Design, Intellectual Property and how to proceed

Hey there, Yossi! I don't have much input on #1, however your second question is worth discussing. To sum up: don't worry about it.

According to many, many industry professionals, there's little reason to be so closely-guarded about your secrets (not the least of which is that if they even detect any hint of an NDA, then they'll likely avoid you). Jamey Stegmaier has posted recent blog entries about this topic. Here are a couple (useful even if you're not intending to use Kickstarter):

The Taste Test & Stealing Ideas:
https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-10-the-taste-test/

Your Idea is Brilliant, Your Idea is Worthless:
https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-204-your-idea-is-brillian...

Everything a Kickstarter Creator Needs to Know About Copyrights:
https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-159-everything-a-kickstar...

James Mathe (RIP) is another industry luminary who has written on this topic, so you can look up his words as well.

Regarding your question 3, I suppose it depends on the quantity and quality of your components. I've spent maybe $10 a copy on a professionally-printed card game through The Game Crafter because I wanted it to look and feel good for playtesters who saw it at public events. That was just cards, though. To date, the example I'm thinking of has been printed four times. I suppose if I was settled on the design then I would easily reach that $100 mark within a year: again, just for a card game.

If you can find a way to re-use components, home-brew your components, etc. then it will likely be less-expensive for you. Again, I think this is highly-dependent on the specific project and your intentions for its future.

Good luck to you, and best of success. :)

Search! When you see artists you like, ask them if they might do freelance work for you. I found one I knew I liked from a web comic and managed to figure out her email :). A friend of mine looked through fantasy images and found an artist he liked, contacted, hired to make custom images.

A smallish image is going to cost you somewhere in the $50-150 range, probably (let's say the size of a playing card), depending on detail, etc.

If you're a patent attorney, you probably already know that your game isn't patentable :)

Nothing you post here is protected. But at the same time, you're definitely over-estimating the value of it :) No offense, but the chances that you'd post something that someone would be like, "Wow, rather than do my own game, I'm going to steal THAT idea and make a ton of money," is.. zero. Nobody's making real money off of these games without a lot of hard work and a lot of luck, and nobody's putting that kind of work into someone else's thing.

At the most, someone might say, hey, that's an interesting mechanic you're using for X. I wonder if I could adapt that into a piece of my game..

Which is much of the value of this forum, really.

Depends how many you're making :) And also how complex your project is. You can probably put something together at The Game Crafter for a reasonable price and it'll look professional.

I did a blog post about my own early prototyping at

https://www.bgdf.com/blog/prototyping

But for the card game I'm working on I did it at TGC.. 108 cards, some acrylic crystals, and some plastic winks in an unprinted box cost about $15 per set. Otherwise you're mostly having to source everything separately, which could be fine if you're making a bunch of them and buying a bag of 1000 bingo chips makes sense (which it did not for the card game, which only needs 20 or so).

I would be shocked, seriously. Obviously I haven't seen your games, but coming up with something novel in a world where there can be a few dozen games each week just on Kickstarter? I'd think the chances of someone finding prior art close enough to your idea is pretty damned high.

The Jamey Stegmaier links are invaluable.

And again.. there are many thousands of games you've never even heard of. Board Game Geek has over 100,000 entries. "Unique" is a true rarity, and yet, ultimately, is not even that valuable.

This reminds me of the controversy a bit ago about the Alien boardgame called USCSS Nostromo or something that apparently stole game design from another developer.
While I don't frankly care that the game was cancelled, it was a situation where that exact thing happened: a developer pitched an idea, got rejected, and then later his ideas were used in a very similar game. I believe the developer sued, and the game got cancelled. Clearly there are some sort of protections, but what those are I don't know.

Joseph, I am the founder of Bullfrog Games LLC. So far I have only published my own title but I am lookin for more games to publish. I have no problem signing an NDA. If your games fit into the category of Family Game, with mass market appeal I would be more than willing to look at what you have.

- I am a disabled Veteran run business with access to the U.S. federal government's System for Award Management (SAM).
- I am also officially now Global Walmart vendor. Although I haven't sold any games in Walmart yet this year (time is running out as my game is Christmas Themed) I will for sure be in at least 3 Walmart Super centers next year. Between my wife and I we got this Walmart deal done with 3 Stores in about 1 month. I'm confident I will be in many more than 3 stores next year.
- I am small now, but I am dreaming very Big.

Also Hasbro has a very straight forward product submission process, and they love to look for outside innovators. I'd imagine as a Patent Attorney yourself, it should be pretty easy to establish prior art. The reality is that publishers don't want law suits they want games that sell. If a big publisher scares you, then contemplate going with someone like me who is new, fresh and hungry!!

Well there are some "SIDE-EFFECTS" to choosing BIGGER "Game Companies". For example, they'll theme and do the art to their liking NOT yours. Or they'll pay you a royalty and take over the development of the game. You may or may NOT be consulted. The size of the royalty will be SMALLER with a BIGGER "Game Company" than a smaller one, with which you may be able to PARTNER with... And be included in the production (not payment) of art, heck you'll probably be involved in the development too...

So BIGGER is NOT always BETTER. You have to figure out what you can live with ... What I mean do you prefer a smaller partnership, where you will be actively consulted on art and development of the game. Or do you simply want a STABLE but predictable royalty and be able to move on to other designs...?

I've self-published and I've partnered with a small Publisher. Sometimes being a "one-man-show" is advantageous: it's all on you and your efforts. A Small Publisher can do wonders and take an unknown game and "BLOW IT UP"! I've never worked with BIG or LARGE Publishers... Even though at the moment, I am searching for one... Mainly because the game is completed and all that is needed is a SALESFORCE (and capability to finance re-prints)...

