What are some legal issues you have encountered as a game dev?

Right now as a first game maker the legalities of any of what I am doing does not even enter my mind. Just curious as to what legal issues others have encountered while developing and how it was resolved.

Thanks

 

If you are developing things for sale (and sometimes even if it isn't for sale):
IP and contractors are the main concerns (other than licensing stuff of course, but that's the easy part):

I know nothing concrete, and it is because it's not a good idea to go public with these kind of things.

 

Copyright is big. You can't duplicate anyone else's work. You can't use models that belong to someone else in the process of making your work. You can't use someone else's characters to make your work. (This all changes if you have permission).

Software licensing is something to pay attention to. Not every piece of software can be used to create commercial products.

You also need to be aware of ratings and obscenity laws in countries you plan to release in. Violence, nudity, sex, racism, slavery, nazis, swearing and a host of other stuff may make your game unplayable or rated in certain countries.

If you start making money, you are going to want to look at tax law. There are a variety of ways you can structure your business, talk to an accountant about it.

 

Contract law is another. If someone does something for you, who is allowed to do what with it? And where are the boundaries for how you're allowed to use it?

 

Publish on deepweb and charge bitcoin.

 

I had to scrap a project for a good long while because of a Creative Labs patent.

 

True. As long is not looking same. However, strong similarities seams permitted.
While surely no only single way, to achieve same, or similar result, is possible.

Hypothetically, if someone patents all possible algorithms, to make clickable button in any app / game, would it mean no one would be able to write buttons anymore, without a licence?

 

Yes. But luckily it's not plausible.

See Microsoft's patent on double-click.

 

Except if you are an American corp than you can copyright slide to unlock

 

I don't think it's even plausible. I think that one of the things you need to demonstrate when registering a patent is that the thing you're protecting is new or novel. After that, I believe that it's protectability also depends on how likely 3rd parties are to come up with the same thing independently.

 

Surely big AAA studio could patent almost anything with their pockets, or at least best of features. I would thought so? What would be left for indie devs and small studios then?

 

Its worth noting that patent law varies dramatically from country to country. The US allows pretty much anything under the sun to be patented on the thinnest excuses. Other countries are stricter, NZ when I last examined patent law didn't allow patents to be applied to software, except in very narrow circumstances.

Most developed western countries will give foreign patents the same level of protection they provide to domestic patents. On the other hand many Asian and developing countries see enforcing foreign patents as holding back their own economy and wont enforce them.

The games industry in general has a culture of not patenting anything. Most techniques quickly get distributed across the entire industry.

 

Well, just to scare everyone.

 

My google search shows "video game". Which is quite generic. I would need more precise link.

Yep, I heard some while ago, that in Asia specifically, there is quite freedom in that topic.

But as you said, it wouldn't make sense to allow patenting specific mechanics. I think whole game industry would indeed came to halt. Well, other than more wealthy studios. Which would lead to monopoly. US is weird country tho

 

I'm pretty sure the point is that a patent search for "video game" brings up nearly a million patent results.

 

Bingo. (although including the abandoned and the hardware ones as well)

 

Patents are expensive, and having a patent isn't particularly valuable unless it is defensible and you can also afford to defend it. And as @Kiwasi points out, different places have different rules about what you can patent, and I suspect that there are also varying rules about how they can be defended.

 

Of course I understand that they need to be defended. But technically, if lets say, if such patents would be allowed across the globe, surely some companies will be try to by them off, to hold licences, since other ways may be difficult, to obtain, or write similar functional code. But anyway, I am probably diverging.

But thx to open source codes and often attached licencing, which are including part on none patent ability, we have certain protection, from closing access to many algorithms, and / or software.

 

People do exactly that, they're called "patent trolls". I don't know how big a problem it is or how people deal with such things.