Transfiguring Roar
Arcane
This is something I've been thinking about lately. This seems like a dumb question/has an obvious answer to me. A competitor can make an almost blatant rip-off. But are there legal guidelines, and if so, what are they?
An example is BGI/II and PoE. I haven't followed the development of PoE closely, but at first glance it is very similar to BGI/II. The only major difference to game-play seems to be combat (correct me if I'm wrong). Could Bioware sue Obsidian for making a game so similar to theirs?
What if a game with a more unique formula than BG, for example HoMM (I don't know of any other fantasy TBS game quite like HoMM), was copied really closely? I.e., overland map, resources, town screens, battle screens with similar creature stack mechanics, etc. but with some minor differences, e.g., different IP, different art and music, world, history/lore, a few different resources and perhaps quantity of resource types, optional/exclusive buildings, optional/exclusive troops, 8 or 9 creature stacks in battle, etc. Say someone wanted to copy HoMM2 or 3 that closely...
And what if the competitor were new to game development, this 'copy with subtle differences' being their first game, copying a large, established company's game (in this example Ubisoft and HoMM)? Would this give the established company more grounds on which to sue the upstart?
P.S. Sorry if this has been asked before, I didn't know what to search.
An example is BGI/II and PoE. I haven't followed the development of PoE closely, but at first glance it is very similar to BGI/II. The only major difference to game-play seems to be combat (correct me if I'm wrong). Could Bioware sue Obsidian for making a game so similar to theirs?
What if a game with a more unique formula than BG, for example HoMM (I don't know of any other fantasy TBS game quite like HoMM), was copied really closely? I.e., overland map, resources, town screens, battle screens with similar creature stack mechanics, etc. but with some minor differences, e.g., different IP, different art and music, world, history/lore, a few different resources and perhaps quantity of resource types, optional/exclusive buildings, optional/exclusive troops, 8 or 9 creature stacks in battle, etc. Say someone wanted to copy HoMM2 or 3 that closely...
And what if the competitor were new to game development, this 'copy with subtle differences' being their first game, copying a large, established company's game (in this example Ubisoft and HoMM)? Would this give the established company more grounds on which to sue the upstart?
P.S. Sorry if this has been asked before, I didn't know what to search.