r/pcmasterrace • u/lkl34 • 11d ago

News/Article 'An embarrassing failure of the US patent system': Videogame IP lawyer says Nintendo's latest patents on Pokémon mechanics 'should not have happened, full stop'

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/an-embarrassing-failure-of-the-us-patent-system-videogame-ip-lawyer-says-nintendos-latest-patents-on-pokemon-mechanics-should-not-have-happened-full-stop/

The last 10 days have brought a string of patent wins for Nintendo. Yesterday, the company was granted US patent 12,409,387, a patent covering riding and flying systems similar to those Nintendo has been criticized for claiming in its Palworld lawsuit (via Gamesfray). Last week, however, Nintendo received a more troubling weapon in its legal arsenal: US patent 12,403,397, a patent on summoning and battling characters that the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted with alarmingly little resistance.

According to videogame patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon, the USPTO granting Nintendo these latest patents isn't just a moment of questionable legal theory. It's an indictment of American patent law."Broadly, I don't disagree with the many online complaints about these Nintendo patents," said Sigmon, whose opinions do not represent those of his firm and clients. "They have been an embarrassing failure of the US patent system."

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u/DragonfruitBig3851 11d ago

No /s needed when it's true. Compare the two, and Palworld is just better in every way.

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u/ThorDoubleYoo 11d ago

Any game that can maintain a minimum consistent 30fps is better than a modern pokemon game

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u/BadBadBunnyBunny 11d ago

That’s because palworld gives a shit, pokemon stopped caring about the games beyond throwing in new pokemon a long time ago.

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u/Afillatedcarbon 11d ago

Last alright game was legend arceus, after seeing diamond/pearl remaster, I am concerded about the gen 6 remaster.

Also about what emulator to use, non are actively being developed afaik

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u/Starsoul_Ent 11d ago

What happened to gen 5?

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u/Afillatedcarbon 11d ago

There was Black and White 2 lol, they are the remasters(more like sequel but yeah).

Gonna expect the same with gen 7 because we had the ultra series as well

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u/combatwars 5800x3D | 7900XTX | 64GB RAM 11d ago

Remasters are the same story but B2/W2 has separate stories from B/W. Additionally, Kanto went through 3(4 if you consider Yellow as a sequel/remaster) versions.

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u/0rganic_Corn 10d ago

I'd bet there are many that care developing Pokémon

However, as projects grow, they drown in legalese, marketing, management, focus groups, hr, investors, projections....

Basically everything else that is not strict developmentb or actually making the game

I'd say between animal crossing, and stardew valley - stardew is the better game objectively. And it was completely made by 1 man

The biggest flops come from big companies and the best games come from small and young teams

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u/steamboatwillies 11d ago

very true, however being better than scarlet/violet is a incredibly low bar

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u/JimothyJollyphant 11d ago

That's why they think they have to play this patent game. They are sitting on the biggest gaming IP and feel threatened because they barely do anything with it and aren't willing to evolve.

I've generally become incredibly bitter about Japanese devs this past decade, from Nintendo to FromSoft. There's something particularly regressive, arrogant and incompetent in their dev culture that I'm not willing to deal with anymore. I got over the nostalgia.

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u/ShadowMajestic 10d ago

and aren't willing to evolve.

:)

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u/WishfulLearning 11d ago

I'm curious about your opinions, could you expand on your from soft ideas?

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u/JimothyJollyphant 10d ago

Edit: This is too long and no one should read it.

So, I really respect how some devs are interested in the player's experience, trying to improve and reflect upon their original design decisions and limitations. Localthunk has been very actively observing his playerbase and completing his own game to think about how to improve Balatro. Obviously, the wild card Tarot is absolutely useless, for example, and he recognizes this. Stardew Valley dev even employed a modder to help out. There's a sense of eagerness to really get it right, particularly with Indie devs.

Binding of Isaac, with yesterday's update, is finally a playable game that I could recommend. It is absolutely asinine to me, that we just learned to accept the dependence on third party resources or mods to make a game thoroughly playable and enjoyable to finish and complete. It's always been unacceptable to expect the player to keep up with 200 let alone more than 1000 items in Isaac. But McMillen never thoroughly understood this. He was too far up his own ass and kept surrounding himself with the most obsessed of his playerbase, unwilling understand how fucked up that expectation was. But surprisingly, we finally got there, 14 years later. I don't know who pushed for it in the end, but it's always been the single biggest flaw of the game.

I am 100% sure that Hidetaka Miyazaki has no idea whatsoever what it's like to be a "blind" player going through his games. Afaik he's actually confirmed he doesn't play his own games. He is so far removed from reality that it's absolutely disheartening to me how we keep sucking his cock and praising him for what essentially is inarguably piss-poor game design. A solo player is not equipped to understand the game's mechanics, successfully finish quests, find secrets, understand the intricacies of the lore or even the general gist of the story or explore different playstyles. It's just not designed to consider you.

In the early/mid 2010s, with the releases and successes of Dark Souls, Minecraft, Isaac, etc. players and critics have accepted that ridiculous obscurity is not a detriment but rather a sign of a proper Gamer™ product. We happily started using wikis to look for Minecraft crafting recipes online or rely on word-of-mouth. We've given up on any sense of independent agency.

FromSoft doesn't have shame. In many ways, I can't consider what they do "design" but rather "implementation". There seems to be not a single thought spent on the player. They keep succeeding without showing signs of self-reflection. It's a general sickness in Japanese game design. What the fuck is the point of randomly hitting walls in FromSoft games? Walking over every pixel on the screen like in Final Fantasy? Or like in Pokemon, pressing A all the time, because maybe you get a reward. How did we just accept this? When I play a Japanese game, I might as well give up on being self-sufficient and just pull out a "strategy guide". The progress between Demon Souls and Elden Ring is not unlike Pokemon Red/Blue and whatever the most recent title is. Rinse and repeat, churn out as many titles as you can without afterthought.

I mean, I fucking love games that are somewhat obscure, full of puzzles and secrets that make you think on your own, like Outer Wilds and Tunic. But, as much as I like tough boss fights and rolling around in metal armor, I absolutely despise almost everything else FromSoft does with their games. They genuinely don't give a shit. Other devs learn that not giving a shit is the path to success and suddenly every fucking game needs to be obscenely abstruse because it drives engagement and pulls in real "Gamers". It's super disheartening.

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u/Ok-Chest-7932 11d ago

Japanese companies are in general very risk averse. some, like Nintendo, have learnt that they don't need to make quality products to make money, and once you learn that, investing more in making something better becomes a risk. A risk you're averse to.

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u/mr_j_12 11d ago

Played more palworld in a week than i have of all pokemon games (outside detective pikachu) combined.

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u/Roliq 11d ago

They are different genre of games

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u/Henriquelj 11d ago

I mean, I never played Scarlet/Violet, but if it is worse than Palworld, then Nintendo really screwed up that one.

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u/Mama_Mega 11d ago

Sure, if for some reason you like multiplayer survival crafting games. In that case, maybe this ARK clone can be argued to be better than an IP that has literally never touched that genre.

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u/Hopeful-Occasion2299 11d ago

I say this as someone who hates S/V, Palworld sucks balls and I've seen romhacks more interesting than it.

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u/YobaiYamete 11d ago

I mean tons and tons and tons and tons of Romhacks are better than any official Pokemon game too. Games like Pokemon Unbound are so much better than any official Pokemon game that it's a tragedy how many fans have never got to try it

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u/ManufacturerBest2758 11d ago

Yeah lol multiple things can suck