The actual rules of a game, however, have generally not been considered to be copyrightable as they are considered to be ideas rather than expression – see for example the 2012 US case of Tetris Holdings v Xio Interactive (and our previous Whiteboard post on the same).
Hex shards of fate codes software#
But there is no intrinsic protection for “games”, except to the extent the game is comprised of individual copyrightable elements – the game’s artwork for example, the plot or dialogue, background music, or in the case of a video game, the computer code that comprises the software for the game. While to a casual observer, one card game featuring swords and sorcery is much the same as any other, from a legal perspective this case is much more complicated.Īs a general rule, copyright only prohibits reproductions of specified categories of creative expression, such as a literary work (like a novel, a script for a play or movie, newspaper article, or computer code), dramatic works (like a performance of Shakespeare’s Othello, say), or artistic works (like a drawing, painting or photograph), among other things. Its Kickstarter page markets the game as a fusion between Massively Multiplayer Online Games like World of Warcraft (for which a trading card game was previously published by Cryptozoic) and Trading Card Games. Hex was the subject of a very successful Kickstarter funding campaign, which raised over US $2,000,000 for a target of only US $300,000. Cryptozoic has recently filed its response to WotC’s claims, denying any liability.
Hex shards of fate codes series#
WotC alleges that the game Hex is a clone of Magic: the Gathering products (specifically, the online version also run by WotC and a separate series of computer games entitled “Duels of the Planeswalkers”), and so infringes a number of aspects of WotC’s intellectual property, including copyright, patent, and trade dress. In May of this year, Wizards of the Coast (or WotC), a Hasbro subsidiary that is responsible for publishing the successful tabletop games Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering, filed suit in US District Court against Cryptozoic Entertainment and its related company Hex Entertainment, the developers of a digital trading card game called “Hex: Shards of Fate”.
Magic: the Gathering v Hex: Shards of Fate The decisions raise the important and interesting question – can you protect the rules and implementation of a game? What about the characters and their interaction? Or is it only the visual, literary, and software elements of a game that can be protected?
In these cases, law suits have been brought against alleged copycat games, relying on causes of action including copyright, trade dress and patent infringement. The gaming industry (and gamers) will be watching two recent US cases with great anticipation.
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