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Why current age 'video gaming' is a joke

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shmokes:
 ???

Gray_Area:

--- Quote from: shponglefan on July 06, 2012, 12:11:27 pm ---
--- Quote from: Gray_Area on June 15, 2012, 04:41:43 pm ---Game-wise....well, that's just it, it shouldn't be a game. It should be like a dream, where you might know it's not 'real', but it's real. Actually, you can do this every night when you sleep. Oh, but you can play retro games in your dreams. Sometimes I do.

--- End quote ---

Sounds to me like you're less about the video games and more about the recreational narcotics.  :P

--- End quote ---

Hah. All-natural, baby!

danny_galaga:

--- Quote from: shmokes on July 07, 2012, 01:17:51 am ---
--- Quote from: danny_galaga on July 07, 2012, 12:53:44 am ---
Free market. They aren't ripping off code, are they?

--- End quote ---

Why is 'free market' not an equally acceptable answer to ripping off code?

--- End quote ---

Not quite understanding this. But maybe I shouldn't have used the term 'free market'. I probably should have said 'designers are free to design what they want, whether it resembles another game or not, so long as they aren't ripping off code which can be an infringement of copyright'.

shmokes:
Yeah, I think "free market" is what put question marks over my head. Nothing but a law restricting the unfettered free market keeps people from ripping of code. And ideas too, frankly. Designers are not free to design a game that contained, for example, Mario. Unless those designers work for Nintendo, of course.

Frankly, I don't think that code should be copyrightable. It should be patentable. The U.S. Patent law (35 U.S.C § 101) says that any "new or useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter" can be patented. It makes far more sense to think of software code as a "new or useful process" than as an expression of creativity like music or writing. It's not like without copyrighting the code you aren't still going to have copyrights on the content. All the characters and world and dialogue, etc., from a videogame are not just copyrightable, the copyright attaches automatically at the moment of creation--regardless of whether the code is protected. But the code is just a process for making those things happen. Code is technology.

I could go on. But the fact that code is copyrightable is both bad public policy and a direct restriction on the free market, IMO.

Vigo:
I agree with you about the copyright portion, but with patenting, I don't even think code should be patentable. The act of coding could have been patentable, or at least coding in a specific language. The ability to code whatever you want is the "new or useful process", not utilizing it's function. It would be like patenting Photoshop techniques.

Also, it would be a playground for patent trolling if it was patentable. Keep in mind that a patient would not protect the exact coding, but rather the methodology used to accomplish the coding's function. If I made a video game where the guy jumps, I would code parameters for the character to move up for a certain distance, then back down until they hit the ground when when a button is pressed. If someone goes and lays a patent on that, other designers could make a game with a jumping guy, but they would have to find backwards ways of writing a jump function in coding, e.g. write a function that the distance between "ceiling point A" and the guy decrease for a three seconds, then increase until he hits an object below him. I know the ship has sailed for a patent on jumping in a video game, but my point is that with every innovation that gets made in video games, every subsequent company that wants to design that sort of function into their video game will have to examine the patent to make sure they are using a different coding method than the patient.

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