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Shad0wstr1k3
22-08-2009, 09:34 PM
I've been wondering. Me and my friend have many brillient game ideas, but are rubbish at actually making games. Is is possible to patient, or even just sell your ideas to game developement companies?

If so, how would one go about doing it?

ShadowMaster
22-08-2009, 11:13 PM
Even if you could patent the ideas (which I strongly doubt), patenting something is really expensive.

Secondly ideas are a dime a dozen and what is to say your ideas are truly brilliant. People won't buy a rough idea.

There are only two ways to get your ideas turned into games, either make it yourself or write a proper design document, with every nook and cranny of your game idea explained. And the latter requires you to be a famous game designer for the big companies to even consider your idea.

The problem is making games is hard. You can't expect to fling around a little idea and getting paid for it. The amount of effort you put into that idea is less than a thousandth of a percentile of the effort that's put in to rest of the game: the design(ie expanding your idea), programming, graphics, sound, testing, publishing, etc etc.

It's unreasonable to expect to get anything for that little bit of effort you put in. It's unfair to the team that actually made the game, sure your idea was the inspiration, that made the game possible, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. So unless you and your friend are willing to put in some effort, you will never see your ideas turned into games and if you're really lucky money. This is the harsh truth.

So my suggestion is to learn how to make games, we'll be glad to help :) , or distill your game into a design document and get a team together to make it, and again we'll be glad to help you with small little ideas and suggestions. No one will steal your ideas so feel free to share them and you will get better ones back. ;)

Nandrew
22-08-2009, 11:32 PM
Nail. Head. Etc.

You could probably have an idea, and then hunt down people to work on it WITH YOU to make it a reality. But the above pretty much sums up what you'd come across otherwise.

In any case, with regards to patents, I recall that while you can patent concepts and techniques (or ideas) such as "device which inhales dust through creation of a vacuum", that would only be permissible AFTER you've displayed a proof of concept (a working vacuum cleaner design). Tetris has several legal intellectual connections to its particular form of play for example (and its creators have clashed with other companies on more than one occasion over this), but none of those intellectual protections would have existed before there actually WAS a Tetris to protect.

Nandrew
22-08-2009, 11:33 PM
... oh man, this thread is already reminding me way too much of Tim Langdell. >.<

dislekcia
23-08-2009, 01:26 AM
I used to get a lot of phonecalls from people trying to sell me ideas. The best was when they'd insist I pay them first before I could hear the idea, because it was that ground-breaking ;)

Every developer has more ideas than they have time to work on things. That's just the way creative people work.

Fengol
23-08-2009, 07:33 AM
I suggest you put your idea in a design doc and share it with the forum. Dev'ing from a spec is easier than making it up as you go along, so you might find it easier to build yourself and get the community to help you with the code. Word is also the primary tool for a game designer

Shad0wstr1k3
23-08-2009, 01:00 PM
Thanks so much for all the great advice. I am going to get back to game maker and try to make a decent game. Thanks again. (you guys are probably going to see a lot of me on the game maker help thread)

Thanks again (again)