Tom Jolly's patent

Since you've decided to ignore Matthew's polite rebuke, I'd like to respond just a bit. You could easily tell from the fact that I'm a site Admin, or that I have over 1300 posts, that I am not a troll or stalker. That does not mean that my position is correct, of course, and it doesn't mean that you need to agree with me. But part of what makes this community so great is mutual courtesy and respect. Your posts in this thread have been very condescending and sarcastic, and this just isn't that kind of a community. We take design seriously here -- not that it means we don't have fun, or joke around: quite the opposite! But maturity and polite discourse are crucial to the spirit of the conversations we're trying to have, and I encourage you to drop the ascerbic tone in favor of something more consistent with the overwhelming majority of posters here. Argument by belittlement is not only logically fallacious, it violates the collegial atmosphere that we're trying to create.

Probably some of both (though overwhelmingly more of the latter!), but my point is that it doesn't matter: if you can patent game mechanics, you can patent the great ones and the trivial ones, and you could then force companies to pay you when they use the mechanics.

It's not a private club, it's an online community. I've been here for 2 years and I know many of the designers, and I know their capabilities. Coming up with mechanics (mechanics, not finished game designs) quickly is really not that hard once you're experienced as a designer. The Game Design Showdown that we have every month used to occur in a chat format, and people only had 5 minutes to come up with game mechanics. Many people participated in those contests and came up with some pretty clever stuff. I suspect that there are transcripts in the archives, which you could find by doing a forum search on "Game Design Showdown".

I have no idea how long Tom Jolly took to make his mechanic. I'm saying that given that it is possible to create mechanics simply and easily, I don't think they rise to the level of what should be entitled to intellectual property protection.

It wasn't very complicated. Let's say designers A and B design games that use a similar mechanic. At present, if designer A's game is first to market, he gains an advantage, but designer B's game isn't precluded from being published simply by the existence of A's game. In a model where patenting mechanics became commonplace, designer A, by patenting the mechanic, could prevent B from publishing. This could happen even if A was not ready to sell his game and B was. I'm saying that the current situation is preferable to the latter, in my opinion.

It's almost as if you're not reading a word that I say. In the example I described, I talked about a game company that is putting out a game with a similar mechanic to one of mine. I think that is perfectly fair. What I wouldn't like is if they were allowed to patent their mechanic and then prevent me from selling my game some day.

Nor do I.

You seem to have this notion that the only people entitled to an opinion on this issue are self-publishers, since they are personally invested financially in their game. Why can't a seeking-to-be-published designer, or even a not-seeking-to-be-published-designer, have an opinion?

But that's just my point; I don't think that I'm entitled to be fairly compensated by Days of Wonder simply because we both have a game with a traitor mechanic: their mechanic didn't derive from mine, and mine didn't derive from theirs. Why should I be able to stop them from publishing? "It's just business" doesn't cut it. You're proposing a change in the way that the game business works. Why would that change be a good thing, in your opinion?

It's not the same thing at all. Domain names fall under the category of trademark/brand name kind of considerations. By registering "poetknowit.com", you're not preventing the other company from doing business; they simply need to get a different name so as not to infringe on your trademark. Patenting of game mechanics would have a different effect: it would affect the product itself.

I'm afraid that you are not heeding that cry yourself. Your entire post is a mix of argument by condescension and argument from incredulity. You haven't secured a logical foundation yet for either posture. Without resorting to an irrelevant hypothetical, explain to me, in a coherent, logical way, why changing to a world where patented game mechanics were commonplace would be preferable to the current situation, where this is rare.

This is indeed one of the flaws in my argument, that I'm seeking a model of patent protection that protects you from stealing but doesn't force someone with a non-derivative but similar idea to go through you to benefit from his idea, and it's hard to identify how that would work.

But aside from trying to make me look foolish, I don't think you've actually engaged my point. I claim that if I didn't borrow any aspect of an idea from Joe, then it is somewhat unfair for Joe to be able to prevent me from using my idea. Why, logically, is that unreasonable? Why does "I got here first!" represent a fair basis for deciding who can use an idea and who can't? (and "because that's just how it works" is NOT an adequate response).

Gawd thats an uncomfortable statement for me...

If someone who didnt know me from adam called me out and said "Yo chief (they called me that mind you), your game idea is trivial" - I dont know what I would do.

Well, if you're going to hang around here, better get used to this kind of criticism! Speaking from experience, I can guarantee that you're going to receive it!

Not really. I'm not saying that patents should be withheld from only trivial mechanics; I'm saying that they should be withheld from all mechanics. This removes the ambiguity of deciding which are trivial and which aren't. And what does heckling an author have to do with anything? If you don't like an author's book, you don't buy it. If you don't like a designer's game, you don't buy it. Why is additional patent protection needed?

No, again, you're confusing everything. Designers can, at present, attempt to sell their games, and if people think they are trivial or bad or whatever, they won't buy them. The voting as to which ideas are worthwhile is made by consumers rather than by patent officers. I'd like it to stay that way.

But my point with saying that you're not entitled to protection for a trivial idea was different. First, I'm not advancing a specific definition of what constitutes a "trivial" idea at this time, but surely I can give a simple example. How about this, you came up with the idea to wipe your bottom with your right hand rather than your left, you patent it, and now everyone who does so must pay you royalties. Silly, right? Obviously. Now, I am saying that game mechanics are more in that category than in the category of say, electricity or the cotton gin. Again, not that game mechanics are always easy to create, but that they can be created off the top of one's head: they fall more in the realm, in my opinion, of whimsy rather than ingenuity. And I don't think you can patent whimsy.

Again, I'm not saying Jolly's mechanic is lame, or trivial: I'm saying that game mechanics as a family don't rise to the level of what should be patentable, in my opinion. You're more than welcome to disagree with it. But part of my point is that patenting of mechanics would change the way that games were designed and that companies do business, and I feel, as yogurt does, that it would be a negative change. Do you disagree with this? In what way would patenting of mechanics be a good practice for the hobby to incorporate?

-Jeff

This was a very interesting thread. Much as been said and I feel it's getting too general and a bit too heated up.

I am closing it up now.

Feel free to start a new more specific thread.

PS: Camelot sounds fun and I'm eager to see this cool simultaneous play mechanic in action.