Somethings

Briefly, I'd like to talk about a discussion I had on Twitter around the 20th about Palworld and Nintendo, and some of my personal views on the game industry.

The following descriptions are all my personal views on the game and this matter. I do not fully understand the history of games and patent law. If I am wrong, please correct me.

Maybe this article is inconsistent with other people's ideas. If this article makes you feel uncomfortable, please ignore it.

I will not do any abuse in this article, I am simply sharing my own opinions. Of course, I do not want to see any arguments or abuse in the comments.

If my idea was really bad, I would delete the post myself.

Let’s talk about this next.

My thinking is that nowadays, when there are more and more games and more and more competition, it's impossible to make a completely unique game.

Whether it's in the art, program, gameplay, game style, or whatever, there are always shadows of other games.

That's why there are gameplay tags like “Metroidvania game” and “Soulslike”, which are games that pay homage to this style of gameplay.

As for the game style, there is no need to talk about it, mobile games are full of similar styles, and PC games are the same.

In my opinion, as long as you don't use theft to take material from other people's games or take images of other people's characters to make a game.

Then it should not be called plagiarism.

Frankly speaking, I think that my idea is morally flawed, and it's reasonable to be criticized for it, but I can't accept being abused.

Of course I don't want my game to be called a plagiarism, so I've tried my best to add my own creativity to the program, art, and gameplay, just to make my game better.

Back to the topic at hand, what I'm trying to say about the discussion on Twitter is that this is how the game industry works.

When a game becomes popular, there are many similar games to compete with it, such as the Survivor game.

Vampire Survivor became so popular that there are tons of games based on it.

Not to mention the fact that there are many games with the SURVIVOR name attached to them, but it's rare to hear people say that they are plagiarized.

However, when I mentioned Nintendo, someone took a picture of it and reposted it on ptt's c_chat, which led to a lot of abuse.

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it in the first place, because from my own observations on various forums in Taiwan, any mention of a game with a style or gameplay similar to Nintendo's games easily attracts a lot of bigoted discussants.

Last time, it was Genshin Impact and Zelda, this time it's Palworld and Pokémon.

Even if Palworld and Pokémon are different game genres, some people think that similar art styles are plagiarism, so there's no point in arguing about that.

And I will not go to c_chat to argue with others about this kind of thing.

When I saw that Palworld was being sued by Nintendo through patent law, I was baffled and started this thread.

That's why I started this thread. And that's what led to all this trouble.

But because of these troubles, I realized why Japanese game companies need so many patents.

Because in my previous understanding, it should be enough for a game to be protected by copyright law, so why do they need so many patents?

It was only then that I realized that Japanese game companies have a lot of trouble getting patents.

The Taiwan Patent Law explicitly states that “Pure intellectual rules such as game rules or methods do not make use of natural laws and do not meet the definition of invention; however, if they contain parts that do not make use of natural laws, they may still qualify as inventions.”

The hardware is the machine or accessories, and the software is the game mechanism, perspective switching and other technologies.

However, the visual appearance of some graphical interfaces and menu operations can be applied for patents.

The gaming industry in Taiwan alone has not applied for many patents in this area, so it may not be of much reference value.

But on the basis of patent law, it should not be too far from Japan.

There are many Japanese game companies that have put a lot of effort in this area, and the famous one is Konami's patent application for viewpoint scene transparency called 視訊遊戲裝置（ビデオゲーム (Video Game)）.

Whenever there is an occlusion between the player's viewpoint and the game character, the occlusion will be treated as a transparent mechanism.

This led to many Japanese 3D games being stuck with this patent and having to use other strange ways to represent the player's screen.

It sounds idiotic, but this is an example of what actually happened, and it wasn't until the patent law expired in 2016 that other Japanese 3D games were able to use this technology.

The patent law was originally intended to be mutually beneficial, but Konami's hijacking of the patent and unwillingness to share it with other game teams is a terrible example.

Japanese game companies have set up numerous patents to protect their game mechanics.

Because patent is not only a shield to protect the game, but also a sword to attack the opponent.

However, I think software is evolving so fast that 20 years of patent protection is too long.

But that's what the law guarantees, so that's how it is.

