Nor the whole idea of capturing opponents to raise them and make them fight for you. That’s from 1987 already, from the Shin Megami Tensei series; it predates Pokemon by a fair bit.
Except they filed a patent for exactly that recently, so I’m guessing it is for the capture mechanics. It shouldn’t pass muster in that case, but Japanese courts be wild (and very pro-Nintendo).
I gave it a check. If Pocketpair plays it smart they can make Nintendo look like a herd of muppets in the court, and even potentially acting on bad faith. Pocketpair might also simply change a few elements of its own game through an update, much like PvZ replacing Michael Jackson zombie with a disco zombie.
I’m not even sure how much patents apply to games.
Nor the whole idea of capturing opponents to raise them and make them fight for you. That’s from 1987 already, from the Shin Megami Tensei series; it predates Pokemon by a fair bit.
Except they filed a patent for exactly that recently, so I’m guessing it is for the capture mechanics. It shouldn’t pass muster in that case, but Japanese courts be wild (and very pro-Nintendo).
I gave it a check. If Pocketpair plays it smart they can make Nintendo look like a herd of muppets in the court, and even potentially acting on bad faith. Pocketpair might also simply change a few elements of its own game through an update, much like PvZ replacing Michael Jackson zombie with a disco zombie.
I’m not even sure how much patents apply to games.
I really hope so. The last thing we need is Nintendo deciding that they own every game mechanic they’ve ever used.