Mention other games that inspired mine?

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16 comments, last by MatthewLewis 1 year, 5 months ago

Tomsudobrej said:
The purpose of doing so would be to give people an idea of the gameplay right away and to engage the fans of that other game.

The first point is fine but could be done better. The second point is risky, and potentially problematic.

Consider maybe you were looking something like: “If you're a fan of Super Smash Bros, Brawl Stars, or Brawlhalla, then you'll love the new game Foo!

You could instead have said something like “If you like brawler games, if you like face-paced action, and are looking for your next couch co-op game, then you'll love the new game Foo!” You're mentioning the style of gameplay, not specific games.

By mentioning specific games players will immediately compare your game to those other, more iconic games. For small games this is often terrible, as they're a comparison of a tiny low budget project against a best-in-class game with an 8-figure or 9-figure budget.

It also opens you up to trademark issues and other legal disputes, if there can be a claim that you're using their branding to market your product. Usually you're allowed certain nominative use, that is, using the name of a thing to talk about it, but that's typically limited to the actual need about talking about it. People writing reviews or using names for comparative purposes to discuss the nature of the various games (the first use you mentioned) can generally do it. But the second use, trying to engage people by leveraging the other projects, is generally not okay. For example, I mentioned specific games above to make a point about dropping major brand names, not because I'm trying to advertise the game Foo, nor to entice customers or bring them in. That's something best avoided unless you've got some guidance from your lawyer.

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Tomsudobrej said:
I wouldn't feel like stealing, it would be just to say like “hey, you liked this, this could be for you”.

Sure, but without intent, you borrow the association built up from others with ‘this’. And you can't be even sure potential customers share the same association with ‘this’ as you do.
So i guess that's the reason why rarely somebody makes such comparisons for marketing his own products. Basically you have to leave this to others, e.g. a reviewer which then might say ‘this new game is similar to this older game, because …’.

But that's just what i think. I'm no marketing expert either.

Tomsudobrej said:
But as @Tom Sloper said, I'm also worried about the “too much similar” issue to not being sueable…

Let's hope you can grab enough attention this might indeed become an issue.
But if so, that's just another reason of not building up the association from your side in the first place.
So there's a lot of cons, but few pros.

@frob I agree with all you said! I want to just clarify, the only wording that I woud use would be “inspired by Game-Name”. And that would be, as I said, “giving people an idea of the gameplay right away and engaging the fans of that other game”.

Anyway, I got my conclusions, thank you very much guys! I won't mention another game, just describe mine. And when people see a video of my game, they will automatically think about that famous game. Because it's so obvious…

There's a time and place for writing about what inspired you. That time and place is when an interviewer explicitly asks about your influences. It is absolutely not when marketing your game. The last thing you want to do is remind the player of what other, presumably better, games they could be playing instead.

But to be fair, that's also been done before. Plenty of times the big movie studios have hyped up multiple movies that way: “If you see only one movie this year, go see blockbuster. But if you see TWO movies this year, consider also watching this show.” But in that scenario they're coordinated and are authorized. If you really want to reference something else, by far the safest way to do it is talk to the people, get an agreement in place, and usually have some money change hands.

This is the issue of comparison.

if you compare your game to something like a AAA title, people will bound to be disappointed.

Find other indies in your space.

If you were inspired by X, saying so has no issue, it just tells people where you came from.

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As far as intellectual property goes, you cannot protect an idea.
So even if your game is very much the same as the ones you mention, you will not be in any trouble unless:

  • You clearly have taken their story or their characters (apperance, names, or other traits that make them seem like they're the same character as the other game)
  • You have directly copied or taken design elements (from logos and images to props and art).

However, you might also get in trouble if you negatively mention the other game.
So as long as you stick to things like “Gameplay is inspired by XXXXX” or just “Inspired by XXXXX” you will have no problems.
Statements like “Even better than XXXXX” could get you in trouble marketing wise - not necessarily intellectual property - but you need to be able to back that claim up with evidence.

Just to give you an example.
I wrote, produced and filmed a TV Pilot episode a few years ago. Then I tried to sell it.
Nobody wanted to buy, but a couple of years later I saw a new TV Show that had THE EXACT SAME STORY!
The first episode was so similar to mine that I cut together the scenes from the TV show with my pilot and sent to my lawyer who said it was “suspiciously similar”.
They had only bothered to change one the character's gender, the names, and some other small details, but it was basically my story. (I also later found out who stole it).

However, I could not take them to court, because I could not PROVE that they had stolen my script or my pilot.
It was technically possible that they had come up with this all on their own, and even if they had seen my pilot and got inspired enough to make the TV Show, I could not protect my idea. They had changed it just enough.

Now, they were walking dangerously close to IP infringement, so I don't suggest you go that far.
But my point is - simply mentioning which games you're inspired by can not get you in trouble.

Andy Pett

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