This is in a scenario where you have no professional experience and is hypothetical of course.... but lets say I''m a student at university and I''ve spent months thinking up all these great ideas for a game and then properly recorded and presented them in a formal document. After I have done this do I just send the document off to a publisher, but then risk the chance that they could just steal my idea and not even hire me, or are they prohibited doing that because of copyright? What exactly do you do with a game proposal after you''ve created it? Yes... I''m a n00b and it shows

Company’s will almost never steal an unknowns idea, unless they are really really dodgy and don’t mind being caught. Your game idea is protected under intellectual copywrite, and as long as you can prove its yours, you have ''legal'' writes to it. Say you send your idea of to a company and they think ''This is a good idea, but we anit paying this little kid for it'' and decide to make the game anyway without letting you know. Two years down the track, the game hits the market, and your left trying to convince your mates that it’s your game. What happens? You take the self addressed, dated envelope you stored all your records, drafts, notes, etc. in to a court, open it and prove to them the company did steal it since you can show that you sent them the documents before they started work on it, and that you in fact were the creator. If they agree (which they will if you are telling the truth), then the companies in big trouble.

So, no companies going to steal your idea because you will nearly always have proof that you came up with the concept first. Nobody is going to risk their company’s future over the few thousand they can buy the idea off you for.

Wrong on so many levels...

You want to send a proposal to a publisher? What''s he going to do, publish your game proposal? And you expect to get paid for that?

A publisher wants someone who''s invested something more than two pens and a few sheets of paper. If you don''t have at the least a prototype of your game up and running - and this holds for industry veterans as well, such as when Chris Crawford went to Microsoft - publishers won''t give you the time of day.

The self-addressed envelope thing doesn''t stand either, because it doesn''t prove that the accused party were aware of its existence. Otherwise I''d simply invest in mailing myself game ideas and collect royalties when other people had brought them to life through hard work and tears. I suggest you both do a search on "copyright" in the Business of Game Development forum; you might learn a lot.

Even developers (you do know that developers are not the same as publishers? and that many publishers don''t maintain in-house developers, right?) won''t touch your ideas because of a.) IP issues; and b.) their own in-house game designers with years of industry experience and successful product deliveries.

Sorry if this sounds a little rude or condescending. It''s my fault really, since I''ve been on these forums for a while (lurking even before I joined) and the issue was quite thoroughly hashed in late 2000/early 2001.

Uh, thats hilarious, not intentional flame or anything.

Remember to just put this message with your proposal "plz don''t copy my idea I wunt monay"

quote: Original post by boolean
You take the self addressed, dated envelope...

Regardless of the many other errors in your rambling, this is a myth that is just plain wrong. Mailing yourself a copy of anything proves nothing, especially since the post office is quite happy to deliver an empty, unsealed envelope.

Put it in a safe deposit box. Ask the bank/security company to make sure it remains closed until you need to open it to show to the court. Wonder if that''s proof enough...

quote: Original post by Voxelsoft
Put it in a safe deposit box. Ask the bank/security company to make sure it remains closed until you need to open it to show to the court. Wonder if that''s proof enough...

It isn''t.

You need to submit a copy to your local copyright authority. In the US, that''s the library of congress.

This will ensure copyright protection.

HOWEVER... a game idea does not qualify for copyright protection. You can copyright documents, not ideas. You''ll have _no_ legal protection unless you can convince the publisher/developer to sign an NDA with you. And that''s just not going to happen.

Submitting game ideas or design documents to publisher or developers just doesn''t work, period. Get a team, make a demo.

people generally do not accept ideas because of the possible risk that a company is already wirking secretly on a game with similar ideas.

If you submit a proposal, then 3 months from now a game with your ideas is published, there wil lbe the risk of legal issues.

A quote from a game company:
......
Company policy prevents us from accepting any unsolicited ideas for review. Sometimes an idea is submitted that is virtually identical to an idea already in development here at TimeGate. To protect themselves from potential lawsuits, most companies have adopted the policy of refusing to accept or look at any unsolicited submissions or ideas.
....

Whoah! Slow down a second! I know that what I posted was a big generilisation, I was just mearly explaining intelectual copywrite in general, and how you can proove it if you need to. I know games are a but different since you could say that my idea of a mech game was stolen by the mechwarrior series. The post I made was more WHY companies wont steal your ideas, not the nitty gritty detail of your rights. The theory I posted above mainly only works with things like books, cartoon charatcers etc.

Can we close this post?

You should read this (link should forward you to "How much can I get for this great game idea I''ve got? Who do I sell it to?") in the general forum FAQ, as well as a bit of the business forum FAQ