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Comment by gamedever | Hacker News Reader

Blame the government. You shouldn't be allowed to patent game mechanics IMO.

Nitnendo has (had) a patent on ghost cars (showing a ghost of your former performance in Mario Kart)

Sega has (had) a patent on zooming between camera positions from Virtua Racing 1

Wizards of the Coast has a patent on card games similar to Magic the Gathering. I don't know what their actual patent is but I do know lots of companies paid them $$$$$$$$ for it to have a their own similar card game

these shouldn't be allowed imo

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> Blame the government. You shouldn't be allowed to patent game mechanics IMO.

Much of the current patent laws are international law regulated by the WTO. Our current agreement was signed by Clinton.

I think it needs an overhaul. Cut the strict 20 year expiration time in half at least, and implement other reforms as needed. Delegate more regulatory authority to nations and maybe more or less depending on industry or application. Patents should also require that you use it or lose it.

The patented game mechanic I am most bummed won’t be appearing in other games is Death Stranding’s desire pathing. Having other players in an open word “wear” paths into the map was extremely cool.

I missed that one. For me it is the Nemesis System from Shadow of Mordor/War. They made 2 games and haven't done anything with it since but they still patented it.

They patent that stuff not because they want to use it but because they want to block and stifle the competition — it’s truly despicable if you ask me

I'd suggest "tax" is probably more accurate than "block" or "stifle", especially if they've not released anything since

I'm aware. It is still a massive bummer they couldn't even make anymore games since they limited anyone else from making them without paying out.

Sounds like Animal Crossing City Folk's much-hated "animal tracks," which they ditched the very next game because everyone hated them lol.

It's interesting to see that mechanic is desirable in a different context.

The way it's implemented is clever. Players gradually wear down challenging terrain, incentivizing you to take those easy paths. But the mechanic subtly solves a problem with open world settings, bringing order to infinite choice: you can go this way.

You also get notified when other players follow paths you've made, which feels great.

https://www.reddit.com/r/shadowofmordor/comments/pzo3ri/what...

I looked it up. Good grief that is a ridiculous patent

Ugh, imagine if Renaissance painters took out patents on the color blue or perspective drawing. This is where we’re at with game design.

How is this different than patenting physical designs in practice? If someone develops a novel game mechanic there isn’t really a reason they shouldn’t be able to exclusively capitalize on it if someone else can patent something “irl”. If Nintendo thought ghost cars offer a compelling advantage over other racers, that seems valid to me.

The patent length is a separate issue altogether.

novel is holding a ton of weight there. zooming a camera to different positions existed long before vitrua racing.

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