So, I’m planning on implementing a “clone” of the original Super Mario Bros into my game.
No, I’m not simply ripping the source material straight from the game. I’m making my own artwork, music and sounds. But I’d like to have the same mechanics and similar level design.
Now this hypothecial clone is running with another theme - as a joke. So there is no Mario. There aren’t any goombas, coopas, etc. I’m not going to violate any character copyrights.
Still, it’s very obviously a Mario clone. Does Nintendo - I don’t know - have a patent on breaking bricks by jumping against them, after some power up has made you twice as tall? Could I still get in trouble for this?
This isn’t gonna to be the actual game. Said clone is supposed to be hidden as an easter egg within my game. And I do plan on getting some money out of this. I guess that’s legally relevant.
Asking a lawyer only gives a more qualified opinion, but still does not protect you one bit from getting sued.
You can get sued if you’re legally not doing anything wrong, and many things in law are unclear enough that you’ll only find out how a judge or jury is gonna rule when you fight it out in court. I got that answer from someone who studied law but didn’t end up practicing as a lawyer, when I asked him a trademark question.
I’m not sure but that’s something that should be possible to find out. There are some truly weird patents in games, like minigames during loading screens (although I think that might have expired recently). I can’t think of another game that has the brick breaking…
I would say for a hidden easter egg it’s not worth the time investment either way. Better spend that time on things that everyone will experience. That would be my recommendation.
PS: Giana Sisters is a great game, spent endless hours playing it as a child And the music is excellent, I still find myself listening to the soundtrack from time to time.
He should. There’s also the possibility of picking a bad lawyer who gives you bad advice. Years ago I’ve had a business deal go sour because my client had a bad lawyer, giving him bad advice, and insisting an a bullshit contract that I wasn’t willing to sign. He has later admitted that he shouldn’t have listened to that guy and he ended up switching to a different lawyer.
I see the “go see a lawyer” advice about as useful as “go see a doctor”. It’s not bad advice per se, it’ll raise your “chances of survival” by a good margin statistically, but if you always just put blind trust in people because they are part of a certain profession, you are over time raising your chances of getting fvcked considerably. Nothing has made me lose more faith in the healthcare industry than being around a lot of people who work in hospitals and hearing their stories. There’s so much bad stuff happening you wouldn’t believe it, and there are no systemic structures that incentivise ever fixing the existing problems. I don’t see a reason legal matters would be any better off. All I’m advocating for is being super careful with these matters, even if you already got advice from the pros. And do some research before picking a lawyer, because there are idiots with law degrees too.
Is that the same guy as the one they are talking about here?
Edit: The videogameattorney talked to Destiny personally in a later video and around 7:20 he starts talking about how settlements related to DMCA takedowns usually have NDA’s attached, so there actually is a vastly bigger number of legal cases where people get screwed because they made a “fan-game”, than is publicly documented. That seems plausible to me and is quite interesting.
Actually, I think you’ll be fine as long as it is sufficiently different. Many platformers can be thought of as super mario clones. So as long as you’re not using mario and their music, you’ll be fine.
And no, Nintendo should not have a patent on brick jumping.
Why take the risk however slight for an Easter Egg though? (I should watch myself, perhaps one day I’ll forget and these words will come back to haunt me)
Anyone else recall the controversy over Flappy Bird’s pipe graphics and whether they infringed upon Nintendo/Mario?
Anyway in the US I believe a significant case was Capcom U.S.A. Inc. v. Data East Corp. 1994, which found features in common to be unprotectable because of “scenes-à-faire”, the understanding that certain features are part of a genre.
At the very bottom it does say it is an advertisement but the post answers most of the type of issues that indie developers would run into in a concise format.Since he does do more video game work it seems directly related to our area of interest which is video games.
I though the blog that he has on his company site has some really good examples of IP issues in general. Have you read that already?
That issue with NDAs was mentioned in Reddit article I posted originally.
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Bob Zeidman ( I heard him speak a few times at engineering conferences) on engineering topics has pretty interesting book called “The Software IP Dective’s Handbook: Measurement, Comparison and Infringement Detection.”, ISBN: 978-0-13-703533-5. It does have quite a bit of math which is nice but covers many topics to think about in general. He does quite a bit of consulting for law firms on IP issues and testified in several cases.
Not a lawyer, but I am fairly certain you’re allowed to do an homage or a parody in your game. Supposedly, you cannot copyright game mechanics (though it has happened) and since this will be a small thing in your game, I assume you wouldn’t have any problems, but it all comes down to how it’s done.
Look into how other games have referenced classical games, such as Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard - Wikipedia and Rise & Shine on Steam
Both of the above is probably more referential, but it should be possible to use them as an example of what can be done. However, be aware that this doesn’t automatically greenlight their use.
not a lawyer
I’ve seen no less than 3 or 4 exact mechanical copies of super mario brothers, the difference in the games was in the graphics. They all had the mechanics for breaking blocks, growing larger when gaining a buff from a question mark block, fast run, bouncing on enemies, projectiles, going down into a tube/tunnel, coins etc. etc.
I looked through my history because I just watched a video of one within the last week but couldn’t find it. I believe it was either on steam, mobile, itch.io or gamejolt.
Nintendo doesn’t have any patient or exclusive rights on block breaking. Though if there was one company I’d shy away from mimicking there content - it would be Nintendo.
If you’re not using any Nintendo characters, and not directly importing any Nintendo content, I don’t see why similar level layout and controls would be an issue. Any patents Nintendo acquired for the original Super Mario Bros would have long expired, so they shouldn’t be an issue.
So since your only issue should be copyright, in US law this would pretty clearly fall under Fair Use regardless. So I think you’re ok.
And the 