How To Judge Legal Risk When Making a Game Clone? 270
An anonymous reader writes "I'm an indie game developer making a clone of a rather obscure old game. Gameplay in my clone is very similar to the old game, and my clone even has a very similar name because I want to attract fans of the original. The original game has no trademark or software patent associated with it, and my clone isn't infringing on the original's copyright in any way (all the programming and artwork is original), but nevertheless I'm still worried about the possibility of running afoul of a look and feel lawsuit or something similar. How do I make sure I'm legally in the clear without hiring an expensive lawyer that my indie developer budget can't afford?"
Laws have become horribly, horribly complex (Score:5, Insightful)
Laws have become horribly, horribly complex. I'm not sure any of us can do that for anything we do.
Re:Laws have become horribly, horribly complex (Score:5, Informative)
Laws have become horribly, horribly complex. I'm not sure any of us can do that for anything we do.
This is very true. I've been reading a lot about law recently, because it's become pertinent to my everyday life. In this case, and ALL legal cases, the law is SUPER crazy complex. First you need to read up on rules governing this stuff, then laws, then amendments to those laws, then you have to read a bunch of court cases on the matter, and then you have to have the legal background to understand how all of those apply to your specific situation.
The summary author really only has one of two choices: a) pay a lawyer, or b) ignore the legal consequences and only deal with them if you get sued.
Very simply, that's the plain ugly truth hanging-all-out-there-naked version of every question of, "what should I do about law X, or law Y"... well, unless you're in Arizona. Then there's an option c) pay someone who is willing to do the research for you, even if they're not a lawyer, but understand their qualifications before trusting their evaluations. Outside of Arizona, no one can even give you any clues about your legal liability without running aground of questions of practicing law.
Let me present a third choice (Score:5, Insightful)
It takes being a bit cheeky, but you can also
c) contact the author/publisher of the old game and get (in writing) that they have no problems whatsoever with you releasing the clone.
If you're dealing with a company like Atari (who? yes, they still exist!) or anything Disney, you are probably out of luck. If you're dealing with a Scott Adams (of Pirate's adventure fame) type of person, there's probably no problem at all. As you say the game is rather obscure, so chances are they will have no problem with you releasing a remake, and they won't sue. Perhaps they can even benefit from your efforts, if you're willing to link to the original game!
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
...a company like Atari (who? yes, they still exist!)...
Depends on who you mean by "they". If by "they" you mean the people who bought the rights to use the "Atari" trademark, yes, they exist. If you mean the company that made classic video games in the 80s, no, they're long gone...
Re:Let me present a third choice (Score:5, Funny)
No, they don't. Atari as a company ceased to exist in 1996. The name was picked up by Hasbro in 1998 and then by Infogrames in 2001, but apart from the name, logo and ownership of a truckload of copyrights the organization currently calling itself "Atari" has absolutely nothing in common with the company Nolan Bushnell founded back in 1972.
This isn't a question of Theseus' Ship sitting in the harbour at Athens and being slowly replaced board by board until there is nothing left of the original, it's more like Theseus taking his ship out to sea for a wild party, dousing it with gasoline and burning it to the waterline, only to have Menelaus build an entirely new ship in Sparta with the name "Thezeus" on the prow two years later and then sailing it to Mycenae and selling it to Agamemnon who turns it into an amusement park where people pay large sums of money to play on half-finished rides and be beaten with sticks when they complain.
The modern day Atari is the ship that Orestes built after termites destroyed that one. And it has trouble floating because he ran out of wood before the job was done. The Mycenaean QA department insists that the boat is good and that there is no need to patch it as any sinking problems are clearly the fault of the end users.
Re:Let me present a third choice (Score:4, Funny)
No, this is either TediousAnalogyGuy or PretentiousAnalogyGuy.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
that's the plain ugly truth hanging-all-out-there-naked
Coming from a girl posting on slashdot at 4AM, that has to be an oxymoron! Will you mary me?
by snowgirl (978879) * writes: Alter Relationship on 2010-01-12 20:26 (#30734680) Journal
Maybe she lives in my part of the world...
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Girls do exist on Slashdot, you know. In fact, I'd consider myself geekier than most guys. ;)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Only one thing to say to that: http://xkcd.com/322/ [xkcd.com] .
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
That seems a bit unfair to guys. I mean, I know a guy who's interested in four things.
Re:Laws have become horribly, horribly complex (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Laws have become horribly, horribly complex (Score:4, Informative)
OK, I'm curious. Why Arizona? I'm not from the USA, so maybe I'm missing something there...
