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A Case Study in Casual Gaming: Genericide

By now, it should be clear that my area of interest lies in the various ways in which video games and the American legal framework interact. For casual games, especially, the market seems to focus more on protecting the identifying aspects of the games that can be used or registered as a trademark, and less on the creative or functional elements, which would be better protected by copyright or patent law.

Some companies have more aggressive trademark registration practices than others, and one such company is going to be the focus of discussion this week. Before getting into specifics, however, a few words on popularity and the dangers of trademark genericide.

Various games become “iconic” for a genre of game, with the title often used as an example for the whole group, rather than describing the group by using the more generic category. This can be both a blessing and a curse, as it proves that consumers are highly aware of the product or game, but it can lead to “genericide” where the brand name becomes the generic term for that type of product.

Certain steps are taken by the trademark owner to prevent this process from totally destroying the effort and marketing put into building and controlling the brand, such as reminding consumers not to use the brand as a verb (to photocopy, not to Xerox) and not to refer to all types of the product by the individual brand (smartphones not iPhones). Some companies brave the dangers of genericide by promoting their brand as a verb, with “to Google” being the clearest example of a brand that dominates the market, and yet still has a powerful name.

Once a trademark has been registered, it remains protectable by the owner so long as they keep their fees up to date, and the mark is not rendered unenforceable in court. Most trademarks that have lost protection in the US for becoming generic have been attacked in this fashion, with only a few companies or industries taking on the challenge of proving to the US Patent and Trademark Office that the term is now in general use and is no longer indicative of any one brand within that particular market. Some examples of words that have lost value in the US are: aspirin, heroin (it was registered at one point), butterscotch, zipper, and escalator. Kleenex is not generic in the US, nor is Xerox, although both came close in the 1980s, and the owners have to remain vigilant.

What does all of this have to do with casual games? Once a type of game comes to represent the rest of the genre, then the value in that game may be significantly decreased. Casual game development cycles are shorter than “traditional” games, and what makes one successful and another not may have less to do with game mechanics and more to do with individual style. Genericide in the casual games market happens when one company introduces an innovative element to a game, and everyone else rushes to copy it.

It happens too fast for much to be done about it, especially if the original company copied something else to create their “innovation” but once everyone uses a thing, and consumers associate the innovation with the type of game rather than the first adopter, that element is nearly unprotectable. Many game developers are too busy working on the next game to have a solid protection plan in place before releasing their game, and many more don’t mind the borrowing by other companies.

Tuesday: A company with a Trademark Protection Plan, and the interest in protecting their IP.

Posted in Monday: Legal Landscape.

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First Person Shooters

Last week I asked for suggestions on what I should write about, and the only comment to the blog asked me my opinion on first person shooters (FPS). For those of you who might not know what an FPS is, it is a game from the first person perspective (so you usually don’t see your character on screen) where the main point of the game is to shoot things, or defend yourself. They often cross over into survival or survival horror games, too.

I don’t like them. It’s not so much the twitchy coordination needed for being a sniper, or hand eye coordination needed for aiming, rather it’s the fact that most of the FPS on the market are better in multiplayer. I quite enjoyed playing Goldeneye with groups of people, because the trash talking was amusing, some of the levels were fun, and it was great to have a 5-15 minutes game where everyone was on the same skill level.

I don’t live with or near enough people who play console video games that getting people together physically in one room is really possible anymore, and I’m not so keen on playing online with random people who are 12. And often jerks. I’m somewhat hesitant to play online, not just because I don’t like the MM part of MMORPGs, because I get a lot more grief for being a girl, especially in games that are considered more traditionally “male.”

So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that I don’t play the game, so I’m not good enough at it to defend my gender against the claims that we don’t know how to play FPS, and I don’t enjoy them enough to want to play in spite of the griefing. There have been a number of quite interesting looking FPS games, but I’m also not as much a fan of the horror genre, so I’m not really interested in playing Dead Space or Left for Dead. Halo is right out.

I do enjoy adventure games that have FPS shooter portions, but I don’t find FPS engaging enough by itself to really seek out and spend a lot of time playing. And thank you for your question!

Posted in Friday: Game Review.


The Daily Mail and Unrelated Games

The mainstream media is sometimes forced by deadlines to cut corners on research and verification of their news stories. When the failure to double check the validity of the information is combined with the original source’s lack of familiarity with the many types and sources of video game content, then the story becomes twisted by what would in other cases be a minor typographical error.

What does all this complicated language mean? It means when a mother is prosecuted for child neglect because she played an online video game, and the court refers to it by name as Small World, the reporter writes that down and reports that as the title of the “evil Facebook game time waster.” Except the game in question was actually “Small Worlds,” and “Small World” (no plural) doesn’t have an online version, much less a Facebook variant.

And then the newspaper used images from a further unrelated game (Warhammer 40k) to illustrate the issue. The paper later issued a retraction apologizing for the error, but only stated that the name they had used was incorrect, and did not replace the name with another. The Warhammer picture was taken down at the request of the IP owner (woo!) and the story itself has vanished from the Daily Mail website.

However, as with any news, one has to consider the source of the information. While the UK courts are certainly among the best in the world, they are not generally populated by the young or the gamer, but Facebook gamers come from the mainstream, and not just the smart and tech savvy. The Daily Mail is also not a paper for the younger reader, with their audience considered to be the middle of the UK. Middle aged, middle class, and with middling concerns. More likely to frown on any video game use, and more likely to become incensed at the idea of a mother neglecting her children to take care of virtual property.

That the mother neglected her children is a sad truth, and for most people the details of her addiction don’t matter. But for the developers of Facebook games, which have exploded in popularity over the past few years, being known by the correct name is vital. With so many similar games sharing space, the difference of a letter or a word can make the difference between 50 monthly users, and 5,000,000.

Posted in Tuesday: Potpourri.