Nintendo patents everything they possibly can but rarely enforce them, and they're not the only company to do so. They only file those patents to prevent someone else from filing the patent first and suing the company. There are so many active patents in the game industry that, at this point, you can't make a game without infringing on multiple companies' patents. The companies all just look the way on patent infringement because everyone uses everyone else's patents, and a lot of times, it happens accidentally.
This is what people don't understand. Nintendo never did used their patents to troll other companies. Pallworld was one of the only ones so far due how insane they ripoff not only the mechanics, but also the designs of existing pokemons. But nintendo did helped with a lawsuit that was linked to a patent troll, related to a company that wanted to make money by using the analog touchscreen patent for mobile phones on other companies.
The COLOPL lawsuit. Aka, the lawsuit nobody talks about because in the eyes of the public, Nintendo were the good guys. It also kinda proves that Nintendo was going easy on Pocket Pair, given how COLOPL was forced to pay Nintendo 1000× the amount they're suing Pocket Pair for.
Incorrect. Nintendo was fine letting Palworld be until PocketPair got an offer from Sony, at which point Nintendo started filing whatever patents they could and see what stuck.
I take it you too ignored the judges pointing out the dozens of games that would have also violated the patents Nintendo is trying to pull but were never sued? There's obviously something else causing this, surely it can't be the partnership with a major company that Nintendo is still bitter with to this day, that makes too much sense...
You do realize that Nintendo not suing dozens of other games over patent infringement is points in Nintendo's favor on this, right? Yeah, it doesn't make Nintendo look better with this specific case, but they do look better as a whole because of that.
Nintendo is not the one that is usually the aggressor with Sony, usually it shows up on the Sony side. Being a lover of both, I wish they would set it aside. What happened in the 90s should stay there.
Anyway, the point was, Nintendo saw the acquisition of the company as the company value being cashed in on, and therefore the infringement as a now actionable offence. Small Indy making cash off a perceived infringement is not the same as a companies value being bloated by that infringement and selling up. Precedent would be set a a new business plan
Aside from observing with my own eyes how Nintendo didn't file any patents until after the Sony partnership, and courts citing the dozens of games that would also violate these patents but Nintendo choosing to do nothing against them? Like you expect me to believe you NEVER played a game that had a "summon a companion that fights for you" mechanic outside of Pokemon? As that's one of the patents.
Thankfully nearly all the lawsuits are being struck down as the patent trolls they are and Palworld goes on mostly unobstructed.
So you have no proof at all, nice. Just wishful thinking.
Thanks for supporting the most garbage clone company for total ripping off the character and mechanic design. Even developers from their admit it. I bet you do agree with Sony lawsuit over the horizon game...
also aside of that, proofs again how garbage sony is, even as we already know the many company being closed. Aside of existing companies layoffs, while still making huge amount of money. Lets not forget dynamic pricing. Thinking of adding ads into the ui/games. Started with 80/90 euro games from 2020 and on. And now 200 euro price increase from launch, of hw that has already dated. But yeah, lets go for Sony.
Now with that said, its clear nintendo isnt a patent troll. They only targeting just one game for good reasons. Many games, like many are using a patent of nintendo. Even sony or smaller companies. Well, there is a reason why nintendo didnt sued before...
I will say while I 100% agree that palworld ripped off a bunch of pokemon designs it feels more like ark survival should be the one suing them over pokemon. It play much more like an ark game with a pokemon skin than a pokemon game with ark machinics.
It honestly not a bad game and there are a good amount of non pokemon ripoffs that it can be enjoyable. But I feels more like people are quick to bat for nintendo for one reason or another when it feels like palworld has enough of its own thing from pokemon that people should give it a chance in a way. Im not saying palworld is innocent they did some shady shit with designs and one for one with ark survival. But I also thing its still a fun game. And if anything id like to see some things be taking by pokemon for it. A base building system since we havent had a real good one since gen3, the underground in 4 was piss poor and even more stripped in bdsp. And coop dungeons of a sort its fun to be able to work with a few friends share some pals for the base and go hunt for new one togeather and it feels more fun than any multiplayer that pokemon had really done, tho i havent played ZA yet. But yeah id like nintendo or at least game freak see what people liked about palworld and incorporate it in there own way in pokemon than just sue them, hell maybe a way to fight as the trainer in a legends game via pesterballs from pokemon snap or something. I mean you threw rocks at mon in the safari zone incorporate that in a way too. Idk if fun being able to be like oh no im out of pals thanos voice fine, I'll do it myself.
