How can they make this game so close to stratego and not get sued?

[wiidad]

Its basically a reskin...
I really want to know how they can get away with using the mechanic from another game so closely... I will likely buy it as I enjoy Stratego and space ship fighting games.I need to know how they are able to make this game!

[LargeVisibleMachine]

Although some companies have tried to patent gaming systems (Wizards of the Coast and trading card games probably being the most famous example) this is very hard to do and doubtful if it is even legal (as in would hold up in a court of law). Lew has written a little bit about it here (regarding another of his games, the excellent Britania):

http://pulsiphergames.com/britannia/index.htm#Britannia%20Rights

This is the same reason there's so many video game clones around, lots of them using the exact same mechanic. That might be bad in some cases (who needs another Threes clone?) but video games would probably be pretty dull if people hadn't been borrowing and evolving mechanics over time too. With board games in particular this is very common, just look at all the deck builders released since Dominion (some of them arguably better games too). Also worth pointing out that Stratego itself is pretty much a "reskin" of a french game called L'Attaque:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9246/lattaque

All that being said, the most important point to make here is probably that Doomstar isn't that close to Stratego at all in game playm and definitely not a reskin. It got hidden units (a lot of games have that) and some of the basic pieces are the same but once you start mixing in fighters and black holes the game quickly becomes very different indeed. We also got new units with some very unique abilities that we hope to release down the line.

[wiidad]

I am famliar with lore of Wizards of the Coast and their patent on Tapping in card games. I agree that many video games are lose evolitions of other titles because they are so similar with their own spin on the same format. I admit this isnt precisely a reskin.

I am just very surprised they allow such a use of their system while they still sell their game and keep reskinning it as most recently as star wars stratego that I saw last. I understand game systems cannot be protected even though the names and stories within them can be.

I grew up in the 80s and in my neighborhood there was a comic store named comics (backwards R) Us. They were in business for half a decade, long before the internet existed, a small mom and pop outlet where we would get comics after school. They recieved a letter from ToysRus attorney demaning their name be changed because they owned the Backwards R... It was renamed later that month to avoid the lawsuit.

I have seen games even remotely similar to Monopoly and even battleship get lawsuit threats and later sold off at local dollar stores because they had only 30 days to deceminate/stop existing.

These are just some of the examples that I have rolling around in my memory of the way these things go. That is why I am so surpirised here...

[obliviondoll]

Wizards don't own a "patent on tapping" they own a patent on the use of the term "tapping" to refer to activating a card and mark it as used for the turn. Other games get around the patent on this mechanic by having the exact same mechanic but calling it something else.

Similarly, a mech game was being designed by a guy working for Wizards of the Coast who left and later developed a new game called Pirates of the Spanish Main, which got shut down due to the patent for the never-released mech game. WotC have a patent for a game using very specific systems, with their example of the systems being the mech game that was being designed for them. This patent was *EXTREMELY* specific and any single tiny detail changed between the two games in terms of production OR rules could have very easily avoided being caught by the patent and shut down. Unfortunately, the designer didn't change anything about the design except "but they're boats and not robots", which is a shame, because the game was really stylish and had cool ship models. The exact same manufaturing technique has been used for ship models in at least one other game since, and there was no ground for WotC to make the same patent claim against that game, because it didn't have anything remotely resembling the patented game mechanics.

This is ground for a patent on a game system to hold up, but it's expensive to maintain and needs to be EXTREMELY specific and detailed and for every detail to match in a copy of the game in order to survive a court case. Even if a patent exists on Stratego's mechanics, this game having any unit that behaves any differently (of which it has several) would circumvent the patent entirely.

Monopoly is a patented game design originally owned by Parker Brothers and now Hasbro (they bought the original company). They license out the rights to make Monopoly variants to many other companies, but because it's a protected and widely-recognised patent *AND* trademark, there are patent, copyright and trademark issues involved in various levels of trying to copy that game. Many cases have been won by them when games have been explicit ripoffs. Frequently they wholesale copy the exact rule wording (copyright violation) or steal pieces and other art assets (copyright violation) or use the exact names of components (trademark violations in several instances) or actually call the game "something Monpoly" (trademark violation). When they don't, they still use very specifically the exact same mechanics without meaningful deviations, which comes up against the patent. There are many ways to do a Monopoly-like boardgame without it violating the speciic details of the patent, and if you theme it differently and uniquely enough, you COULD get around that while still making something that anyone will recognise as "might as well be Monopoly" but there's no legal ground for you to be charged with anything. Of course, there's still a risk of a "frivolous" lawsuit which Hasbro can raise with the expectation that a smaller business probably won't have the funds to fight them on it and will just not bother fighting to keep their game on the market.