Arizona does not place the restriction that only members of the bar can practice law. Thus, anyone can provide you with legal advice... you just need to realize yourself when you can't, or can rely upon the information.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I sell FUD insurance. It's not clear now if you need it, but it would be very bad if you do turn out need it and don't have it.
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Barack Obama is an alumni of Harvard Law School. Of 43 presidents, 25 have been lawyers.
No small wonder that it takes a lawyer to get anything done in a society run by lawyers.
Funny thing is, I don't know anyone that says they like lawyers...
yet we put them in charge of everything...
and then we wonder why we get fucked over!
Re: (Score:2)
And it doesn't even matter if we could. The submitter can be sued for infringing whether he's actually breaking any law or not, and since he can't afford a lawyer and a long court battle, he'll lose.
Re:Laws have become horribly, horribly complex (Score:5, Insightful)
Gameplay in my clone is very similar to the old game
Pretty much all games have used and extended ideas from previous games, copied user interfaces, themes, etc. So I don't think you'd get into trouble making something similar (at least a token effort should be made to put some original styling to the game).
and my clone even has a very similar name
but I think this is the bit where the pants get sued off.
Re:Laws have become horribly, horribly complex (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember: the difference between a "rip-off" and an "homage" is whether or not the other side has a goddamn sense of humor.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Did all the companies writing FPS games contact ID for permission to make Doom/Quake clones? What about the various Civilization clones (FreeCiv, but also the commercial clone Call To Power)?
If you don't believe you're infringing, I fear the problem with this approach is that you're scoring an own goal by admitting you copied their work. And they have no reason to say yes, so chances are they'd say no.
It depends on what is meant by a "clone" of course - storylines and characters can be copied. But remember
Re:Laws have become horribly, horribly complex (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't ask permission. When you're in front of the judge, they're going to pull out a file folder with your call transcript in it. They're going to argue that you KNEW you were infringing, when you asked permission you were TOLD NO, and you INFRINGED on their rights anyway. The judge will be impressed, and you will be ass-raped if you're lucky.
Don't ask any permission. Just do it and have a good lawyer ready. And don't talk to anybody who calls about infringement. Tell them to talk to your lawyer.
Re:Laws have become horribly, horribly complex (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't ask any permission. Just do it and have a good lawyer ready.
Good lawyers cost money.
The best lawyers will tell you to drop this idea before it costs you even more money - and time.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not "having" a lawyer. That's having a phone number. Having a lawyer implies he's doing some kind of work for you.
The real question: WOULD they sue? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Have you considered asking permission?
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Re:The real question: WOULD they sue? (Score:5, Insightful)
This would land on the desk of a company lawyer, whose thought processes on the matter would be: "If I grant permission and something bad comes of this guy cloning the game, I'll get blamed for it. If I grant permission and this guy makes a lot of money cloning the game, I'll get blamed for the company not getting that money. If I don't grant permission, I can't get blamed for anything. Which do I choose?"
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And yet another question - do that corporation know that they have the right to that game?
Not every corporation does have track records that legally entitles them to the copyright of a certain piece of software written some 30 years ago. It may be that during some part of the process those rights were left out or that the purchase only was for the brand name etc.
Not everyone suing does hold the rights either.
There are multiple variations on a theme here. But if you do sell a look-alike that does have some m
Re: (Score:2)
That is a good point. Even SCO/Novell had trouble at first determining who owned the copyrights to Unix, which isn't/wasn't a trivial matter.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And SCO seems to still haven't come to the conclusion.
Risk it (Score:3, Insightful)
Go for it and don't worry. If you make money on the game and someone notices, you might need to share the profits. Given the description of the game, that might be fair in this context. On the other hand, if you don't make any money, no-one is going to bother you with anything other than a cease and desist. Either of these scenarios will make your game more popular. See Streisand effect for details.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'd second this. Most likely, if the original publisher notices, and you're small fry, they'll just send a C&D, not try to sue you immediately. It's only worth their time to sue right off the bat if they suspect you have deep pockets, e.g. if this clone got distributed through a major publisher.
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Re:Risk it (Score:4, Insightful)
This is entirely false and shows the problem with asking for legal advice from random strangers on the Internet. If a company feels that you're damaging their trademark, image, etc, they'll sue you for damages, even if you have never made a dime. And they can win money you don't have.
