Improbable and Epic Games establish $25M fund for ‘more open engines’

Re:Improbable and Epic Games establish $25M fund for ‘more o... by nitrogen on Thursday January 10, 2019 @11:29PM (#18881013)

There's a reason gameplay mechanics aren't copyrightable. This is how game design evolves. I'd hate to live in the world where ID software permanently owned the rights for making first person shooting games

Wasn't there a problematic patent on The Incredible Machine that kind of killed that genre for a while?

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Re:Improbable and Epic Games establish $25M fund for ‘more o... by reitzensteinm on Friday January 11, 2019 @12:06AM (#18881148)

Wow... yes.

Although Jeff Tunnel was really pissed off by it, which as a fan of TIM growing up makes me very happy.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US5577185A/en https://youtu.be/vXb30FDJqB0?t=393

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Re:Improbable and Epic Games establish $25M fund for ‘more o... by jchw on Friday January 11, 2019 @12:32AM (#18881243)

Well, you can certainly patent game design - but you can't copyright it. Copyright is actually a bit scarier imo since it's, for the most part, internationally recognized.

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