ideas that are in and of themselves worth protecting.
     
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  29. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    That doesn't really help your situation, because at some point in the development process you're going to want to start raising awareness and building a following for your game before it launches. If your idea is as easy to steal as buying a single asset pack off the Unity asset store and dragging a black hole around a terrain, it can be copied in a weekend, and you're going to want to build up your following for more than just a couple days before launch.

    Also, there are now millions of games on the app stores, with hundreds getting uploaded every day. There's a very real chance that someone will develop a game based on a similar idea if your game's concept is as simple as that hole in the ground idea in your link, just out of pure coincidence. It has happened to me.

    Virtually all game ideas are just an iteration on previous ideas, with existing ideas mixed in new novel ways, being more of an original recipe than original ingredients.
     
  30. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Just saw the trailer (it's in the spoiler). Have to say for a game that took five years to develop I was expecting far more to it than just a single mechanic. What we're being shown here is roughly what you would expect from a 24 hour game jam (and in fact the idea came from a game jam as mentioned on Wikipedia) or after a week or two from a new developer.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donut_County

     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2018
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  31. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    And for that reason I'm usually not fussed about signing one. If I'm not planning on sharing their info anyway then I've got no problem with saying so on a piece of paper.

    That said, the NDAs I've been involved with usually aren't about game ideas. They're often covered as well, but usually in my experience the NDA is about protecting specific bits of information - names, release dates, platforms, technologies being used, trade secrets, that kind of thing. The idea there often isn't even to keep them secret so much as it is to ensure that the information's original owner retains control. For instance, if you know the target release date for a game because you're contracted to work on it, and the company making it is planning a big reveal, they don't want you spoiling that big reveal by carelessly leaking it in advance.

    Also, I tend to agree that NDAs between individuals aren't likely to be worth a lot in most cases. Between businesses they're quite a different matter, though, and are just one of many formalities which are important when groups of people need to work together without necessarily having any form of direct relationships.

    The other common source for needing an NDA is... other NDAs. A bunch of people have signed NDAs for/with me not because I care about keeping something under wraps, but because someone else in the food chain wants to keep something under wraps. My primary strategy there is to simply not share any confidential information with people who don't strictly need it (as someone already said, an NDA doesn't stop them from sharing it, it just asks them not to), but having the NDA might still be a requirement anyway.
     
  32. angrypenguin

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    Plus, a lot of what makes a game unique isn't it's core mechanic, it's often the character, personality, attitude, presentation style and many, many other more or less subtle elements brought along by the people who make it.

    If I deliberately give two different teams the same idea I'm pretty confident that they'd both make relatively distinct games.

    Or, to put it another way... as the "Vision Holder" for a project, do you have any idea how hard it is to get people to make a thing as it exists in your head? It takes ongoing, deliberate effort for the duration of a project. Is it really a big risk that someone else with your idea will somehow manage that by accident?

    That's not a rhetorical question, it's a genuine thing to consider. If you do think people are likely to get to the same or close enough outcomes from the idea alone (as I believe did happen with Slender Man) then keep it close to your chest. Otherwise, I'd strongly consider sharing early for critique, feedback and other benefits.
     
  33. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    To clarify, I have no problem signing NDAs. Pretty much all of my work (game dev and day job) is under some form of NDA.

    My objection is to signing an NDA as the first step in the discussion process, before I've been told what the project is. In my experience, asking for a NDA early in the process is a red flag. I don't take on half the projects that get pitched to me, which makes an NDA before I hear the pitch a waste of time. And its time I'm not payed for.
     
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  34. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    Exactly. Who cares about ideas :p

    NDAs have clear scope clauses, here from the last NDA i wrote up for a trainee, its google translated from swedish :p

    Then you move on to the terms so those are clear.

    Then you move on to declare what information is

    You should also specifiy of return of information (git access etc) should be handled
    Finally you move onto that you will kill their first born son if they ever break the contract :D

    Last point basically invalidates everything above :D
     
  35. Billy4184

    Billy4184

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    Fortunately, I've only ever signed one NDA, fairly early on in freelancing. At the time I didn't pay too much attention, and to some extent I must admit it actually made the project come across as being more 'important'. Which is of course probably the main reason it is created to begin with.