If you have a question for a lawyer and you can't afford one, stop what you're doing. It's that simple.
The OP says:
How do you know? Did you just type "obscure game" into the USPTO's web site? Or did you have someone who knows what they hell they're doing to a trademark and patent search. I suspect it's the former because the latter costs money, which you complained about not having, and can be done by an attorney who could also answer your questions.
The OP continues
And this is why you're in deep crap, you have a limited and incorrect idea of what copyright is.
Oh, and hey, you're not making an iPhone game are you? Because if you are, when you go to publish your game you'll see the checkboxes for all those other countries, so hey, why not publish them there too? Bigger audience, more money, right? Or at least bigger potential legal risk. Copyrights, trademarks, patents, and intellectual property law are different in different countries, and lately the US has been willing to cooperate with litigious foreigners.
Note that I'm blindly assuming you're in the US. That's because you left the all important "what jurisdiction I'm in" information off your question. Just another sign of your ignorance and why you really really need to find the money for a lawyer.
Re: (Score:2)
Most insightful post so far. Especially the iPhone part.
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If you have a question for a lawyer and you can't afford one, stop what you're doing.
In other words, everybody who isn't rich enough to see a lawyer should commit suicide because ultimately, everybody has questions. I hope this isn't what you meant.
Did you just type "obscure game" into the USPTO's web site?
If I type each of the companies that developed and published the game into the "Assignee Name" field and nothing on the list is relevant, is that enough?
And this is why you're in deep crap, you have a limited and incorrect idea of what copyright is.
Could you explain further? As far as I can tell given information published by the U.S. Copyright Office [copyright.gov] as well as the opinion in Capcom v. Data East, copyright doesn't apply to the rules of a g
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have a question for a lawyer and you can't afford one, stop what you're doing.
In other words, everybody who isn't rich enough to see a lawyer should commit suicide because ultimately, everybody has questions. I hope this isn't what you meant.
Wow. If that is the logic you use in life, then perhaps that would be good advice for you.
But no, nobody here except you means that.
If you want legal advice, you get it from a lawyer. It's that simple.
If you aren't rich, there is no need for any mass suicides, it just means you can not afford the proper legal advice, and will be moving forward with potential risk of running up on the law or someone elses rights (Or perceived rights anyway)
As a car example, I can not afford to have a second car sitting aro
Re:Risk it (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have a question for a lawyer and you can't afford one, stop what you're doing.
That has to be the saddest statement I've read in a long time.
Re:Risk it (Score:4, Insightful)
why waste money on a lawyer? do you have idea what it costs? why not mimic what the big guys do: check the obvious and if it isn't there, don't waste time going through every IP whore's portfolio.
given that you read slashdot, you should browse the home page and notice that MS just pulled office as it lost a patent suit. Any idea how much money MS has? how many lawyers are on their payroll? how ridiculous it is to expect someone to pay 10s of thousands of dollars for an in depth IP search across multiple markets? that is one heck of a brute force approach. I sure hope you aren't trying to run a small business that has anything to do with IP because I'd be worried as an investor that you are squandering money trying to turn over every stone rather than building a better product.
how about a creative approach? hire a lawyer to start a small corporation where he is the only investor and have that company publish the game. At that point, if he gets into trouble, he just loses the capital in the company. If he is smart and pays himself a salary as a hired employee, then (granted, his taxes get more complex) even with a lawsuit, he should have been able to drain enough of hte earnings out of the company in his salary to not be on the hook for his personal assets. A small business lawyer can do this for cheap (1k) and help him work through many of his questions quickly about how to separate the books properly. but it's sure a smarter idea than "hey lawyer guy, why don't you take this product and search every IP in every market and see if I'll run foul". oh, and while he is at it, I'm sure you are expecting him to get it right. we've seen how many well financed companies have no IP problems.
You can't (Score:5, Insightful)
How do I make sure I'm legally in the clear without hiring an expensive lawyer that my indie developer budget can't afford?
You can't. The worst thing you can do is what you're doing; going to a bunch of random armchair lawyers on the Internet.
If you're that worried, get a lawyer or do a different project.
Our Legal System Favors Creativity (Score:2)
...and is weighted against derivative hacks. Go figure!
Re: (Score:2)
Everything is derivative. Trying to fight this isn't being original, it's reinventing the wheel.
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Re:You can't (Score:4, Funny)
Start a new genre? (Score:2)
Even better, instead of just getting a lawyer, get a lawyer AND make original games!
