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Newbie Father helping Son needs help

6 replies [Last post]
Wed, 06/15/2005 - 13:06
Anonymous

First, Let me say I am NEWBIE!!!

Second allow me to intorduce myself. My name is Mike and live in SC USA.

Now the formalities are out of the way I did not see rules but felt I am not overbearing nor rude so I shoudl be able to get away asking my questions here without too much trouble. I hope I dont offend anyone with this approach on jumping right in here in the forum being a newbie.

My son who is 12 has decided he would like to design a board game. I am working with him on this and we were searching for site to help when we come into questions when we came here.

I have reviewed his game concepts and thought it looked ok and marketable since he is a kid and knows what kids like. This is not to make money but more to teach him to surf for info and to spend quality time together.

The concept is relatively common. It is a board game which will be a role playing combined with a medievil time period similiar to a dragon slaying adventure with different monsters and treasures with a common objective of completion of the game and saving the damsel in distress and ruling the county.

Now here are some of our questions.......

He has come with concept and been working on getting a gameplay in order with the rules and objectives in place. Now we are working on getting a game board made for this as well as the artwork(just pictures from internet printed as we are not artists) these would have to be redone with a pro. We are unsure to know to copyright? We have to ask how do we find out if this game would even be marketable and if so, how do you determine whether a good game or big player game? Do we get a copyright then send out prototypes to different companies or agents?
Is there a site which helps for packaging designing for dummies? We have the bare bones structure and concepts in place and working on building it for playing but would we not be biased on our opinions for testing???

Sorry for such simple questions and imposing on people with this but would like to start and see what can come of this for him and besides its actually kind of fun to see his imagination go wild with creativity and searching the net for historical items and artifacts.

Thank you all and sorry for being so long winded first time out.

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Wed, 06/15/2005 - 13:51
#1
Shrike
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Joined: 08/26/2010
Newbie Father helping Son needs help

Welcome aboard Mike! Be careful, I started out doing one game for fun and now I'm hooked on designing them, whether they're good or not yet is a whole other story! =) Ok, to answer your questions, and I'm sure some of the more experienced guys will chime in too... but here's my 2 cents

Quote:
He has come with concept and been working on getting a gameplay in order with the rules and objectives in place. Now we are working on getting a game board made for this as well as the artwork(just pictures from internet printed as we are not artists) these would have to be redone with a pro. We are unsure to know to copyright?

Have you even truly played the game yet? Sounds like you might be putting the cart before the horse if you will. I'll let others talk about copyrights and stuff, but you really need to get the whole game together, play it, tweak it, play it, tweak it (and repeat) before you worry about that stuff. Sounds like you have an idea of what you want, now you have to see if it all works when you put it together, I know from my own experience that what looks good on paper doesn't always end up good in the game. The only way to find out what does work though is to play it. You don't have to spend a ton of cash to find out either. You can start with paper boards, pennies and beads for figures, anything just to prove it works, then worry about getting fancy, is it marketable, that type of thing

A good book that got me going was the games designers handbook

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0873495527/104-0159136-791...

I learned ALOT from that book, wish I could find it now. The biggest thing is to take a step back and get the game to a point where you and your son can sit down and try to play it. You don't even have to finish the game the first time you sit down, if something doesn't work, stop, think about what to change, and start again.

Another big thing is to get folks that don't know you to play it once you have a finished game (or what you think is finished). People that know you won't be critical enough and you need that to make the hard choices in design. Remember, friends and close family don't want to hurt the feelings of people they love, outsideres don't care. You need outsiders after you think you've got a good handle on it. Patience too, wish I had more of it, I know i need it.

Above all I think it is a great idea for you to do this with your son, good luck and again, welcome.

Shrike

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Thu, 06/16/2005 - 05:32
#2
zaiga
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Newbie Father helping Son needs help

Hello leadingedge, and welcome to the forum!

I think it's great that you and your son are working on a board game! Of course, you are very excited your first game design, and you are sure it will conquer the whole world when it gets published!

Not so fast! I think it might be wise to take a step back, and slow down a bit. There's a huge gap between coming up with ideas for a design, and an actual published game on the store shelves. You have to take it step by step.

First of all, forget about publishers, agents, copyrights, patents, hiring professional artists, marketing, packaging, etc, etc. The first thing you need is a good, solid, fun game! So whip up a prototype - it doesn't have to look particularly snazzy at this point - and start playing it with your son, and perhaps some friends and family.