Back to the issue of Nintendo and Palworld, let's not talk about what patents Nintendo used to sue Palworld.

After all, Nintendo owns countless patents.

For example, Nintendo has applied for 32 patents for the recent Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

But it's not a question of how many patents Nintendo gets for a game.

The problem is, I've “heard”.

The reason Nintendo has so many game patents is to protect the game industry from being infringed upon by other game companies.

And Nintendo doesn't intentionally sue game companies for using their patents.

Otherwise, more than half of the Japanese games would have infringed on their patents.

As for Nintendo's patent lawsuits, the only famous one I know of is the White Cat Project case.

Because White Cat Project applied for patents, but those patents were already applied by Nintendo, so Nintendo had to file a lawsuit against them.

But in the case of Palworld, if the Palworld didn't patent it like the White Cat Project, then Nintendo took the initiative to file a patent lawsuit, which is different from what I've “heard”.

In my opinion, this is a very serious matter, because this action is already against what they said.

Personally, I'm very simple: if the game is good and doesn't infringe on copyright, I'll support it.

I'm not interested in management games, but Palworld is the first management game I've ever played, and I've had a lot of fun with it.

I can't understand being sued for something like a patent.

I've played several generations of Pokémon, and I love the design of Pokémon.

However, it's a pity that the game framework of Pokémon, which has been an IP for such a long time, hasn't been able to make a bigger breakthrough.

Unexpectedly, Palworld fulfills my needs in this area.

Lastly, I may have been too biased in my opinion of Pokémon, which led to my twitter being reposted on ptt and criticized.

We still don't know what patent Nintendo is suing Palworld for, so I won't talk about that part anymore.

That's about it, thanks for your patience in reading this whole article.

I'll still be working on my games.

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簡單的說，我想說一下我20號左右在推特上討論關於帕魯跟任天堂的事情，以及後續一些我個人對於遊戲業的看法。