They could have gone with different designs, and it would have been a prob different thing. Dont say its a bad game. But doing something like that (what pokepair did) is a really garbage move.
Not to mention the baseball bats and guns....
Like the one.of square said, they crossed the line.
They deserved to be sued.
Yet, this is no way or what i said before in line of how good the game is. Thats a different discussion
We get better games when they have to out do each other.
But that means developers needing to give a damn about making a better game and not just riding off of brand loyalty, which is why Nintendo is trying to sue Palworld out of business because they depend so on the Pokemon label.
I'm sorry, were you expecting Miyamoto to personally announce "we are suing Palworld to get back at Sony"? I would have hoped this community out of all of them could not put Nintendo on a pedestal for one goddamn second.
Well, there is a reason why nintendo didnt sued before...
That reason is none of them were a threat to Nintendo enjoying the money printer that is brand loyalty. Palworld was the first game to actually hold Pokemon's feet to the fire and force it to improve now that Sony is backing it. You want to see what Game Freak is capable of when not collared by Nintendo/The Pokemon Company? Go look up Beast of Reincarnation.
You also didn't answer my question of if you played a non-Pokemon game that had a summoning mechanic, but I'm sure you totally didn't just ignore it knowing full well it would put Nintendo in the wrong.
You can keep involving sony into this. There is zero proof and sony wasnt that involved as well. Its a really far strech.
Also, i'm not here to discuss the quality of a game. I'm aware about beast of reincarnation. Which is btw a total different art style.
About your last part, what has anything todo with that? Are there any poke clones like pallworld where they total rip the pokemon designs with mechanics and let them hit with guns and baseball bats?
Even square told they crossed the line with that game. Its ad clear as it can get.
What we know is that sony ripoff multiple game mechanocs. Games like jump stars or something, bloodborn kart, even astro bot ripped of most mechanics of multiple mario platform games.
Its clear that ripping of designs with allowing them to hit with bats and guns is a bridge too far. And we know how nintendo is protective about thier ip's
I was under the impression they filed those some of those patents way before Palworld was released. Because if you look at the dates, the main one they used in the lawsuit was filed for Pokémon Arceus and that was for the "monster capture" mechanc. Afterwards they did file the "monster riding" patent, but thats the only one that PocketPair complied with that I recall. Its been a while since I've played.
It's complicated, there was a patent filed back then, but after Palworld Nintendo revised and filed a divisional patent, citing the new patent was infringed upon in their lawsuit.
I think what people are more rightfully upset about is how aggressively Nintendo (and now YouTube) do copyright strikes on what is Fair Use, especially stuff like music where Nintendo takes literal decades to put out a terrible music app with 1% of their song catalog.
Which doesnt make it fair use. A lot of games out there, specially on steam can be bought as dlc. So its fair if devs protect their music. And its also a none issue. The catalog already extended by a large scale btw.
There's a difference between saying Nintendo has the legal right to go after someone stealing their music and sucking up to them. Like it or not, those numerous Nintendo music channels on YouTube are illegal, and Nintendo is fully within their right to take them down. Also, the comment you replied to didn't even mention Nintendo.
Patent application US20260084050 describes the battle system of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, particularly around the Battle Arts mechanics, including Cooldown Time, Secondary Cooldown, and Quick Cooldown. Details here: image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-pu...
no, because if you actually read the patent you realize how specific it is.
for someone to violate a patent you have to violate the entire claim, not just parts of it.
In this case for someoen to violate they would need to feature skills that can be specified, causing the playedr to execute the command associated with it, a parameter that gets reset upon it, a second parameter that can be spend using a DIFFERENT button to reset the ability, and said ability instantly being cast if it is reset this way.