What exactly do you mean by "original"? If you mean the first of its genre, I'd like to see evidence that it's still possible to develop original games. The last genre-making game I can remember (Parappa the Rapper) was published in the 1990s.
Assassinate the original owners (Score:2, Funny)
Once they're all dead, they'll be no-one left to sue you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But then their estate could sue
Re:Assassinate the original owners (Score:4, Funny)
Assassinate the copyright owners, then wait 70 years?
Re: (Score:2)
Only if you assassinate the entire Disney estate as well.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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I'd settle for going back with a copy of every version of Windows to just before IBM came to see Bill Gates...
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You still get into the argument on whether someone else would have created it instead. You could be facing a vacuum scenario. If you eliminate a developer from a time line where there's a position, someone else could be there to fill it... and it might turn out for the worse for you or the fans.
The legal system is unfair (Score:2)
Just making a clone can tie you up in court unnecessarily, such as MySQL AB v. NuSphere [politechbot.com], where a non-GPL clone of the mysql client API is being attacked unfairly. There are many instances where a similarities to another software package of something has caused horrible legal battles that do nothing but make the lawyers rich and make programmers find new careers in disgust.
These days it seems dangerous to program without becoming incorporated or doing it under the umbrella of a big company. Who wants to lose
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The product contains MySQL[tm] under GPL and Gemini. Gemini is statically linked to the MySQL code. This means that Gemini needs to be under GPL as well, but it is not.
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PlanetMULE (Score:3, Funny)
By any chance are you the guy running PlanetMULE?
Position wisely (Score:3, Interesting)
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Sounds high risk (Score:5, Informative)
In my (non-legal-professional) opinion, what you are doing sounds high risk -- you are consciously replicating their expressed work (the game) and even admittedly giving it a deliberately similar title. It sounds like there are some copyright issues -- some things about games can be copyright and others can't; your remake might be considered a "derivative work" however. If you did wheedle out of that complaint, it sounds like you could still potentially be sued for "passing off" as you have a deliberately similar product with a deliberately similar name.
I'd advise having a look at the legal history of Scrabulous. They remade a not-so-obscure game, got sued, won on some parts but lost on others, but are still trading (being sued is not necessarily game over).
Re: (Score:2)
Scrabulous is an EXACT COPY of Scrabble. The board layout, the point multipliers, the letter value and distribution all identical.
So, do NOT look at it unless you are doing all of those things.
Original game (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you know who owns the IP to the original game? Do they have a habit for litigating? Do they even know they have the IP or did they acquire it by buying distributor X that bought then bankrupt studio Y that got it from independent coder Z?
And is the original game Hardwar or X-com? Because in that case, keep programming, whatever happens ;-)
(Make sure you release the source before getting dragged off by some goons into a black helicopter though)
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They can only sue you for money that you have (Score:5, Insightful)
So if you ever make any, spend some of it on an accountant(*) and get him to set up two companies: one incorporated in Elbonia that has all the assets, and a shell development company with all the liabilities. Don't contest any lawsuit, just smile, punt the shell company into bankruptcy, and set up another one.
This isn't meant to be flippant; it's a model that works just fine for Hollywood. Ask any creative type who's ever tried to get any money out of a studio.
(*) Accountants are much like lawyers, except that they're cheaper, and they can be harmed with conventional weapons.
Re: (Score:2)
Really. Hmmm... $1.92 million verdict against Jammie Thomas-Rasset. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/jammie-thomas-retrial-verdict.ars [arstechnica.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:They can only sue you for money that you have (Score:4, Informative)
They can only sue you for money that you have
Really. Hmmm... $1.92 million verdict against Jammie Thomas-Rasset
Exactly. You now understand the post perfectly. Set up a dirt poor shell corp, let them sue the corp for 100000 billion for all you care, let them take possession of the corporations coffee maker and its promotional tee shirt collection, and start over at a new shell company.
Make sure to at least talk to a "cheap" lawyer about becoming judgment proof and the phrase "piercing the corporate veil".
The overall gameplan is to make setting up a shell corp cheaper than suing the shell corp into non-existence all while somehow making a profit despite the profound lack of corporate capital.
Obviously, don't do something stupid like loan your personal money to the shell corporation, unless you want to lose that money (or can afford to lose it).
