[greggman65]

Not all suits but threatened suits. Nintendo claimed ownership of world maps in platform games ala Super Mario 3 and Super Mario World. If you were making a game that had one in the early 90s and you were shipping in Nintendo you got a letter that in so many words said, "Change your game or get sued AND lose your permission to publish on NES/SNES/Gameboy"

Nintendo also claimed a patent on showing a ghost image of your previous race (the ghost car in Mario Kart)

[bitwize]

Game companies do this all the time. Namco had a patent on the idea of "a minigame playable during a loading screen". Splatoon on the Wii U had a minigame you could play while waiting, but as it was during the multiplayer matchmaking process, not loading, it avoided the patent.

But there is no IP in the gaming industry more vigorously defended than Tetris. The Tetris Company LLC has:

* trademarks on the name Tetris, the wordmark, and the word "tetrimino" to refer to the pieces, of course

* trade dress rights on otherwise generic elements, such as the shape of the tetromino pieces themselves and the Russian folk song "Korobeiniki", when used in video games

* copyright on the concept of "a video game where tetromino pieces fall and you must arrange them to make lines". You'd think that this element would not be copyrightable, but Atari v. Philips, which concerned Pac-Man and clones thereof, established that a video game is copyrightable as a form of audiovisual performance, not just program code, which means that if a game looks and behaves enough like a copyrighted game such as Tetris ("substantial similarity"), it can be infringing. And it's near-impossible to make a falling-tetromino puzzle game without making it look and behave like Tetris. Henk and Alexey have retained some of the best lawyers American capitalism can buy, and they've successfully litigated copyright actions against cloners of Tetris and have had "Tetris clone" material seized at the border on copyright grounds.

[bluescrn]

> Namco had a patent on the idea of "a minigame playable during a loading screen"

Patent issued in 1998, yet there was prior art dating back to the C64 era - I remember 'invade-a-load', where you could play a Space Invaders clone while a larger game loaded from tape.

[Nursie]

> Namco had a patent on the idea of "a minigame playable during a loading screen".

When does that date from?

Because I remember playing "Invade-a-load" on the C64 in the 80s, while waiting for (I think) Slimey's Mine to load off tape. It was fun enough that sometimes I would stop the tape and just play space invaders for a while.

(edit - ah, and there it is, at the bottom of the fast-loader article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_loader

"In 1995, Yoichi Hayashi of Namco Ltd. invented a variant of the Invade-a-Load technique for use with optical disc based platforms such as PlayStation and applied for a patent. U.S. patent 5,718,632 was granted in February 1998 and assigned to Namco despite the Invade-a-Load prior art."

Hey, I guess that means...

Edit again: got my timelines wrong, 1995 was 30 years ago, this thing is long-expired. Ugh, I am old...)

[hananova]

This is also why most of the innovation in Tetris comes from the indie scene. See for example tetrio, or my own game Pandora's Blocks.

We all know that if TTC were to sue any of us, they'd be likely to lose their trademarks outright. Which is also why they haven't.

[AshamedCaptain]

> And it's near-impossible to make a falling-tetromino puzzle game without making it look and behave like Tetris.

This just reveals a terrible lack of imagination. The games Tetris was able to challenge frankly _are_ Tetris clones, up to the point they are indistinguishable from Tetris on screenshots and gameplay.

There are a million of "falling blocks" puzzle games that have not and can not be challenged by Tetris because they are not Tetris clones. E.g. Puyo Puyo / Kirby's Avalanche, Nintendo's own Dr. Mario, Nokia's ancient "Blocks" , etc.

[PetitPrince]

> nd it's near-impossible to make a falling-tetromino puzzle game without making it look and behave like Tetris.

What's more is that you cannot release a Tetris game if you follow the exact gameplay specification the Tetris Company mandates. And those specification prevent a whole range of gameplay, leading to stagnating game design and the impossibility to play some higher difficulty style of Tetris.

It's as if the First Person Company LLC mandated a Halo style floating jump with regenerating shield. There would be no classic Quake and the Doom revival series (2016, 2020, 2025) wouldn't be able to center its gameplay on agression (or at least, it would feel very weird).

[freejazz]

> copyright on the concept

You can't have a copyright in a concept. You can only have a copyright in an expression of something.

[charcircuit]

>not loading, it avoided the patent.

The patent also expires a few months after the release of the game.

[mschuster91]

And now they've licensed at least the mobile game IP to a free-to-play vendor that's loaded up Tetris with gambling and ads.