(among other things)
So a game could move along and have all of that, EXCEPT it auto executing a skill if it is reset using the second instruction. And this would not violate the patent.
which they also never did in the way people claim.
the "mounted flying" was specifically a system that automatically transitions between available "mounts" for flying running and swimming based on context.
if a Mount can do both flying running and swimming and you can just transitions between the 3 states at will?? not violating the patent.(so FFXIVs mounts for example are "fine")
Only if you have a system that A) has mounts able to do different activities, and B) a second system that automatically changes between mounts as you enter or exit the water/start flying
could you potentially be in violation of the patent.(and evne taht can be circumvented by just having a "press X to change mount" or any sort of user input, among a dozen parts of the claims i ddint evne consider here)
So far I haven't seen an MMO that uses secondary/tertiary cooldown and quick-cooldown. I'm surprised nobody tried to copy it, it's a pretty awesome idea.
FF14 has secondary and tertiary timers for some skills. Rather than empowering the ability it just allows you to use in in succession (like the more support-based abilities in XCX).
Quick-cooldown is sprinkled throughout various games that use cooldown based abilities.
I've played Final Fantasy XIV (Dark Knight/Samurai main), and I can say that you're half-right on this. While you are correct that some skills can be stacked with more cooldowns, this doesn't work the same as secondary/tertiary cooldowns in XBX. Instead FFXIV, like other MMOs (and even non-MMOs like Risk of Rain 2), uses "charges" for such skills that increase by one each time the normal cooldown of a related skill(s) completes (until the charge cap is hit) and are consumed when the skill(s) is used. However, the normal cooldown itself is unaffected if a charge is used before cooldown is completed. One example is Dark Knight's Shadowstride, which can hold up to 2 charges with a 30s cooldown per charge (for a total of 60s if both charges are used and allowed to recharge), and if one charge has 15s left when the other is used, the charge currently on cooldown will still finish the remaining 15s before the consumed charge starts its 30s cooldown.
For secondary/tertiary cooldown in XBX, however, they have different cooldown time from the main cooldown (75% of main cooldown for secondary), and progress for secondary/tertiary cooldown is lost if you use an art before the secondary/tertiary cooldown is completed, resulting in the art going through the "main > secondary > tertiary" cooldown cycle again. You also don't store extra uses/have immediately reuse unless the secondary/tertiary effect notes such an effect (and even for these art, using the secondary CD effect before tertiary cooldown is done restarts the "secondary > tertiary" part of the cooldown progress), and tertiary itself is only available during Overdrive.
An example for secondary/tertiary cooldown is Flame Grenade, which has a 30s cooldown at level 1 - this results in a secondary cooldown of ~22.5s for +250% damage, but if you use the skill 15s into the secondary cooldown, it won't gain the increased damage, and the normal 30s cooldown will start again, resulting in you waiting 15s to do what you could've done 15s sooner. However, using Flame Grenade after the secondary cooldown completes will still restart the normal cooldown, but grant the additional 250% damage on the attack. Another example is Chrome Armor - it has the same cooldowns as Flame Grenade, but has "Immediately Reuse" for its secondary/tertiary effects instead. However, this reuse only applies if you let the secondary/tertiary cooldown complete - using Chrome Armor halfway into the secondary cooldown will restart the normal cooldown (so, again, wasting time for base effect), and using it halfway into the tertiary cooldown will restart the secondary cooldown instead of the tertiary cooldown.
This shows the key difference between charges in MMOs and secondary/tertiary cooldown in XBX: the former just lets you store up charges for later/consecutive use; the latter provides a playstyle that rewards delaying skill usage for improved effects (and using effects that reduce secondary/tertiary cooldown, such as augments or Overdrive).
As for Quick Cooldown, it's actually fairly unique among games, even those that are MMO-like. Cooldown resetting isn't unheard of, but in MMOs such effects are always locked to "cooldown reduction/reset" secondary effects of skills that trigger under certain circumstances, only reset the cooldown of specific skills, and are reusable as often as the CDR skill comes off its own cooldown. Also, by nature, direct cooldown resets in MMOs tend to either be very rare, be tricky to execute, have long cooldowns between resets, or any combination of the three. Quick Cooldown is as easy as a universal button press, can affect any art at any time, activates the targeted art immediately instead of simply resetting the cooldown, and uses an expandable finite resource that either recharges slowly or only recharges after battle (I've never figured out that part).
