

Tetris Company sues VC-funded OMGPOP - Keyframe
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22815
Interesting story about IP in video games. I remember there was a discussion here and on gamedev I believe especially about tetris - how you could make a game and just call it something else than tris in the name and you'd be ok. Apparently not, even though OMGPOPs version from the screenshots looks like a blatant ripoff.
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zitterbewegung
I thought this would happen. They changed some of the pieces and such but a
great deal of the games on omgpop are obvious copies of the original games
like bomberman. I bet they will be sued over other games also.

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jrockway
Sued, but will they lose? It's not illegal to clone products. Consider OO.org
and Office, bash and cmd.exe, etc., etc. Same ideas, totally different
implementation. If we start calling ideas "trade dress", there will basically
be no legal way to ever make anything again.

Additionally, the claims from the Tetris Company are very vague. "Geometric
playing pieces formed by four equally-sized, delineated blocks." If other
industries allowed this, we'd have nothing today. Imagine Dell suing IBM
because IBM made a "portable computer with a screen attached to the keyboard
by a hinge". Just because you can come up with words to describe something
you've made doesn't mean you have the exclusive right to make that thing
forever.

(I could come up with an example like this for nearly every real-life object I
own, and every piece of software I use.)

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moe
_I could come up with an example like this for nearly every real-life object I
own, and every piece of software I use._

Same train of thought here.

Most of their criteria could be applied to almost any 2d puzzle game in
existence.

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whughes
Most falling-block 2D puzzle games in existence copied Tetris anyway.. I
suppose they're only bothering to go after the easy targets or the lucrative
ones.

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jwilliams
The history of Tetris and Tetris copyright is an interesting one:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris>

It was developed in the USSR and spread to the West, so the legal implications
have always been a little bit muddy...

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Keyframe
anyone itnerested in this story should read "Game Over" -
[http://www.amazon.com/Game-Over-Nintendo-American-
Industry/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Game-Over-Nintendo-American-
Industry/dp/0679404694/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237589029&sr=8-2)

I got it as a gift with some magazine years ago (and lost it in the mean time)
- but basically it tells the story about nintendo from the startup to the N64
era - quite many pages are related to tetris and negotiations with the Soviet
Union.

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bobbyi
From those screenshots, it looks like Tetris has a pretty strong case here.

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Keyframe
ok, I'm not sure why text is not showing up below link I've posted so here is
copy paste:

Interesting story about IP in video games. I remember there was a discussion
here and on gamedev I believe especially about tetris - how you could make a
game and just call it something else than tris in the name and you'd be ok.
Apparently not, even though OMGPOPs version from the screenshots looks like a
blatant ripoff.

~~~
icey
You can either submit a link, or you can submit text. If you put both in the
submission, only the link will go through.

~~~
Keyframe
Thanks, I didn't know that, seems an odd choice though.

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jrockway
If you want to editorialize, get your own blog. Or, post a comment like
everyone else.

Edit: I don't mean to sound condescending, I am just explaining the reasoning
behind either link or text, but not both.

~~~
unalone
I think the problem is that it sounds like you're talking not about the
submission, but about his comment saying it's weird.

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keltecp11
OMGPOP should back down from this one...

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trickjarrett
Indeed. The Tetris company has always protected their game avidly and they
have a string of successes a mile long as game maker after game maker have
tried to get their own clone out there.

~~~
moe
Anyone else find this disturbing?

Tetris has without a doubt been a huge leap for the puzzle-genre. But that was
24 years ago.

Should ID software be allowed to sue all other 3d shooter makers because they
build on the Wolfenstein idea?

And how do you determine a clone, where do you draw the line? Is Dr.Mario a
clone? What about the zillions of Bust-A-Move and Jewels variants (basically
tetris in reverse)?

