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So I made a game that looks like Pac Man. It is a Pac Man clone to be fair. But with a different name. Now here is the thing I made this game from the ground up myself. It even plays better than the official Pac Man game according to user reviews. So I put the game up on Android market for sale. A few weeks later Namco forces me out without any warning or explanation whatsoever. Is this right ? Judge for yourself from the screenshots

See my game and the Namco Pac Man game for comparision. It's frankly ridiculas. By their reasoning someone with enough could claim ownership of Tic Tac Toe or Chess and throw everyone else who made a Tic Tac Toe or Chess game out.

My game looks nothing like the Namco Pac Man Android game. I am not pirating their product. I built my own Pac Man game. What Namco is saying is that they own the Pac Man gameplay concept. It's a nonsense idea that has been applied by other people with $$ and lawyers. For example they forced out most of the Tetris games from Android market. Their reasoning ? The concept of matching falling geometric shapes is their property.

Is this fair ? Can gameplay concepts be owned like this ?

While I think companies retaining copyright for games, movies and songs longer than inventors of world-changing technologies is bullshit, so are your claims that your game looks "nothing" like pac-man.

The thing with tic-tac-toe and chess is that both games are old, and no company could possibly claim they invented either (well, they could claim that but they'd never be able to defend the claim in court).

From what I know, yes, it is currently possible to claim copyright on "gameplay concepts", because American copyright law is fucked. When applied universally and consistently, no studio could ever make a third-person shooter with a cover sysem for the next twenty years.

Sarevok wrote:Can gameplay concepts be owned like this ?

Dude, you made Pac-Man. They own Pac-Man.

Your game is called Pac Droid HD. The first sentence of its description literally says it is a Pac-Man clone. Your game looks exactly like Pac-Man. It also has a worse rating than the actual Pac-man app. Your claims of innocence and persecution are, as previously stated, bullshit.

Go back to making games where you throw coke machines at people. It's at least better than stealing gameplay, art, and names from something that came out over 20 years ago.

PROTIP - if you're going to copy a game without permission, do try to come up with an original name. 'PAC DROID'? You basically copied the entire game pixel for pixel; you didn't even make it LOOK different. For your next trick, I dare you to make DROID LIFE which is a 'clone' of Halflife and see how Valve feels about it.

I love the marketing copy - 'the best pacman game you will ever play'. Are you aware that making outrageous claims of quality, success or value is actually counterproductive in marketing?

Not only does your game look exactly like the original (ok, the font is more modern), you appear to have cloned the maze layout and pathfinding logic for the four ghosts as well. The only thing you didn't clone is the original sound effects. Namco are completely within their rights here. You could have made a game with the same general idea of picking up objects in mazes while chased by enemies, but with a different theme (e.g. player is a cat, enemies are stray dogs, maze is back alleys in a town). That would have been fine, but instead you chose to try and freeload on Namco's reputation and marketing efforts.

Stark wrote:I love the marketing copy - 'the best pacman game you will ever play'. Are you aware that making outrageous claims of quality, success or value is actually counterproductive in marketing?

All of his games seem to use the 'best X on Android' tagline e.g. "Experience The best tilt controlled ball rolling game on the Market".

Sarevok wrote:Is this fair ?

Quite. You tried to make money from selling a game identical to theirs. I'm curious as to why you would even think this was a good idea.

Can gameplay concepts be owned like this ?

Son, you didn't just use some "gameplay concepts", you copied the whole design straight off. The visual presentation is protected, as is the level design to some degree. If you had used the waka-waka-waka (the best part of Pac-man, making yours clearly inferior), that would have been protected as well.

PeZook wrote:From what I know, yes, it is currently possible to claim copyright on "gameplay concepts", because American copyright law is fucked. When applied universally and consistently, no studio could ever make a third-person shooter with a cover sysem for the next twenty years.

You can't copyright game mechanics like that, any more than you can copyright other ideas, mechanisms or concepts. You can however file a patent, which will probably be largely unenforceable.

...God dammit, Sarevok. Not only are you a stupid fucker, but you've made me agree with Stark. Do you have any idea how much I don't like to do that? Any at all?

I think gameplay concepts would fall under patent law, not copyright law.

Brush up on copyright law, guy. You've embarrassed yourself enough already. If you're going to copy Xevious next, at least take it to a lawyer first?

White Haven wrote:...God dammit, Sarevok. Not only are you a stupid fucker, but you've made me agree with Stark. Do you have any idea how much I don't like to do that? Any at all?

Look someone gave me their SOTS2, so maybe there's more in your future :v

Wow... Saravok, you suck at life.

Here's Pac-man...


Here's your justly squashed attempt at copying Pacman...


You pretty much directly copied Namco's game, slapped a completely uncreative name that even sounds similar to the original game, and you're wondering why they slapped oupside the head and told you to knock it off? No more drugs for you, son, ya done smoked yourself retarded.

Sarevok, are you...are you taking the piss? I refuse to believe someone could be this moronic for real. I refuse...

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