以下敘述都是我個人對於遊戲以及這件事的看法，我對遊戲史以及專利法並沒有到非常理解，有錯誤的地方歡迎糾正。

也許這篇文有與他人理念不合的地方，如果這篇文讓你感到不適也請無視。

這篇文我不會做任何謾罵，單純是分享自己的看法，當然我也不希望在留言看到任何爭執或謾罵。

如果我的想法真的很糟，那我會自己把這篇文章刪掉。

接下來就說關於這個事情了。

我的想法是，在遊戲只會越來越多、越來越競爭的現在，你想做出一款完全獨特的遊戲，是不可能的。

不管在美術程式遊戲玩法還是遊戲風格什麼的，都一定有其他遊戲的影子。

所以遊戲玩法才會有類銀河惡魔城、類魂遊戲這樣的遊戲Tag，就是致敬這種玩法所做的遊戲。

至於遊戲風格更不用說了，手機遊戲角色風格差不多的比比皆是，PC遊戲也是一樣的。

在我認為，不是拿別人遊戲的素材、拿別人角色的形象，用竊盜的行為去做遊戲。

那就不應該被稱為抄襲。

這種說法，老實說我自己也覺得自己的想法是有道德上的瑕疵，這樣的說法被批評也是合情合理，但被謾罵我不能接受。

而我自己當然也不希望我所做的遊戲被稱為抄襲，所以在程式美術遊戲玩法上我也是絞盡腦汁添加了自己的創意，就是為了讓自己的遊戲更好。

回歸正題，對於推特上的討論，其實我更想表達的是，遊戲業就是這樣的。

一款遊戲熱門之後，自然就有許多相似的遊戲來與你競爭，例如倖存者類型的遊戲就是這樣。

吸血鬼倖存者爆紅了之後，以他為基底的已經多到不勝枚舉。

更別說多數遊戲也直接掛著倖存者的名字，但卻鮮少聽到有人說這些遊戲是抄襲的情況。

然而在我提到任天堂的事情時，就被有心人士截圖並轉貼到ptt的c_chat上，然後引來一堆謾罵。

或許我一開始就不應該提到這種事，因為就我自己在台灣各大論壇的觀察中發現，只要提到遊戲的風格或玩法類似任天堂的遊戲，就很容易引來許多偏激的討論者。

上一次就原神跟薩爾達，這次就帕魯跟寶可夢。

就算帕魯跟寶可夢根本是不同的遊戲類型，但有些人認為美術風格類似就是抄襲，這部分就沒什麼好爭論的。

而我也不會去c_chat去別人爭論這種事情。

看到帕魯被任天堂透過專利法去告這件事，我是覺得莫名其妙，才開啟了這個話題。

結果就引來了這些麻煩。

不過也因為這些麻煩，我才去了解日本遊戲公司為何要弄這麼多專利。

因為在我之前的認知中，一款遊戲有著作權法保護應該就很夠了，那為何還需要這麼多專利保護呢？

才知道日本遊戲公司在弄專利這方面可說是腥風血雨。

在台灣專利法的明文寫著"單純之遊戲規則或方法等智力規則，非利用自然法則，不符合發明之定義；但若含有非利用自然法則之部分，仍可能具有發明之適格。"

硬體就是機台或配件、軟體則是遊戲機制、視角切換等技術。

不過一些圖形化介面跟選單操作什麼的視覺外觀，都可以申請成專利。

只在台灣的遊戲業在這方面申請專利的數量並不多，也許沒什麼參考價值。

但在專利法的基礎上應該與日本差不了太遠。

日本遊戲公司眾多，在這方面就下了很多功夫，而著名的就是Konami申請的"視角場景透明化"專利。

只要玩家視角與遊戲角色出現遮蔽物時，遮蔽物就會被處理成透明的機制設定。

這也導致當時許多日本製的3D遊戲因為被這個專利卡著，不得以只能用其他奇怪的方式去表現玩家所在的畫面。

聽起來很白痴，但這是實際發生的例子，直到2016年專利法過期，日本其他的3D遊戲才能使用這個技術。

專利法起初的目的是互利共榮，然而Konami霸佔這個專利，不願與其他遊戲團隊分享這個專利，是個很糟糕的例子。

日本在遊戲機制上設立了無數的專利保護。

因為專利不但是可以保護自己的盾，同時也是攻擊對手的劍。

只是我覺得在軟體上的演變日新月異，給予20年專利保護實在是太久了。

但法律就是這樣保障的，所以就是這個樣子。

回到寶可夢跟帕魯的問題，先不說任天堂到底用了什麼專利去告帕魯。

畢竟任天堂擁有的專利，數也數不清。

例如近期的〈薩爾達傳說：王國之淚〉，任天堂就為它申請了32項專利。

不過任天堂為一款遊戲弄多少專利這不是問題。

問題在於，我"聽說"，

任天堂弄這麼多遊戲專利是為了保護遊戲產業不被其他遊戲公司侵害所以才弄這麼多專利。

而任天堂也不會刻意對於使用他們專利的遊戲團體提告。

不然真要提告，有一半以上的日本遊戲都侵犯了他們的專利了。

而關於任天堂關於專利的訴訟，我知道比較有名的只有白貓project的事件。

因為白貓project去申請專利，但那些專利早已被任天堂申請，所以任天堂必須對他們提告。

但帕魯這件事，如果帕魯方並沒有像白貓project那樣弄專利，那就是任天堂主動提出專利訴訟，這就與我"聽說"的並不同了。

在我眼中，這是很嚴重的事情，因為這個動作已經違背他們那句話了。

我個人很簡單，遊戲做的好、不侵犯著作權，我就會支持。

我對於要蓋房子那種建造類遊戲是沒興趣的，但帕魯是我第一款去碰的，也真的玩的很開心。

對於專利這種事被告，就很不能理解。

寶可夢我也玩過好幾代，對於寶可夢的設計我也是滿喜歡的。

但一個大IP做了這麼久，遊戲框架卻沒辦法做更大的突破，就覺得滿可惜的。

結果意外的，帕魯滿足了我對這方面的需求。

最後，可能是我對寶可夢的看法過於偏激了，才導致我的留言被轉貼到ptt上批評。

到現在也還不知道任天堂告帕魯侵犯什麼專利，所以這部分我也不會在談了。

大概就是這樣，很感謝你們耐心看完我整篇文章。

我依然會致力於我的遊戲創作的。