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View Full Version : Nintendo patents "Sanity system for video games"

bandersnatch
08-30-2005, 10:18 PM
GameInsider is reporting (http://www.gameinsider.com/comments.php?id=1026&catid=1) that Nintendo has been awarded a patent for a "sanity system for video games".

Just in, Nintendo has received a patent for a "Sanity system for video games" which they filed in December 2000.

From the patent filing:

"A video game and game system incorporating a game character's sanity level that is affected by occurrences in the game such as encountering a game creature or gruesome situation. A character's sanity level is modified by an amount determined based on a character reaction to the occurrence such as taking a rest or slowing game progress and/or an amount of character preparation. That is, if a character is prepared for the particular occurrence, the occurrence may have little or no affect on the character's sanity level. As the character's sanity level decreases, game play is effected such as by controlling game effects, audio effects, creating hallucinations and the like. In this context. the same game can be played differently each time it is played."What makes this filing so interesting is that this patent literally describes the gameplay system used in Eternal Darkness -- so perhaps now Nintendo has an option to produce a sequel to Eternal Darkness after developer Silicon Knights leaving them to develop for the Xbox 360.
dr_qwandry
08-31-2005, 12:27 AM
A sequel for Eternal Darkness? Sign Me Up!

But of course it's wishful thinking, that and how could they possibly outdo the effects which occur in the game.
ezzkmo
08-31-2005, 12:38 AM
since the patent is now nintendo's, i guess SK couldn't make a sequel for xbox 360, and nintendo could do something with it. but nintendo may not own the eternal darkness rights. so who knows, it may never happen.
Fonz
08-31-2005, 12:48 AM
So is this the way Nintendo is going to make their money now? By patenting everything they can think of.
code
08-31-2005, 01:01 AM
So what happens to Call of Chulthuthtuthuthlululuthlu now then?
Rafer
08-31-2005, 01:09 AM
Game patents suck. Did you know some company has a patent on "ghost cars" in racing games, and another company has a patent on mini-games during loading screens...
Evil Avatar
08-31-2005, 01:10 AM
They can't patent a pre-existing item. Since this process already existed in Eternal Darkness (which wasn't developed by Nintendo, just financed by Nintendo) they don't have a leg to stand on if someone else wants to include "sanity" in their games.
Vandenh
08-31-2005, 01:10 AM
Nobody messes with CoC!

/grabs shotgun
RevGored
08-31-2005, 01:12 AM
Anyone else notice this patent was filed in 2000, which is prior to Eternal Darkness even coming out? Some of these things take an eternity to go through. This is basically a late confirmation of the patent is all. It's not going to go anywhere.
rainbowblack
08-31-2005, 01:43 AM
its a good thing sanity does not exist in games lol
Jiguryo
08-31-2005, 03:12 AM
Anyone else notice this patent was filed in 2000, which is prior to Eternal Darkness even coming out? Some of these things take an eternity to go through. This is basically a late confirmation of the patent is all. It's not going to go anywhere.

Just a heads up: remember that Eternal Darkness was meant to be released originally on the Nintendo 64? That'd explain why this patent is much, much older than the original release of the game.
bean19
08-31-2005, 03:44 AM
They can't patent a pre-existing item. Since this process already existed in Eternal Darkness (which wasn't developed by Nintendo, just financed by Nintendo) they don't have a leg to stand on if someone else wants to include "sanity" in their games.

This was exactly my reaction.

Can you really patent video game ideas this broadly? That seems a whole lot like a writer deciding to patent the theme of going crazy in the horror genre.
darkwarrior
08-31-2005, 04:00 AM
Would this affect something like Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy for example?

The system is the same but the stimuli for sanity effect is different.
bapenguin
08-31-2005, 04:01 AM
The whole patent process is so f'd up.

Also, Eternal Darkness rocked.
crashedout
08-31-2005, 04:02 AM
They need to disallow this patent, it is an idea patent. Now if they submitted the code or even just the algorithims behind it that would be fine. Like the other poster said you could just patent a ghost car or even a driving game itself, effectivly removing all competition. The patent office was designed for physical inventions not software...they need to overhaul it and soon. My personal 0.02.
SaintArnold
08-31-2005, 04:36 AM
They can't patent a pre-existing item. Since this process already existed in Eternal Darkness (which wasn't developed by Nintendo, just financed by Nintendo) they don't have a leg to stand on if someone else wants to include "sanity" in their games.

They filed in 2000. It wasn't pre-existing then. They do have a leg to stand on.

Agreed with all above that game/software patents suck.
mister_slim
08-31-2005, 04:58 AM
Hmm, it appears to be credited to Dyack and two Nintendo employees.

It's really hard to tell how much of Nintendo's second-party games comes from Nintendo.
Savok
08-31-2005, 05:05 AM
I like Nintendo, but this is just stupid.
XxSATANxX
08-31-2005, 05:26 AM
Not enforceable what we call a junk patent.
A-Team
08-31-2005, 05:31 AM
- Denis Dyack (the third guy you all see listed on the patent) is the CFO of Silicon Knights and directed the production of 'Eternal Darkness'.
- Silicon Knights (up until last year) was a 2nd-party developer for Nintendo

Brandon's note: I like how GameInsider miraculously discovered this news on their own... 10 hours after it was posted on Slashdot (reminds me of... GameSpot?). :D
Tia
08-31-2005, 06:08 AM
oh god, so now companies will start patenting gameplay mechanics? This is way worse than signing exlucives with sporting associations.