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Decide now how to deal with it (Score:2)
To deal with a cease and desist action you need to have guts, means, and rights - pick any two, and it may do. If you have the guts and the means you can make a lot of smoke, and they may decide it is not worth fighting you. If you the guts and are in the right, you can explain to them that you are in the clear and answer their letters through an expensive lawyer as a bluff to make them think you have the financial means to fight. If you have the means and the rights, you do not need guts (but then you woul
So what you're saying is (Score:4, Insightful)
I am copying what they did as exactly as I can, though because I don't understand what "copyright" means, I think it has nothing to do with this. Meanwhile, I am using their name for the exact reasons that laws exist to prevent such a thing happening, but I don't think that matters either. Finally, I haven't even bothered to contact the people who made the game, because to me it's more important that I "don't get sued" than that I'm, you know, a decent human being or anything.
Do your research (Score:5, Informative)
Stand on your own (Score:5, Insightful)
Get your own name. You can go fairly far in cloning gameplay - think how much one FPS or TBS or RTS or RPG looks like the other, but don't steal unique units, characters and storylines. And while I don't approve of astroturfing where you pretend to be a customer, you can generated buzz about it. Go into every forum you can find about the old game, say this game is inspired of it. Right now I'm playing Dragon Age, and boy are there many old chestnuts of dwarves and elves and warriors and rouges and mages and the whole storyline about a blight and an archdemon are hardly original. Go for the one-up, "if you liked [old game], you'll love [new game]". Right now you come of sounding like one of the cheap watch salesmen "same same but different".
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. And try to get your game reviewed by some people. Then they can tell others how much it reminds them of that oldie that you got your inspiration from. Much classier than just making a game called "Pocman" or "Super Vittorio Bros."
Take a page from Trine [trine-thegame.com]. It's obviously inspired by Lost Vikings, but it's not a straight ripoff, and they don't (need to) market themselves as such. In the meantime, every other review of the game mentions Lost Vikings, and I'm sure that's how they get many of their sales.
In the UK... (Score:2, Informative)
This article details legal proceedings in just such a case.
http://www.daledietrich.com/gaming/novas-pool-cue-game-mechanics-not-protectable-by-uk-copyright/ [daledietrich.com]
A choice quote by Lord Justice Jacob is
I will watch this thread like a hawk. (Score:2)
My eye is now firmly fixed on this thread.
I am doing something *similar* to the OP, an iPhone-and-Android-and-PCs semi-remake of an old classic ('Eye of the Beholder' for anyone who's curious), although my project has a few substantial differences:
My game...
- .. is substantially higher resolution and visually very pretty (IMHO). .. 's name is completely different (Tale of Vamadon), takes place in an entirely original campaign world, and features an entirely different and original storyline. .. has complic
-
-
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Eye of the Beholder is, itself, just another in a series of that style of game.
Since it sounds like you aren't doing anything that has anything to do with it - how is it a remake? You're just making an RPG.
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Sounds like you're only copying the game's rules. Rules aren't copyrightable.
Re: (Score:2)
The expression of rules is copyrightable. But if you want to make your own books describing D&D rules, you most definitely can.
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The rules of D&D books are free, how they are put on the pages, art, names, adventures, etc are protected.
Pluggin ur gamez... (Score:2)
Good luck with that. (Score:3, Informative)
How do I make sure I'm legally in the clear without hiring an expensive lawyer
Aren't "legally in the clear" and "hiring an expensive lawyer" the same thing now?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
No - all that hiring an expensive lawyer does is give you someone to sue if you follow their advice and still get sued into oblivion by the other party.
So your plan is to sue a lawyer??? you will need a lawyer for that I guess.... oh shit.
Re: (Score:2)
Hah, if only this were true - there would be be no more lawyers!
You don't... (Score:4, Insightful)
How do I make sure I'm legally in the clear without hiring an expensive lawyer that my indie developer budget can't afford?
How do I make sure I don't get pregnant while having sex every day without using any form of contraception?
(Obvious answer: you don't. If you want to make sure you're legally in the clear, you hire an expensive lawyer. If you don't want to hire an expensive lawyer, then you live with not being sure you're legally in the clear.)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
How do I make sure I don't get pregnant while having sex every day without using any form of contraception?
Be male.
The plan (Score:2)
Your best bet is not to bother relying on the legal advice of a bunch of random strangers on a site like Slashdot. It's still a good idea to ask the question though, as a front page story gains you a huge amount of free publicity for your project. Make sure you don't forget to put a link to your game in the summary, however, or the whole exercise becomes rather pointless.
Legal Ask Slashdot (Score:2)
As I read the comments (threshold 2 at the time I post this comment), the consensus is #2.
