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Nintendo patents Link's Tears of the Kingdom abilities, and the loading screen

what do you think of Nintendo's attitude?

  • Acceptable

    Votes: 42 26.3%
  • Greedy

    Votes: 99 61.9%
  • I Dunno

    Votes: 19 11.9%

  • Total voters
    160

KàIRóS

Member
We all know it's Ubisoft's fault and their tendency to plagiarize anything making money, their stupid BOTW knock off game plagiarized the shit out of the mechanics.

xxBBIBY.jpg
 

Zannegan

Member
Patent furore aside, that last look at the map showing where you are at before fast travelling and then a quick shot of where you end up was a really nice feature.
 

Heimdall_Xtreme

Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
The soul and essence of the Zelda reboot is precisely the objects and physics of the game.

It feels very alive BOTW and TOTK, from the temperature, mapping, and stopwatch. It is a very precise game with a lot of life in terms of animations.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
We all know it's Ubisoft's fault and their tendency to plagiarize anything making money, their stupid BOTW knock off game plagiarized the shit out of the mechanics.

xxBBIBY.jpg
Fenyx Rising is a fun game, and probably the 10th game I've played in my life with slow-mo mechanics lol
 

Robb

Gold Member
Patents don't stop you from achieving something. They just prevent you from using the same patented method to get there.
That’s all well and good but doesn’t this still risk limiting creativity?

I imagine if you’re an indie dev and see Nintendo patenting all of these concepts you’d just go ‘screw that’ because you wouldn’t want to run the risk of having to deal with any legal battles (and/or fees) against Nintendo of all companies (even if you know/think you’ve done it different from them).
 

brian0057

Banned
That’s all well and good but doesn’t this still risk limiting creativity?

I imagine if you’re an indie dev and see Nintendo patenting all of these concepts you’d just go ‘screw that’ because you wouldn’t want to run the risk of having to deal with any legal battles (and/or fees) against Nintendo of all companies (even if you know/think you’ve done it different from them).
Concepts can't be patented. Only methods and features of concepts.
And if you don't want to deal with the legal battles or the monetary costs of coming up with your own version, you can just license it.
The reason other companies came up with their own version of the d-pad was because they didn't wanna pay Nintendo for the license.
That's how patents work.
 
As always the retardest company does retarded things.

Gamplay concepts can not be patented people can program the same abilities and game mechanics in a thousand different ways.

Shit old company run by a bunch of chalk heads.
 

Lethal01

Member
Concepts can't be patented. Only methods and features of concepts.
And if you don't want to deal with the legal battles or the monetary costs of coming up with your own version, you can just license it.
The reason other companies came up with their own version of the d-pad was because they didn't wanna pay Nintendo for the license.
That's how patents work.

It's looks like what defines "their version" of it is tool general.
 

Kenpachii

Member
We all know it's Ubisoft's fault and their tendency to plagiarize anything making money, their stupid BOTW knock off game plagiarized the shit out of the mechanics.

xxBBIBY.jpg

U mean botw and totk that copy the tower mechanic to the extreme.

Ever played max payne that slows time so u can aim while jumping and shoot enemy's better.

Or how u can climb on any wall which AC games are known for.

Honestly if ubisoft patented all of it, botw and totk would be complete different games.

Botw and totk are just a mix of other game mechanics the game slammed together and created something new.
 
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damidu

Member
lol beyond pathetic, though it can be a plus if some of those tedious shit are kept from other games i guess
 

mysticboy

Member
Innovation by definition involves doing something new and never been done before. So if anything, patenting these game mechanics would be the literal exact opposite of stifling innovation as it could encourage other devs to think of new methods and their own game mechanics.
 
Wow that’s just ridiculous. I do not respect this at all - especially because if the people who made these mechanics decide to work for anyone but Nintendo they can’t use them? That’s so dumb
 
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CGNoire

Member
"Another patent is for Link's physics when standing on a moving object, so he moves in the same direction and at the same speed without further input needed.

(Essentially, objects move by physics and Link moves by player input, but when standing on a moving object Link is automatically given the same movement properties so they align.)"

This part is BS...you cant Patent real life physics you fucks.
 
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I don't understand the details, how and what can be patented but some stuff often sounds ridiculous.

Just imagine the first game with a scrolling screen had patented that, or a game patenting moving in 3D. Instead of getting Doom, Wolfenstein, Duke, Call of Duty, Apex, PUBG etc. we would have been stuck with Maze War, which might have been a NOLF situation no one really owning the rights anymore in the end and no one being allowed to built on that simple premise.

I fully understand that no one wants to be copied, ideas are robbed of their value if not prtected, but practically no game would be possible if some core elements would have been locked to one company. And patent farms with lawyer squadrons like in the automobile and telecommunications areas would suck all innovation into their fold.
 

K2D

Banned
Games are difficult enough to make, and you can't copy quality..

Only reason I see for patenting gameplay features is to do patent trolling.