I wonder how almost no one yells, if it was EA this thread would have been 20 pages long by now. I guess it is good to see nintendo found a way to make money, since everything else they do lately just plain sucks.
The Iron Weasel
08-31-2005, 06:57 AM
yes i have to agree with the guy that said, what about Indigo Prophecy, that had a system extremely similar, will Nintendo sue or something, although that would be mighty EA like.
Heretic Machine
08-31-2005, 07:02 AM
There was an old PC (now abandonware) game that had a sanity system long before Eternal Darkness... I'll have to look it up later, in class now.
bone_matrix
08-31-2005, 07:12 AM
oh god, so now companies will start patenting gameplay mechanics? This is way worse than signing exlucives with sporting associations.

I wonder how almost no one yells, if it was EA this thread would have been 20 pages long by now. I guess it is good to see nintendo found a way to make money, since everything else they do lately just plain sucks.


I love it when people make a big jump in logic from "one company asked for a patent 5 years ago and finally got it" to "Oh crap, every game company and their dog is doing it now". Nintendo has many patents out there. Many of which were filed years ago and go through years later. This more than likely won't affect anything. Do I know for sure? No. But I'm not going to go into worst case scenario mode and assume thats how everything is going to be.
cppcrusader
08-31-2005, 07:20 AM
This is nothing new, Nintendo files at least 50 patents a day. Most of them are just for things that they might think they'll want to do in the future. They have a patent for a version of the power glove that manipulates 3D holograms. Go ahead and search through patent office's website sometime. There's some crazy stuff to find in there, but its far from user friendly.
XxSATANxX
08-31-2005, 07:51 AM
The last succesful Patent related fight regarding video games involved PONG.

For the most part these things will never stand a test in court. As pointed out here a simple I saw that in such and such game 15 years ago most likely makes the Patent meaningless.

I always respected John Carmack for refusing to Patent anything!

The claims in this document are laughable. I work with IP every day. Nintendo is so stuck in 1980 LOL!
bandersnatch
08-31-2005, 08:29 AM
So is this the way Nintendo is going to make their money now? By patenting everything they can think of.

I wouldn't be surprised.
Librum
08-31-2005, 08:40 AM
Bah. This is just a rip off of the Sanity system from the Call of Cthulhu RPG, anyway. Prior art from about, oh, twenty years ago. Of course, again, they're not patenting the idea (since you can't), they must be trying to patent the systemics involved in the game to show, track and produce the effects of sanity/insanity. But yeah, it's amazing the number of patents that big corporations file on a daily basis, since it would be crazy for them not to. More or less throwing lots of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, from a legal perspective.
Liquidize105
08-31-2005, 10:31 AM
Hmm, it appears to be credited to Dyack and two Nintendo employees.

It's really hard to tell how much of Nintendo's second-party games comes from Nintendo.
You know that's true, Nintendo seems to own all the 2nd party properties from all of Rare's hits - DKC, KI, Banjo, etc. Perhaps they own Eternal Darkness as well.
dr_wily
08-31-2005, 01:56 PM
i still have a sealed copy of this.. never got around to playing it
ElectricMonk
08-31-2005, 04:15 PM
how in the world is this patentable? really the patent office is getting a little beyond it's usefulness.
nonchalance
08-31-2005, 06:59 PM
Can you really patent video game ideas this broadly? That seems a whole lot like a writer deciding to patent the theme of going crazy in the horror genre.

A patent came through earlier this year - forgotten the actual wording, but it patented getting additional points for stylish killing of pedestrians in racing games.
Filed about two years after Carmageddon came out.

We can't have mini-games during loading sequences because of a patent from the early 90's.
Microsoft tried to patent controlling a camera in a 3d game with the mouse.
EA has a number of similarly stupid patents, as does Sony.

I don't like to jump on the America-hating bandwagon, but your stupid legal system is fucking the gaming industry for everybody.
Fix it, you lazy bastards.
mister_slim
08-31-2005, 08:42 PM
You know that's true, Nintendo seems to own all the 2nd party properties from all of Rare's hits - DKC, KI, Banjo, etc. Perhaps they own Eternal Darkness as well.
Actually, I'm pretty sure Rare has the rights to Banjo. They put out Banjo Pilot on the GBA, with THQ as publisher. I was commenting more that it appears that some of the Sanity system idea came from NOA (or so the Redmond addresses on the patent imply) and apparently Geist had a fair amount of input from Miyamoto and other Nintendo employees. They seem pretty hands on with the second-party development.
i still have a sealed copy of this.. never got around to playing it
You should. It's very much worth it. Do it soon though, as the major sticking point is the gameplay, which is aging the worst.
bean19
09-01-2005, 04:06 AM
I wonder if I can patent alliteration, simile, and other literary devices.
Linkreincarnate
09-01-2005, 03:02 PM
I think nintendo is actually patenting a sanity meter and how it is affected not the idea of going insane or having hallucinations as that was all prior art...
Metal Gear anyone?
bean19
09-02-2005, 05:12 AM
I think nintendo is actually patenting a sanity meter and how it is affected not the idea of going insane or having hallucinations as that was all prior art...
Metal Gear anyone?

This probably explains why there has never been an Eternal Darkness clone. This was one of the best games to ever come out for the Gamecube and it is probably one of the least played.

I'd love to see a sequel and would even by another GC for it. . . have to get one eventually for Zelda (and Baiten Kaitos) eventually anyway, although I'll probably just wait for backwards compatability with the Revolution if I can find a friend that will let me borrow their system for a week to beat Zelda.