While creating a game, there are a lot of efforts that goes with it. It is a long process that will hopefully reward you with a successful game that sells and become popular.
Once you have a good game idea, and you have protected your intellectual property. You are on the right track!
Are you afraid to lose your game idea to anyone? Here are ways to protect your game idea and ensure it stays that way.
- Patents: A patent is a protection for your intellectual property from being copied. In the case of your game idea patent, it is considered as your invention. It helps you in protecting your idea. That way, if during your game development, one of your friends or coworkers helping you out tries to market their version using your idea, they would violate your patent, and you can take a legal action against them to make them stop.
- Copyrights: Copyrights are different from a patent in the fact that they preserve the actual expression of your video game idea. For example, if a game is patented using X’s and Y’s, you could still create a game using mangoes and bananas because the expression of the idea is different.
- Trademarks: The game you’ve designed might come along with a particular name or logo that is essential to classifying it as yours. You will need to confirm with the trademark office about the protection your state offers. You can even register your game’s brand name or logo with the Patent and Trademark Office, which also offers you national protection.
- Company Trade Secrets: An exclusive form of intellectual property protection lies in the form of a trade secret. A trade secret is any company’s information that is created to stay confidential. It can be a manufacturing secret or the secret end of your game. Anyone who leaves your employ and attempts to use your trade secret to market their own game would be violating the law, depending on your state’s legal system.
- Are you Ready to Market and Sell Your Game Idea?Getting your video game idea on the next platform system is pretty difficult unless you have worked in a game development company. However, developing and selling a casual Java or Flash game for cell phones have a much higher chance of making your mark. Hence, the best way of taking your idea to a new level and turning into a profitable venture is only through WORK. Whether you do the coding and testing yourself, or you have your friends working with you, designing your idea, protecting it with one of the intellectual property protections, developing it with utmost concerns, testing, marketing and then releasing your video game is going to happen with lots of hard work, determination and time.
You can have a piece of your success with the sound practices and by working hard to make your game idea a reality!
Have you designed your video games and what steps did you take to protect your game idea?
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You should protect your video game ideas, no matter how simple they are. You never know. It might bring you fame and fortune someday.
Copyrights aren’t always safe. That is because there are countries that have weak copyrights law.
When I was in the university, our game ideas are recorded in a hard drive and not linked in the internet to avoid hacking. We are very vigilant against our game ideas since we made it with blood and sweat.
It’s easy to protect your video game idea. Just don’t tell it to anybody that you don’t know very well.
I’d be wary to create an original stuff under a big company. Sure you get all the perks and support to push your idea. But once you have the actual product (game) the company will own it. Call it company trade secret. The world may know that you invented/made it. But it belongs to the company. So I’d rather strike on my own.
You have a point Hamid. But would you rather be paid or get the the recognition for your idea?
Yeah what happened to Flappy Bird? I heard the creator was Asian. It was huge at some point, but then it disappeared. Did he patent it? Can Google or Apple help him with his patent?
Pretty nice list. Thank you for making this post. Very helpful for those who are making sure of the games they play.
Totally agree with this post. The listing is very helpful as well.
I didn’t know that copyright and patents were two different things. I thought they were the same. Silly me… Thanks for the clarification!!
Does the game Flappy Bird related to this topic? They say it is not available anymore because it is a stolen idea or something. Is it true?
Is there a site where you can speak with people who are interested in your idea in creating a game? I think that will be helpful for game designer wannabees.
It’s true. The worst is when someone takes your idea for a game as a kid and you’re young so it’s impossible to get it trademarked. I think at any stage in life it’s important if you have a great idea to try and implement it right away.
I used to have lots of game design ideas as a kid. A child’s imagination is really infinite. It’s too bad because I forgot them all HAHAHA!
This is a very helpful and informative post. They’re good steps for anyone to take if they have any game ideas.
I agree. While patenting your idea is of value, it is also important to make sure before you put out your game that you are not taking someone else’s idea. You should also do some research first before finding the right copyrighted company to protect your project.
It’s very important to protect your video game idea at all costs. You wouldn’t want to have your golden idea stolen while someone else is cashing in on it right?
I have this great idea of a game but I don’t know where to start. What should I use to let’s say creating something like a Ragnarok kind of gameplay?
I never designed a game. But if I did I will protect it by telling it to just people very close to me.
Patents are a good idea. But the process to get there can be tedious. .
The issue is not every ideas are worth being patented, If you just started developing your own game chance are your funds is going to be limited. Therefore you have to choose wisely which one is your most original idea that will perform well on the market. Otherwise you are gonna end up blowing your budget on ideas that don’t sell well.
I do not know what to say because I am no game designer. However, One can apply for patent to secure their concepts.
Protecting intellectual property is hard if you do it on your own. But it’s not impossible. Thank you for coming up with this educational article!
First, you have to learn how to code. Then you can make a very basic mobile game app. Then you hawk it to Apple or Google. Do they protect it or you have to do the protection yourself? Just like the one-hit-wonder Flappy Bird. Whatever happened to it?
This is good info to know not just for game development, but for any original idea. It seems like copyrights are the supreme method of making an idea your own because they protect all the facets of your game.
The most valuable ideas are those that should be more protected. In the world of video games a millionaire idea is a treasure that can easily be taken or plagiarized
I totally agree, an idea for a good project must be protected by any means to avoid that another can take advantage of an oversight and steal it
I haven’t designed a video game but it sounds like fun and it’s something I’ll consider in the future. It’s so important to protect your work although it sounds like it takes a lot of effort and paperwork. Better safe than sorry though!
Excellent blog post. Very helpful! I have a couple of friends who are into gaming design/creation and are looking to take the next step but are quite unaware of the nitty-gritty stuff like applying for copyrights and trademarks, etc. Will share this blog to them.
Not only with video games, this can also be applied to any works that were made from one’s own discoveries, right? Thank you for this informative post. I think I could share this with my brother since that dude has crazy yet innovative anime games ideas
Brief but well-explained post. Thank you for laying it out so simply especially the role of this ‘patent’, ‘copyright’ and ‘trademarks’. A lot of people may not be fully understanding the differences of those 3.
For security purposes, better to protect what you’ve got. Better to just be ahead of everyone and never trust than to just regret in the end. Informative article.
Very helpful. These are all for security as well. Just so protecting your craft and for all the hardwork you did and your effort wouldn’t be in vain.