2w ago

Nintendo reportedly gets even more obnoxious about patent law by taking a 'mods aren't real games' stance against a Dark Souls 3 mod that could invalidate its Palworld lawsuit

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PC Gaming @lemmy.ca

alessandro @lemmy.ca

2w ago

Nintendo reportedly gets even more obnoxious about patent law by taking a 'mods aren't real games' stance against a Dark Souls 3 mod that could invalidate its Palworld lawsuit

www.pcgamer.com /games/survival-crafting/nintendo-reportedly-gets-even-more-obnoxious-about-patent-law-by-taking-a-mods-arent-real-games-stance-against-a-dark-souls-3-mod-that-could-invalidate-its-palworld-lawsuit/

31 comments

Counter-Strike being the most popular PC game in the planet must be a figment of my own imagination, then.
- Perfect example. So many half life mods alone spawned stand alone games. Not to mention others created elsewhere. It's kind of offensive that they are saying they're not games
- Can't believe Valve didn't make real game. CS, TF2, DOTA2, all fake.
  
  Yo, don't shit talk the makers of the award winning game Ricochet like that
- Also Portal Stories: Mel, Portal Reloaded and many more mods for the game all add one extra component to Portal which makes them completely separate games.
Didn't Nintendo c&d a Pokémon mod for palword like super early on in release? cough cough they did https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/19f7929/pokemons_team_released_a_statement_about/
- i mean that one smells more like IP lawyers being IP lawyers and overzealously defending trademarks
Every day I am more convinced that someone made a wish to the monkey paw for Nintendo to do something about Palworld, and now we are where we are.
- I truly don't understand why anyone gave a fuck about Nintendo caring about Palworld.
  
  There's a group of citizens of a nation that supports what Nintendo doing to Palworld devs. Back when I read the noise on Xitter when Nintendo first filed against Palworld, lots of Japanese support it because something something disrespect or some bullshit. It sickens me that they are just lying belly up drinking the shit Nintendo puts out and trying to snuff competition
  
  oh the poor shareholders, i'll lose sleep thinking about their potentially ~~lost~~ diminished dividends!
- the monkey paw in question is intellectual property law. everytime a case is ruled in favor of ip law it becomes slightly more restrictive, which generally benefits corporations more than the public. every time you cheer for ip law to be enforced in some big landmark case, you're invariably rooting for the noose around our necks to get just a bit tighter.
  it's for this reason that, despite really not liking ai stuff, i think openai and meta being fined for training on "stolen" work will inevitably do more harm than good
- Yeah at the beginning Nintendo weren't doing anything despite people complaining about Pal World which I don't really get why they would do such a thing.
- nah a series of actual weasels broke the universe
The issue is game mechanics, not the game. If a games mechanic that existed as prior art can't be used, then neither should they be able to sue about it.
So if someone created a mod for palworld that put Pokemon in the game that would be fine?
- That's like lawsuit squared
- Of course not, then it would be a game infringing on their IP. That's just common sense.
- That already happened and they already C&D'd it according to someone else in this thread
It's basically a non-sequitur.
A mod isn't a standalone game, sure. It requires the base game to have meaning. Unitl it gets spinned off and becomes a "real" (standalone) game.
However, that has no connection with the original problem: Did anyone who isn't Nintendo ever animate a cartoony person throwing a ball that does something, before Nintendo filed for a patent?
Of course they have. That's prior art, and the patent itself is under serious question - whether the animation was in a "real" game, a "fake" one or in a Blender animation has very little influence on that fact.
- A mod isn't a standalone game, sure. It requires the base game to have meaning. Unitl it gets spinned off and becomes a "real" (standalone) game.
  Many standalone games are nothing without the game engine, which many developers have bought/licensed.
  In this case the "standalone game" can be considered the game engine, which allows the modder to create their own game, within the limits of that engine.
  From the point of the player, they need to pay for the game engine and the game/mod in any case, either by paying with one transaction, or, incase of payed mods, in two.
  To play a specific DLC, you also have to pay twice. And I am pretty sure that Nintendo will argue that game mechanics in DLCs developed by them can be patented as well...
  What I mean is Nintendos argument hat mods aren't 'real games' is flawed...
  
  Sure. It's just that the user doesn't install Unity (or any other engine) themselves when installing a game. They install the game and "it just works".
  For a mod, you have to either have the game, or go get it before you can play a mod.
  I know what a game engine is. A court clerk or judge most likely - doesn't.
  And it's in Nintendo's interests to paint mods as something lesser - that's why they take this strawman angle to mods. They couldn't care less about "games" or "mods". They care about protecting their IP with any groin punches and baby mario noises they can get their divorced-from-reality hands on.
I honestly think it's absurd you can be doing something for nearly 30 years (longer than a patent lasts) and then try to get a patent on it retroactively. That seems like a completely insane cheat code for the patent process.
If mods aren't real games, can we reverse the cease and desists for all the fan mods they've killed? After all, if they aren't real games and aren't to be considered legally for patent/trademark/copyright then they aren't violating anything?
So game mechanics in DLCs cannot be patented, because they are just mods?
- DLCs are not mods because they are official (read: paid)
Source games
Team Fortress was a quake mod
Half Life used a modded version of the quake engine
Counter Strike was a Half Life mod
L4D was a Counter Strike mod
Gary's Mod is literally just a game revolving around you modding the Source Game Engine
Seems legit Nintendo.
- Here's one that'll hit them closer to home: The original Donkey Kong is literally a mod for the earlier Radar Scope cabinets. Nintendo had better hope they don't wind up with any video game nerds in any juries or they're going to open a can of worms on themselves that they really don't want to have wriggling all over their lap.
a videogame isn't a big mod out of an engine? Like, GTA V, is a mod of RAGE engine?
Yeah, games are not real either, they require compilation/interpretation of source code /s

31 comments