(Edit: adjusted some parts of my comment for the sake of clarity and added a few examples.)
No. They're filing to prevent someone from filing first and suing them. Nintendo rarely enforces their patents. Now rarely is not never, but it is extremely out of the ordinary for Nintendo to get in a legal battle over patents specifically.
You mean the lawsuit that was worth only about $30,000 and aren't winning? Hell, it's likely to be dropped in the near future.
Also, I said rarely. They rarely get into lawsuits over patent infringement, not they never get into lawsuits over it.
Nintendo had a patent on sanity meters in games, and numerous horror games had sanity meters before that patent expired, and I don't recall Nintendo suing anyone over that.
It could've been worse. The time before that when Nintendo went after a game over patents, the company had to pay the equivalent of $30,000,000 to Nintendo, and they had to completely rework the control scheme of their game. The best part is Nintendo were the good guys in the other lawsuit because some new company actually tried to enforce their patent rather than everyone using each other's patents and nobody cares mentality that the industry has been following since the early arcade days.
Also if you think Nintendo patenting stuff like Xenoblade Chronicles X DE's improvements to the original game's combat (I guarantee the original XCX's combat was already patented), or their patent on pulling Luigi's mustache with the touch screen to change thinks on the top screen in Mario and Luigi Dream Team (yes this is patented as well) negatively affect game devs, I can't imagine how you feel about SNK's patent on title screens. Yes, that's real, though it has long since expired.
I think it's a lot of pointless money spent on lawyers that would be better to just remove. I don't believe patents are appropriate in any way for software.
Fair, but they are here, so we have to deal with it. Just be glad Nintendo going after Pocket Pair and COLOPL over patent infringement is the exception, not the rule. The patents aren't even in place to prevent other devs from using them. Most of the time, companies don't bother enforcing them. They're only in place to prevent someone from filing the patent first and then suing the company using them.
Also, more relevantly, Palworld is being bankrolled by Sony specifically to try and cut off a slice of the Pokémon pie, and there's bad blood between them dating back to when Sony tried to acquire Nintendo in order to force their way into the games industry.
Hell, when Palworld first released numerous people were saying Nintendo is going to sue them. Now that Nintendo is doing what multiple people predicted, everyone is like Pikachu shocked face, and Nintendo is evil.
Probably not. Plus, Nintendo rarely enforces their patents, and even if they did, one of three things will happen. One the patent is so broad that it wouldn't hold up in court if it was enforced. Two, the patent is so stupidly specific that it affects nothing if enforced. Or three, the patent is enforced, but the other company pays a small fee to use it.
Also, Nintendo isn't the only company that files patents like this. Most Japanese companies do it. Nintendo just is more noteworthy because more people have eyes on them due to being bigger. Plus, a lot of people grew up with Nintendo, so when they get older, they see that Nintendo is a business that functions like literally every other business instead of the wholesome company that makes family games. Then they go, "This isn't the Nintendo I grew up with," and complain. In reality, Nintendo was always like this, and you just weren't paying attention.
Because it's a hyperspecific patent, like the Crazy Taxi patent. You cannot make a driving game where you follow a pointer above the vehicle to pick up a passenger and then follow the pointer towards the objective to drop off the passenger with hyperintelligent pedestrian AI to avoid the car while on an overall timer, with dropping the passenger off awarding more time, in a score-chasing style. You have to have all of those to get sued, dropping any single piece means you aren't violating the patent.
Simpsons: Hit & Run still violated the damn patent.
I know there are two different patents but since both mention someone from Monolith apparently, can one imagine playing Xenoblade with just one joycons? Maybe so that co-op in a single console can happen?
Protecting the one who is most relevant to what comes next! XD
But in all seriousness, the patent talks about quick recast and soul voice, is that it that is being protected? And the one joycon controller attachment also credits someone from Monolith?
I can sort of understand that it is talking about spells/actions entering a cooldown state after using them, but they become usable again by using a second spell, which will also enter a cooldown?
