Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
during productions because game crews can be located all over the globe, and
being able to access that pipeline and flowchart is critical.
Flowchart systems are excellent investments for gaming companies because
if work is lost, then the entire production may have to shut down while the files
are located, and that is a pointless waste of time and money. Any business has
a method for tracking work, and gaming is no different, particularly given the
amount of money this industry garners every year. Savvy business managers
know the value of understanding the pipeline and, more important, tracking the
workflow and where the work is at any given time.
Copyrights and Licenses
Many new game designers tend to be a bit skittish about sharing their ideas, for
fear they will be pirated. At some point, if you're going to pitch your idea or seek
help from others about getting it made or published, you'll need to share your
material.
Copyrights
mation about what can be copyrighted is a solid first step in understanding what
copyright will and won't protect. Copyright law gives the creator of a creative
effort the exclusive right to control who can make copies or make works derived
from that original work.
The government has a fact sheet specifically about games. In part, it says:
Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the
method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea,
system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, mer-
chandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing
in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based
on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an
author's expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.
Material prepared in connection with a game may be subject to copyright if
it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression. For exam-
ple, the text matter describing the rules of the game or the pictorial matter
appearing on the gameboard or container may be registerable.
ideas can't be copy-
righted: only the
tangible expression
of the idea can.