I.e Bad Guy Nintendo
 
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STARSBarry

Gold Member
Remember how loading screens used to have minigames in them sometimes to play while they load.

Well the reason we don't anymore is because of patents. Patents legitimately stifle creativity and limit options, so this will be terrible if they get through.
 
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Portugeezer

Member
OK, so what happens if a developer wanted to use a similar loading screen (luckily were loving away from those thanks to SSD's)? Nintendo can stop them or they'd have to pay Nintendo (assuming they'd allow it for money).

Same with he gameplay stuff.

We all know it's Ubisoft's fault and their tendency to plagiarize anything making money, their stupid BOTW knock off game plagiarized the shit out of the mechanics.

xxBBIBY.jpg
More importantly, BOTW is a much better game. But yeah worry about patents. You literally climb towers in BOTW to uncover the map.
 

mxbison

Member
We all know it's Ubisoft's fault and their tendency to plagiarize anything making money, their stupid BOTW knock off game plagiarized the shit out of the mechanics.

xxBBIBY.jpg

And they took the "slow-mo when diving" from Max Payne.

And the climbing towers towers to reveal map from AC.
 

Regginator

Member
I am once again begging people to learn the difference between copyright and patents.
What's the main difference then? A quick search tells me that in general a patent seems worse. From what I can read: copyrights protect tangible products like the Zelda titles or Link as a character as Nintendo IP.

But a patent (if approved, no idea how it would hold up) would prevent others from using similar processes (not necessarily the end-product itself) like the loading screen reacting to your startingpoint and destination while fast-travelling.
 

damidu

Member
We all know it's Ubisoft's fault and their tendency to plagiarize anything making money, their stupid BOTW knock off game plagiarized the shit out of the mechanics.

xxBBIBY.jpg
lol ubisoft probably could burry these zelda games and many others at planning stage if they went into patent frenzy
 

Robb

Gold Member
But a patent (if approved, no idea how it would hold up) would prevent others from using similar processes (not necessarily the end-product itself) like the loading screen reacting to your startingpoint and destination while fast-travelling.
With patents I take it it’s more about working around the claims of the patent. So if a patent claims it consists of Function A and Function B together, you’d only be infringing on it if you do the same thing. If you only use Function A or only use Function B by itself in combination with something else to achieve the exact same thing you will not infringe, despite both A and B being specified by themselves in the competing patent.

I’m definitely no expert though, but that’s how I understand it roughly.
 

Arachnid

Member
This is such a crappy practice in general, gameplay mechanics should be free to use as long as you code whatever it is yourself.

I get why they’d do it though, but still.
Agreed.

Still pissed about the Morder Nemesis system forever being tied to their shitty company. What a waste.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
This sounds greedy AF IMO. Also doing this makes you look like you're full of yourself IMO, lol. Just like what was done with the Shadow series and the Nemesis system, they went this route and it was never used again. So shitty for a system that was so incredibly neat.

The funniest part about this is the loading screen bit, it's really nothing incredible, so why even bother? No one saw that and went, "WOW! INCREDIBLE!"
 

brian0057

Banned
Agreed.

Still pissed about the Morder Nemesis system forever being tied to their shitty company. What a waste.
There's absolutely nothing preventing any company from coming up with their own version of the Nemesis system.
What they don't like is that they have to actually spend money and time doing so. So it's easier to blame Monolith for protecting their work than it is to do it themselves.

You wanna do something like it? Put in the effort and resources to do so.
Don't wanna put in the effort and resources? You can license it for a fee.
Don't wanna do either of those things? Too fucking bad. Work isn't free.
 
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NeptuneCL

Member
I think it sucks to patent mechanics from games, like the Nemesis system was Patented to. It isn't greedy to patent ideas, I do think it should be harder to patent an actual mechanic, but maybe you could patent the code that creates it. Like you can patent a way that your company uniquely does a manufacturing process. But you can't patent the idea of doing something. Like I may have a cool way of making a tin can, patent that, the idea of the tin can cannot be patented.


It isn't greedy though, it is business and business have to protect their IP.
This answer says it all.
 

brian0057

Banned
I think it sucks to patent mechanics from games, like the Nemesis system was Patented to. It isn't greedy to patent ideas, I do think it should be harder to patent an actual mechanic, but maybe you could patent the code that creates it. Like you can patent a way that your company uniquely does a manufacturing process. But you can't patent the idea of doing something. Like I may have a cool way of making a tin can, patent that, the idea of the tin can cannot be patented.


It isn't greedy though, it is business and business have to protect their IP.
That's... literally how patents work.
 

AJUMP23

Gold Member
That's... literally how patents work.
The idea is that when a method is patented it fosters innovation. Because you may want to be able to do the same thing. But you cannot do it precisely the same way as some one else because of the patent. Intellectual Property is one of the fundamental ideas of a functioning economic system.
 

A.Romero

Member
Getting a patent on loading screens? They are a thing of the past, unless they are thinking of competition other than PS5 and Xbox...
 
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