Undoubtly, the game will go through a lot of revisions as you add new ideas to the game and take away old ones that didn't work. Keep on playtesting the game until you are thoroughly satisfied with it and you have played it multiple times without changing anything about it.

At this point it's a good idea to write down the rules in a rulebook, and start playing the game with outside groups. Again, be prepared to revise the game and the rulebook, as these outside groups will probably find several flaws and loopholes in the game and the rulebook. Or, they might have some great ideas for making the game more fun that you want to incorporate into the design! Again, revise, restest, repeat, until you are satisfied with it.

Then you might want to think about publishing the game. Before that, don't worry too much about the publishing the game, just focus on making it the best game you can.

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Thu, 06/16/2005 - 06:58
#3
jwarrend
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Joined: 08/03/2008
Newbie Father helping Son needs help

Welcome!

zaiga wrote:

Then you might want to think about publishing the game. Before that, don't worry too much about the publishing the game, just focus on making it the best game you can.

I agree with zaiga; if your main goal is to spend quality time with your son, the creative side of the project is the one to focus on, rather than the business side. It's my opinion that publishing a game should be seen as a process that you undertake when you have a great game in place. I think too many of us assume that our games will end up in such a state, but the reality is that there's a lot of work to do to create a game that is fun, challenging, and bug-free. But it's also the fun part, so enjoy it!

Many of your questions about copyrighting and such have been discussed before. The best bet is to use the forum search feature on the front page of the site, you'll find many threads about copyrights and some about production as well.

Good luck, and have fun!

-Jeff

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Thu, 06/16/2005 - 11:58
#4
JPOG
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
Newbie Father helping Son needs help

Copyright really only applies to certain aspects of a game, its a bit complicated, but technically, in most Western countries, copyright technically takes effect as soon as you have created some document or piece of artwork (you can legally put the (C) on it without paying any money), though it can also be officially registered for added legal protection.

I stand corrected by any of the more knowing posters here if they disagree, but as far as I know, copyright doesn't apply to game MECHANICS, only to certain parts of a game such as the terminology, which is why you can have "legal ripoff" games that resemble Risk or Monopoly or such - thats just an abstract idea of what to DO with the game and as such can't be copyrighted - everyday words also cannot be copyrighted, unless they are modified in some significant fashion. Now trademarking is entirely a different matter and is much more costly but if I remember correctly, also only applies to certain parts of a game.

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Mon, 06/20/2005 - 11:56
#5
Anonymous
Newbie Father helping Son needs help

Copyrights pertain to anything that is "fixed" onto a tangible source. Original art, stories, game board layout just about any of the parts and peices of a game.

Patents would pertain to the actual game mechanics if they are new and innovative in the realm of gaming. Most game makers dont patent things because there isnt much that has been new or innovative in recent years. The problem here is that there are only so many ways to roll dice, flick a spinner, ect ect.

trademarks are usually slogans or catchlines. Things that can be indentifying to a particular business. For example the Nike swoosh is not only a copyright for the actual swoosh but also a trademark because as soon as anyone see's it they think of Nike and not Reebok.

As far as using another persons artwork, it is fine for prototyping something that you and your son are playing. Most people and companies are not going after you since you are not profiting. There is a catch however.

If said company did not take you to court for using a peice of a copyright but than tried to sue another party for using the same copyright than the infringer could set precedent by stating that the copyright owner is picking and choosing who she takes to court, thus discriminating. Most of the time saying I dont know in court is not going to help you.

For registering your copyright, since it was brought up, if you just put the (c) on any material it does give you protection against people infringing on the materials. It does not however give you the ability to take someone to court for statutory damages, only registering it will. It cost $30 to register if I remember correctly so if you are convinced that you have a game that could be published than you might as well splend the money on it.

For artwork if you are now worried that someone may find out about the infringement for the materials you have, you have some options. Go to an art college or any school and commision the artwork there, students need these things for portfolios and will do good work for less than a professional. For small publishers you could offer internships to students to do art and design, some schools require internships to graduate. Or you could have your kids do the art, scan it and print the cards or whatever.

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Mon, 06/20/2005 - 14:28
#6
Dralius
Dralius's picture
Offline
Joined: 07/26/2008
Newbie Father helping Son needs help

According to http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#hsc

Quote:
Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is "created" when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. "Copies" are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. "Phonorecords" are material objects embodying fixations of sounds (excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CDs, or LPs. Thus, for example, a song (the "work") can be fixed in sheet music (" copies") or in phonograph disks (" phonorecords"), or both.

the reasons you might want to register are here http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#cr

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