Re: (Score:2)
or 4. I am not a lawyer, I do not have any opinion about the question asked, but boy your project sounds cool and I'll happily follow the link to your site.
Not that this appears to be the reasoning in this case, unless the submitter just completely forgot to include the link. :)
Develop first, ask questions later. (Score:2)
In other words use common sense ( I don't need to be a frigging lawyer to know that).
Develop the game, release under an open license.
If anybody is interested about it in the legal sense, then they will bother you about it, at that point you stop any alleged infringing activities if youcan defend yourself legally (it can't be copy right, it can.t be patents, it can't be trademarks, the vague "look and feel" or a general idea about a game is not protectable, the myriad of "look and feel" clones of famous game
Ask permission (Score:2)
Could you ask permission from the copyright holder?
Some remakes (ie: direct copies of old games) are done with the blessing of the person who created the original game. Just tell them the truth: you like their game and you want to make a modern version of it. They may say yes.
Re: (Score:2)
Question & comments (Score:2)
I have to ask...why make a clone of a game that already exists and sounds like is abandonware? It sounds like you could just as easily turn it into a rom and emulate it or something.
Now, if you're trying to just make a fun game that has the same spirit of one you loved - then I suggest you revamp it. Give it better graphics - give it a new story. Make it a whole new experience for the player - otherwise you're "reinventing the wheel" as they say.
Anywho - if you're planning on making money on making these ga
hire a cheap lawyer? (Score:2)
How do I make sure I'm legally in the clear without hiring an expensive lawyer that my indie developer budget can't afford?
Easy, hire an inexperienced cheap lawyer? Its better than nothing. Its like saying, "I need to hire a C++ developer, but I can't afford Bjarne Stroustrup, so what should I do?"
Also, everyone starts at the bottom somewhere. A young ambitious lawyer whom wants to be the future corporate counsel for Microsoft might very well work for you for free to stuff his/her resume. Hint, they're going to want a spiffy job title.
So, find a fan of your game whom happens to be a young lawyer whom would like to gain a lo
Almost all games are clones (Score:2)
Games like Dune 2 and Warcraft and almost all other RTS games play like each other.
Most FPS games play like each other.
What is working here is that:
Features are viral, and once a game invent a way to build games that seems fun, others clone that. Even the games that create a whole new way to play, clone everything else, from menus, filesystems, way to store a bitmap in a disk. The creation of a videogames is a community effort, where all minds work togueter. No game can claim to be 100% original, with no
A couple of thoughts from a lawyer (Score:2, Informative)
I am a lawyer and practice primarily in software. I tried to read through this thread and responses - and as is typical here, at least for me, it is hard to separate the valuable insight from really really bad advice. I enjoy /. mainly for the comical signature lines most of the time.
First - no venture, no product or service, is risk free. There are ways to minimize the risk - and often small changes can make a big difference. The post you made here is itself possible evidence. By merely posting in a pu
You already did the research (Score:2)
The original game has no trademark or software patent associated with it, and my clone isn't infringing on the original's copyright in any way
If what you say is fact, then you did all the research already. The only thing you can get from Slashdot is "Go ask a lawyer" or "how should we know?" or the overly skeptical and cautious "law is absurd and complex so it doesn't matter what you do, you could wind up in court anyway."
Start an LLC (Score:2)
Standard, disclaimer: IANAL.
Regardless of what other advice you follow to limit the chances of a lawsuit, you should start a Limited Liability Company to reduce your personal exposure to such a lawsuit. In most states this should cost around $100. If the LLC releases the game, it is the LLC that assumes liability. If the creator of the original game does sue, they can only be awarded the assets of your LLC (which, if you manage it correctly, should be limited to the game itself).
This will take a little bit
Darklands (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's probably even worse because then you're basically just admitting you completely ripped that game off.
Two cases (Score:2)
it seems that "look and feel" lawsuits are very rare or there would be more relevant/recent examples.
The two big ones I can remember that went to trial were Atari v. Philips (cloner lost because the character in a maze game looked too close to Pac-Man) and Capcom v. Data East (cloner won on scenes a faire because cloner's fighting game characters merely resembled the same karate-movie archetypes). The rest, such as Tetris v. BioSocia (cloner's puzzle game implements the same game rules), have largely been settled out of court.
Re: (Score:2)
Case in point: Compare and contrast Dante's Inferno and God of War. The former is the most blatant rip-off of a game I have seen in modern times.