The ultimate nerd dream?
February 17, 2010 9:35 AM Subscribe
I have a ruleset for a board game and am working on prototyping it. I don't necessarily want to make money off of it, and I'm mostly doing it for fun. One possible option is to put up the ruleset online while copyrighting the basic idea - is this a good idea?
http://ask.metafilter.com/131809/Ive-got-a-design-for-a-board-game-Now-what
This thread has proved incredibly helpful, and I'm currently reading through the various guides posted.
The new meat for my question comes from the free online distribution angle.
1) Am I shooting myself in the foot, or helping myself in terms of one day publishing the game?
2) Is the mail it to yourself for copyright purposes safe? Or do I have to go through the actual copyright process before putting it online?
3) Any other tips that might come into play that haven't been discussed in the previous thread?
http://ask.metafilter.com/131809/Ive-got-a-design-for-a-board-game-Now-what
This thread has proved incredibly helpful, and I'm currently reading through the various guides posted.
The new meat for my question comes from the free online distribution angle.
1) Am I shooting myself in the foot, or helping myself in terms of one day publishing the game?
2) Is the mail it to yourself for copyright purposes safe? Or do I have to go through the actual copyright process before putting it online?
3) Any other tips that might come into play that haven't been discussed in the previous thread?
Best answer: 1) You can't copyright the "idea" of a board game. There are thousands of themed knockoffs of Monopoly, "Illinois-opoly", "Puppy-opoly" and so on, and Milton Bradley can't do anything about this.
2) You can't copyright the rules to a board game.
3) You can PATENT the rules to a board game, but this is almost never done and I am not aware of patented rules to a game ever being successfully defended in court. Two games that are patented are Magic: The Gathering and Chrononauts, but again, I do not believe these patents were ever defended despite games with similar mechanisms being published in the time since. Short version: don't bother.
4) You CAN copyright the artwork and unique cosmetic design of the game, the written form of the rules themselves.
5) If you do want to copy the things in (4) and you really care, then you might as well just register them with the library of congress.
6) Join BoardGameGeek and Board Game Developer's Forum for much more specialized advice and info than you'll ever find on MetaFilter.
posted by meadowlark lime at 9:46 AM on February 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
2) You can't copyright the rules to a board game.
3) You can PATENT the rules to a board game, but this is almost never done and I am not aware of patented rules to a game ever being successfully defended in court. Two games that are patented are Magic: The Gathering and Chrononauts, but again, I do not believe these patents were ever defended despite games with similar mechanisms being published in the time since. Short version: don't bother.
4) You CAN copyright the artwork and unique cosmetic design of the game, the written form of the rules themselves.
5) If you do want to copy the things in (4) and you really care, then you might as well just register them with the library of congress.
6) Join BoardGameGeek and Board Game Developer's Forum for much more specialized advice and info than you'll ever find on MetaFilter.
posted by meadowlark lime at 9:46 AM on February 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
I can't speak to the game-specific points here, but mailing things to yourself doesn't do much as far as copyright goes.
posted by JiBB at 9:53 AM on February 17, 2010
posted by JiBB at 9:53 AM on February 17, 2010
Nthing the 'can't copyright game mechanics' comments. You can copyright artwork or words, but not a design--it appears that not even the design of a gameboard is protected. The big value in most board-game properties is usually in the trademark: there are hundreds of card-based trivia games but only one Trivial Pursuit.
posted by Hogshead at 10:07 AM on February 17, 2010
posted by Hogshead at 10:07 AM on February 17, 2010
Best answer: (I'm assuming your game is more of a strategy board game than a party game)
The BGG forum recommendations are excellent. I've got friends in the board game industry, so here's some perspective, take it or leave it:
- You may want to browse through their lists of self-published and print & play games for an idea of what you can accomplish on your own.
- I can probably count on my hand the number of game designers that do not have another full-time job to pay the bills. Unless you're published by Hasbro, board games are a cottage industry with very low profits. Bottom line, your odds of making any real money on this game are slim to none.
- Zev at ZMan Games is the best thing to happen to the industry in a while. He publishes a lot of games from a wide swath of designers. If yours makes it through a few rounds of playtesting with good feedback, contact him.
posted by mkultra at 10:21 AM on February 17, 2010
The BGG forum recommendations are excellent. I've got friends in the board game industry, so here's some perspective, take it or leave it:
- You may want to browse through their lists of self-published and print & play games for an idea of what you can accomplish on your own.
- I can probably count on my hand the number of game designers that do not have another full-time job to pay the bills. Unless you're published by Hasbro, board games are a cottage industry with very low profits. Bottom line, your odds of making any real money on this game are slim to none.
- Zev at ZMan Games is the best thing to happen to the industry in a while. He publishes a lot of games from a wide swath of designers. If yours makes it through a few rounds of playtesting with good feedback, contact him.
posted by mkultra at 10:21 AM on February 17, 2010
You cannot copyright mechanisms or idea. You can copyright content (text/graphics/audio/video/etc). These are not the same things. This is actually OK as most people have unique and cool content but use the same game rules over and over.
Game publishing is a brutal business. My advice is to just publish it on-line for free. If it's great and has your name on it, people will be more willing to listen to your next game idea.
posted by chairface at 11:10 AM on February 17, 2010
Game publishing is a brutal business. My advice is to just publish it on-line for free. If it's great and has your name on it, people will be more willing to listen to your next game idea.
posted by chairface at 11:10 AM on February 17, 2010
I'm confused by something related to this question. I though that Wizards of the Coast have a copyright on the concept of "tapping a card" -- that is, turning a card sideways to show that it has been used. Is this not possible, and have I been mis-informed in my life?
posted by Peter Petridish at 11:14 AM on February 17, 2010
posted by Peter Petridish at 11:14 AM on February 17, 2010
Peter, WotC has a patent, not a copyright. It's pretty broad. Wikipedia claims they sued Nintendo over Pokemon, and Nintendo settled. I don't know if that indicates that the patent is strong or not; add in that there have been many, many other M:tG knockoffs that (AFAIK) have gone unsued. Probably you're okay unless you're a huge rich company who beat WotC in their market, but IANAL.
posted by fleacircus at 12:02 PM on February 17, 2010
posted by fleacircus at 12:02 PM on February 17, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
The other side of the coin is that very, very few games do well on the market. I would highly recommend putting together a prototype and playing it with a few different groups of friends before getting too attached...
posted by kaibutsu at 9:46 AM on February 17, 2010