Just a quick question: Could one create a commercial Risk-Clone? Maybe with changed name, World map etc.? Thanks for your advice!

The common answer to that: read this

OK, thanks :-)
I think this answers my question with YES:

"5. What if the only thing I want to borrow is the gameplay - say, the idea of jumping on things and collecting coins?
Fine. Don't worry about it. "

Quote: Original post by VanKurt
OK, thanks :-)
I think this answers my question with YES:
"5. What if the only thing I want to borrow is the gameplay - say, the idea of jumping on things and collecting coins?
Fine. Don't worry about it. "

You realize I'm not a lawyer, right? That wasn't legal advice.
There's an exception to every rule. Including the previous sentence.
If you copy the gameplay too closely, you can still get sued.

Quote: Original post by VanKurt
Could one create a commercial Risk-Clone? Maybe with changed name, World map etc.?

You may or may not be legal, but ONLY THE COURTS CAN DECIDE if it infringes or not.

So you might need to defend it in court.

Note that a few people like Soleau Software were able to defend their products successfully, but they had some big changes to the gameplay, and it was also a few years ago when Hasbro was less careful about computer adaptations.

Hasbro owns Risk, and Hasbro has an exclusive publishing agreement with Electronic Arts. Hasbro started cracking down hard on electronic clones of their games about a decade ago, and they show no signs of stopping. EA also has their share of takedowns.




Can you afford to go up against both Hasbro and EA?

Even if you are correctly within your rights, you and your lawyer will still have some legal hurdles to jump before you are in the clear.

To take this in a slightly different direction. Why would I want to (pay for and) play a Risk clone since there is an actual Risk game I could play instead? That need has already been filled multiple times. Why not try to do something new and interesting?

AFAIK SillySoft have never been challenged about their game Lux. Take that as you will, but I'd guess that they're fairly safe (but not completely!) because the game is so configuarable - it's a risk-like game that happens to have a risk-like map along with hundreds of quite different ones.

stonemetal: I think Lux is better than any of the official Risk games, but I see your point.

The short answer is "it depends". It depends on what you want to use, why you're using it, and how you're getting the content for your project. If you're risk avoidant, which apparently you're not, you would come up with something original. Since you are not risk avoidant, you might as well mitigate your risk by either asking permission or consulting an attorney. Most attorneys, myself included, provide some free consultation/counseling with regard to this sort of thing.

You can find where I've written about this here.

Also, in the future, could you please do a search prior to posting questions? Especially as this one has been asked about 3 times in the past week.

Quote: Wikipedia
In 2005, Hasbro bought back the digital gaming rights for their properties from Atari for $65 million. In the deal, Atari's parent company acquired a 10 year exclusive deal to produce video games based on 10 key Hasbro franchises, including Dungeons & Dragons, Monopoly, Scrabble, Game of Life, Battleship, Clue, Yahtzee, Simon, Risk and Boggle.