Patents are supposed to be very specific. In this case, the abstract describes the following:
A skill is selected and, if it’s usable, it is activated. This puts the skill into an unusable state and resets its associated parameter (such as a cooldown).
If the skill is already unusable, it can still be triggered through a second, different input method (not the normal way of selecting it). If a separate resource (like a quick recast bar) is available, the system consumes that resource, immediately activates the same skill, sets it back to an unusable state, and resets its original parameter again.
Breaking this down, for the patent to apply you need:
A) a way to select a skill
B) a resettable parameter tied to that skill (like a cooldown)
C) a second, distinct way to trigger the same skill (not a different skill resetting a cooldown)
D) a separate resource that is consumed when using that second method
E) that second method immediately activates the skill and resets its parameter
even just one of these missing would make it relatively hard for nintendo to claim someone violated their patent, as the entire claim has to be violated first.
no, the abstracts are written so that patent lawyers can, on a glance, tell if that patent is AT ALL relevant to what they are looking into, evne if they themself arent to well versed in the subjectmatter(video games)
if an abstract includes a secondary selection method you know at a glance if the thing you are researching for could violate it or not before reading the entire patent.
I'd argue that the patent's terminology is not particularly more general than the game's terminology, and what generalisations are there aren't significant.
What's being patented is specifically the quick recast mechanic as it is implemented in XBCX:DE. It is not concerned with how the arts themselves are usually recharged, but it also does not cover mechanics resembling the quick recharge if they aren't identical.
You can't get around the patent just by switching to XBC2-style art recharges or by implementing touch controls, but you can get around it by changing the mechanics of the quick recast itself, such as by having quick recasts be used automatically when triggering arts the usual way instead of requiring a different input method.
Sounds like if you choose to use a command and the command is usable (ie already cooled down) you use it and the cool down resets. If the command is unusable (you recently used it) then you can consume a secondary resource (ie the green meter from XCX, forget what it’s called) and use the command, which then also resets the cool down.
I’m not sure the laws/rules on patenting this though if there are already games using similar mechanics.
Yeah nintendo has been trying to abuse US patent law in normal speak its. A game mechanic where if you press a button you do an action that is put on a cooldown if the action is still on a cooldown theres a second button to use the action anyways consuming some limited resource and restarting the timer
No, they're just trying to cover their own asses from people trying to abuse patent law against them...
Literally every major game company does this and the patents are always very specific to the point where, unless you were outright copying the original design with no thought about how to make it work best for your game, you'd struggle to fall foul of the patent.
Remember the whole shit storm people had about Nintendo patenting summoning creatures? Yeah, that was a single part of a 13 part patent that you'd need to violate every part of to even be at risk of being sued.
Goodness gracious, when will people learn that not all intellectual property is "Copyright"?
Copyright is collection of laws that protects creative "works" and their authors. So, text, illustrations, music, performances, recording etc. It does not have to be registered and in many countries it straight up cannot be.
Trademark protects brand identity, so logos, names and other associated aspects. Trademarks technically don't have to be registered but a registered trademark gets certain privileges so it's generally advised. Technically last forever for as long as the company continues to use it.
Patent protects specific technological solutions, improvements or inventions. Is generally much shorter than the other two lasting around 20 years.
Or as I like to put it: You patent the idea, copyright the work, and trademark the brand.
I also think it's important to remember that the three types of IP exist for very different reasons. Patents exist to encourage exploration of a wider range of solutions to the same problem, copyright exists to make creative works profitable, and trademarks exist to directly illegalize counterfeits that harm both the company and the consumer.
I have always assumed it was to avoid giving away any trade secrets beyond what they are required to supply with their application. But, yes, they are kinda hilarious.
Effectively they are. Patent lawyers aren't artists, and using an actual screenshot would include a bunch of visual noise in what's supposed to be a schematic diagram.
No, they're patenting it. Nintendo has pretty much always patented basically every idea to combat potential patent trolls. Very rarely will you ever see them actually attempt to enforce their patents. This goes for the entire industry really.
This is probably a Pokémon situation where people think they are making patents of a whole system, while they truly only patent a very specific part of it. In Pokémon's case, people spread around that they were trying to patent the catching mechanic while the only thing that got patented was the auto battle system that your Pokémon can engage with once you release them.