    But looking back, it seems like a fairly easy thing to make a misstep with. From what I can remember it was vaguely worded - although of course the basic premise was clear (don't tell anyone or copy anything). But really, was it warranted? And what did it really mean for either of us?

    For one thing, it's hard to tell what someone can actually do to make you pay penance for something you do wrong, especially internationally. So the fact that it is used popularly suggests that it is either too weak to be effective for the employer, or too broad to be able to predict its potential effect on you as the employee. Neither of these reasons make it attractive, not least because people who are in the business of defending themselves ineffectively tend to be difficult to negotiate with for all sorts of reasons.

    Anyway, to get to the OP question, I think the answer is: you don't. Especially for a small, casual game, if it is a hit it will be copied mercilessly, and there's nothing you can do. And having programmers sign NDAs is doubly worthless because you'd better believe that there are programmers who could download your game from the store and spend ten minutes playing it and already know how they would go about recreating it and making it even better. And it's triply worthless because even if they weren't able to figure out how to make it by playing it (which is already too much of an assumption since no good idea is too difficult for almost everybody to understand) they could easily extract the code from the file.

    The way I would look at it is like this: clones are free marketing of the most effective kind - as long as your game is the best of the lot. If you can't secure that spot for 6-12 months, well you didn't move fast enough or do enough of a good job, which is saying something because almost all clones are bad enough that they are pretty much begging people to go and find the original instead.
     
  36. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    (-_-)
    I've just spent some time thinking who's that unfortunate guy named "Marcus S***"
     
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  37. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    haha.. In sweden S*** is a common surname

    edit: I promise! ;)
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2018
  38. FMark92

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    Wish I knew the surname in question. But it could be "S***", "S***", "S***", "S***" or "S***".
     
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  39. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Clearly this discussion is running in circles, so I don't see why you guys don't just let OP in on the realest trade secret to protect your most genius ideas.

    OP, this is what you do. Make a quick prototype of a genius game idea, but not your most genius game idea. Like, 75% genius. Something just genius enough to make one of these snake MFer's crawl out from the grass to steal your idea. Then showcase this prototype and make a lot of hype about it. Wait a couple days, and by then you should be able to find the cash-grab copy of your prototype poking it's ugly head up. Now comes the important steps, make sure you follow them exactly:

    1. Break into your grandma's house and steal all of the money under her mattress

    2. Use the money to hire a private investigator (not one of the TV guys)

    3. The PI should get you all the information you need about the person who stole your genius idea. You don't want the peons, you want the mastermind. The CEO. Make sure you get his daily patterns, like where he drinks coffee, what time he uses the bathroom, etc.

    4. Murder the bastard

    5. Make a new youtube account with a fake gmail address and post a video of the bastards head mounted on a broom handle or a hockey stick and use a fake accent (not something terroristy sounding as that will get the feds involved. try something exotic but warm, like pacific islander or nepalese) to warn everybody that such is the fate of anybody who will copy your companies games. Oh, and it goes without saying to wear a scary mask.


    That's it. It's all about demanding that respeck. Chopping off the head won't be easy the first time, but you get used to it. Good luck!
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2018
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  40. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    Getting back to the whole NDA thing...

    I once saw and NDA which forbade me to tell anything, to anyone for 8 years. The amusing part you were also forbidden to tell about the existence of NDA itself, and signing it.

    Don't do that.

    "Don't share our code" and "don't upload our assets online" stuff is fine, but it is really already covered by copyright.
     
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  41. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Copyright only protects the work itself, not the ideas or research behind the work, or a company's plans, or a bunch of other things.
     
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  42. Ed_Muel

    Ed_Muel

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    I asked this same question myself many moons ago and got a similar response... Make it yourself or put it out there, if its good people are going to steal it either way.

    I chose the option of never telling anyone what it was and dying a little inside every day I don't get anywhere with it, but it's whatever works for you.
     
  43. Ed_Muel

    Ed_Muel

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    Although I would add

    An idea is worth something, and a mechanic can definitely make a game!
     
  44. I will just leave it here. Now, obviously this mostly applies to the United States.