Then produce a prototype WITHOUT any artwork. That should alleviate your fears about using other people's artwork.

TBH the real issue is not using copyright artwork. The REAL ISSUE is "profiting" from said artwork. I mean prototyping and playtesting, you aren't making any MONEY from those two (2) activities. Sure, you are INCREASING the appeal of the game but a SIMPLE "warning" should suffice before you begin: "All artwork used to produce this prototype is placeholder art and is copyright of their respective owners..."

That should be enough to say: "Look I'm just TEMPORARILY using it... Before it becomes the Publishers effort to produce original art for the game..."

Usually the Publisher doesn't fudge much with the design. Sometimes they may ADD something or change something for clarification and better understanding. Like for example my own Publisher came to the conclusion that it would be SIMPLER to describe each TURN as four (4) steps: A, B, C, and D. Which corresponds to "Action", "Buy", "Configure" and "Discard". And so we went with that since it made sense.

Like I mentioned above, they may alter the "explanation" of the rules. Or want to add NEW ones or tweak with the wording in the RULEBOOK. You do have to write a "rulebook" if you want a publisher to make your game. And they can invariably alter the grammar, wording or flow of the document.

Best of luck with your game(s)... The only real way to know how it goes is to TRY it yourself. If you are NOT pleased with the RESULT... Next time try a DIFFERENT approach. You learn by doing more so than people advising you. Everyone's experiences are different and you may be successful with a BIG publisher with Design "A" and only to try again and fail with Design "B" (or be unsatisfied with the outcome...)

It's not because there is one formula that works. It's mostly a case-by-case basis...

I go that route too for all my designs. Until I'm ready to produce artwork, I just use NICE "Adobe Illustrator" card templates for my games.

TRUE. These are ALL valid points. In the case of TradeWorlds, both a SOLO and CO-OP mode were added. And we took the "box-format" from 1 Player boxes to a 4 Player "Big" Box. So yeah, the Publisher greatly improved upon what I had designed.

If you really want to ensure the "Fair Use" all you need to do is STATE the NAME of the "Copyright" owner on the card.

Remember nothing other than your own prototypes. Submissions I would send WITHOUT any art... And if you have a certain type of ART you like or believe would look good for the game, do a couple "mock-ups" (Specimen cards with borrowed art). Again ensure you state the NAMEs of the artists on the card sent along with the rulebook, sell page and pitch.

Thanks Rick for adding the "Fair Use" clause ... I remember being taught that IF you are NOT making money on Copyright material and that you give proper credit to the owner of said art, you may use the artwork for personal reasons.

However IF you want to publicly distribute or SELL copyright artwork, you need to first get the permission of the artist FIRST! And/or pay for the use of the artwork in your product.

Cheers!

This is not true.

Though you should definitely do it.

As I was trying to imply, the issue you really want to look at with fair use in this case is how it affects the author's ability to market the work. NOT whether YOU are making money. For a personal prototype, that's really not a problem. However, if anything went beyond that stage, you'd have a progressively harder time convincing a judge. That's assuming you're put in a position where the copyright holder is upset enough to sue you, of course.

But it could get more complicated. For example, if you use the art in a way that could harm the property.. If you use someone's cute bunny artwork in a game about killer bunnies, even if you're just showing something to publishers, the artist might be pitching their cute art as well, separately, and now you've associated it with death and hurt the value. I mean, that's kind of a silly example, but hopefully the point is there. If someone wants to argue before a judge, they can argue before a judge. Just be circumspect.

If you're going it alone and becoming self-published, there are plenty of artists and graphic designers that can be found through Facebook groups (art & graphic design for tabletop games is a good group for that), and various art and design websites where artists post their portfolios.

Quite frankly, you don't. Unless you're pitching to some fly-by-night scam artist, not one reputable publisher is going to steal your game.

Copyright law is your protection, if you're willing to actively protect your work.

Please remember, every designer and publisher has 1000 concepts and ideas of their own. They don't want more. Many of them actively give them away because they cannot work on them all already! The real work is in refining and developing those concepts or ideas into a playable, publishable product.

Anywhere from $0 to $5000 (or as some like to answer, "How long is a piece of string?") .. far too many variables involved to give an answer to that.

Don't get me wrong. SOME form of placeholder art is ok, as long as it's entirely clear it's placeholder art and many publishers don't care either way. The point of the matter is, don't put too much stock into artwork during a pitch to a publisher. The majority of them look past the supplied art because they will (almost always) replace it anyway.

Like I said, always research the publishers you are pitching to first to know what they prefer.

Besides NOBODY knows your idea like you do. Each an every rule you design is your own. So what if you EXPLAIN your game to the public. It doesn't change the fact that there is no hope in heck that everyone will be able to "think-up" all your nuances...!

And TBH ... Most game ideas suck. And I'm not saying MINE are the best. Mine SUCK too! It's a matter of re-working, re-purposing, re-tooling, re-hashing, and WORKING an IDEA into a REAL GAME. And no two (2) people given the same SPECS will create an identical game. If they do, then someone plagiarized someone at some point.

It also depends on how complicated a game you design. If it's 10 pages with illustrations and card samples... Well it's going to be MUCH harder to copy than say someone with 2 pages for a PNP.

But NOTICE... Designers post WORKS-IN-PROGRESS. Nobody uploads FINAL rules to BGDF. Like I said BGG when the time is right. There are always room for last minute edits. And formatting... Nobody concerns themselves with formatting rules on BGDF. Everything is in DESIGN... Works-in-progress...

And when it's final, all we get is people posting in the announcement thread saying: "Please visit my Kickstarter page..."

Quite right.

No-one is "stealing" games. My little joke about "If someone steals..." was a joke because it would never happen. Although it's true that IF that happened I WOULD back that Kickstarter. :)