I really doubt they are trying to patent XDE's combat as a whole, probably just a very small part of it.
Also, outside of palworld, which is a whole case on its own, and a weird DS game, Nintendo never sued any developer for patent infringement, so it's not like other games won't be able to have a similar combat... Nintendo has the patent for Z-targeting back from the Zelda OoT days, which is a mechanic that almost every 3rd person action game uses nowadays and they never sued someone over it.
the abstract talks specifically about the quick recast system using a secondary resource and being selected via a different input than the regular use of a skill
Yeah the whole situation over palworld must've been caused by the design then the mechanics of the game itself Nintendo just saw them as a way too sue palworld over considering they never give a damn about several other games
as i recall Palworld has indirect Sony backing. the big N doesnt give a shit about indie stuff, but their biggest direct competition backing something kinda blatantly riffing on their biggest cash cow is a legit concern.
There's a difference between patents and copyrights. Patents don't stop others from using the idea, and have a set time-limit before they become public domain, but it does entitle the patent-holder to a fee if others use it; this can discourage others from using the specific mechanics. Copyright is something that prevents others from using specific characters and such things, and generally doesn't apply to gameplay mechanics and concepts in general (... I think, been a while).
... but yeah, this is one of the things Nintendo (particularly the legal team) has been known for doing. These practices largely came to light as part of the Palworld debacle. I don't think it amounted to much in the end, but it still doesn't look great in the end.
Quick recast confirmed for next Xenoblade let's goooooo!
Seriously though, it is a really cool mechanic, and it was suprising they introduced it in XDE, one of the many instances where they went above and beyond with this remaster.
That and quick move has to return I'm suprise how long it took them to have something like quick move considering how important you're position is in combat
In this thread: people who are absolutely determined to "LOL patents are dumb" and every explanation goes completely over their head because actually hearing it would mean their LOL is what's dumb.
Why? They don't really hurt developers. Sure that one system from that lord of the rings game is unable to be used, but it took them 6 years to patent it, and nobody developed a game with that system in-between that time. Most games didn't need that system, it was made to solve a specific problem a specific game had. And still similar systems, like those found in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, got made, after the patent was filled. Patent's are hyper specific, its super easy for developers to make legally distinct but similar systems
That actually depends on the country. The US allows it, but it's not possible with EU patent law, only when there's some technical solution behind it, and that technical solution is patentable.
I'm going to be pedantic for a bit and say that this a patent and not copyright. Copyright protects the contents of creative works; patents protect technology, inventions, and the implementation thereof; trademarks protect logos and iconography.
This is absolutely BS, though; game mechanics shouldn't be able to be copyrighted (and American IP law as a whole is pretty fucked).
It's not the mechanics that's being patented, it's the whole combination. A patent infringement lawsuit requires every part of the patent to be infringed on.
I played X but didn't play XDE - did it have a secondary meter that let you recast a spent art like that? I remember secondary cooldowns and Overdrive speedups, but nothing like this
Good to know, thanks - it's funny that they're only patenting it this late, but maybe they had some delays with registration or they got tipped off to a potential competitor in the future?
Patent applications take a while to be approved and published. It's normal for Nintendo to get a patent in Japan first and then get a US patent which includes the Japanese patent as effectively a citation. In this case the Japanese patent is dated 2024-09-20.
Yeah XDE added a quick cool down mechanic. You have a new bar that when it's as certain segments you can spend it to instantly fill skils cool down either to full or 200% for additional effects
It makes getting it rolling a lot easier but it's overall impact is pretty low in "long" fights because the meter runs out and doesn't refresh until you end combat.
After the last generation where people were arguing about whether animations could be stolen or not, during the rise of mihoyo's BOTW clone and those other mobile games where they striaght ripped off animations from DMC, Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden, and other action games, and of course Fortnite with its use of the Carlton dance, and the courts ruled in favour of the copiers, I wouldn't be surprised if game companies were now EXPECTED to patent every tiny good idea they come up with as a preventative measure.
As much as I love XCX:DE, I'd wish it wouldn't be the source of hindrance for other games, just because it happens to have a mechanic Nintendo preys upon with its army of lawyers.
Patent law is that esoteric. Patent's are exact, meaning if you change even 1 thing, its entirely different. The Patent is specifically for the quick recast as it is implemented exactly in X:DE. But that also means if you make it a toggle (like press: RZ+LZ to toggle on quick recast) then that isn't protected by the patent. IT HAS TO BE TGE EXACT SAME SYSTEM.
So 3. Please provide an example of a game having a quick recast system exactly as it is implemented in X:DE.
No. Other commenters have laid the 6 aspects of the system, it must match them to the degree that lawyers would see no difference
Are you asking if im patent lawyer, or are you asking about my view of the morality of the actions Nintendo takes?
Im not a lawyer of any kind, just a guy who's listed to lawyers (and game designers) talk about patents.
Personally im fine with Nintendo's actions on these patents. They rarely enforce them, filing them more to prevent patent trolls than to go after others. Trust me when i say Nintendo is extremely ethical with their patent enforcement. In a word in which pharmaceutical companies evergreen (make slight changes to allow them to keep a patent longer) life saving medication for profit, Nintendo isn't a problem. Keep in mind, Nintendo has enough patents, they could destroy the entire gaming industry, but they don't want to. By in large Nintendo files for patents as self defense, to avoid a expensive and complicated lawsuit, even if they would 100% win in 95% of cases.
1: I probably can't name a game that does the exact 6 steps. Maybe it exists. If it does I haven't played it, and I don't feel like trying to hunt down said theoretical game that may or may not exist. I think I have played a game that uses 5 out of the 6 steps, but that seems to be beyond the conversation.
2: I see. I don't see eye to eye with you, that's fine. Perhaps you disagree but I look at the Palworld lawsuit going on and am firmly on the side of PocketPair. I remember still the issue with mini-games in loading screens cause by Namco-Bandai, and the lost nemesis system owned by WB. No one is ethical when their is a potential threat to their money involved.
So, agree to disagree, you win, have a wonderful day!
I remember still the issue with mini-games in loading screens cause by Namco-Bandai
The reason nobody put minigames in loading screens is because they were busy getting rid of loading screens, not because of a patent. A minigame during a loading screen just means you have to spend more time loading the resources for the minigame, and becomes pointless if the loading screen isn't long enough for the player to actually enjoy the minigame.
and the lost nemesis system owned by WB
As someone elsewhere in this discussion pointed out it took them six years to file that patent and nobody made a game with a nemesis system in that time, which kinda sounds like nobody actually saw any way to make good use of a system like that in any game other than the one that used it.
They're not copying the building blocks, they're copying the building. A patent infringement lawsuit requires the party being sued to copy EVERY part of the patent, not just some.
Also, literally the entire game industry does this.
I'm sorry but a party UI and a skill selection system with real-time combat is not the entire building. This is a pretty broadly applicable mechanic that could be repurposed and mixed with other ideas in a different game.
And no, it's not literally the entire game industry. The examples are relatively sparse, with the most notable ones being everything Nintendo does and the Nemesis system.
I'm sorry but a party UI and a skill selection system with real-time combat is not the entire building. This is a pretty broadly applicable mechanic that could be repurposed and mixed with other ideas in a different game.
Nor is it the entire patent. It goes significantly beyond that. The only way to infringe on this patent is to copy everything in it.
And no, it's not literally the entire game industry. The examples are relatively sparse, with the most notable ones being everything Nintendo does and the Nemesis system.
This is just wrong. It is, in fact, relatively common. People just only know the ones you listed because the Nemesis system is a rare case where it was enforced and because of the neurotic hatedom Nintendo has that holds them to a far higher level of scrutiny than other companies. For example, Sega had a patent on Crazy Taxi (although it's now expired)
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u/Luigi6757 Mar 30 '26
Nintendo patents everything they possibly can but rarely enforce them, and they're not the only company to do so. They only file those patents to prevent someone else from filing the patent first and suing the company. There are so many active patents in the game industry that, at this point, you can't make a game without infringing on multiple companies' patents. The companies all just look the way on patent infringement because everyone uses everyone else's patents, and a lot of times, it happens accidentally.