Hello,

Recently I got an idea of a game that I never saw before. Its a game idea that was never implemented (at least one i know of, and i searched internet a bit). My question is if I have an idea, how I can be sure that no one else use/steal it? I want to make the game but i don't have the skills at the moment and I don't want that another dev do it before me. For example: if you have created pong. How can you be the only one owner of the game? Do I have to patent it or something?

Impossible to do. Game concepts can't be patented generally. Your best bet is copyright and trade secrets. That is when you create your characters and world your art and characters will be copyrighted. Trade secrets in this case means don't tell anyone until you release it. After you release it others can copy your gameplay and mechanics as much as they want. It's important if you do something unique to do it the best.

Don't forget that their might be a technical reason why people have not done the gameplay/mechanics you envision. either your idea might be far too grand for modern computer(or alternatively the time/investment to make it would be infeasible), or the concept never made it pass testing, and was found to not be very enjoyable.

edit: also, laws change from country to country, which makes it impossible to 100% protect your idea. However, i'd like to add from personal experience that peronoia of an idea being stolen is generally unfounded, by the time the people with the capability to "steal" your idea find out about it, it's likely you will already have a near complete product.

if I have an idea, how I can be sure that no one else use/steal it?

You can't. You can file a patent on your gameplay mechanic (you can't copyright it and you can't trademark it), but it costs money to go to court with someone who uses it. Whether or not you patent it, chances are good that someone else has thought of it or will think of it independently of your thinking of it.

By the way, idea-protection is a legal question, so I moved your thread to the Business/Law forum.

It will be sad to see this game made by someone else because I think at this idea since 1 year ago and now gathering skills to make it.

The good news is that every other game developer worth talking about has at least one, if not more, ideas that they are more interested in pursing. The probability of a direct collision is low enough, and is proportional to how "original" your idea actually is.

Don't worry about it. Even if you shout it from the rooftops, it probably won't change the likelihood that someone else implements the idea before you.

Of course, if your idea is so ambitious that it would require a AAA team to build it, then the chances that anyone gets to implement it are vanishingly low.

Don't worry about it. Even if you shout it from the rooftops, it probably won't change the likelihood that someone else implements the idea before you.

True. If your idea is any good, you have to shove it down people's throats.

The cold, hard truth is your idea is worthless without the execution. Like everyone else said, anyone with the skills to steal it does not care about it anyways. Literally, you could post it here with diagrams, pictures, concept art and nobody on gamedev.net will likely give it anything above a "cool, show me it when it's released".

Don't worry about stealing ideas, worry about executing your vision and releasing it.

I totally understand that. 2 years ago when I made my first c++ program (Hello world!) and I started to learn about programing for games I never thought it to be so hard and this industry to be so business like and rough. But I like to do this and this is what I will do for my entire life I hope.

Hello,

Recently I got an idea of a game that I never saw before. Its a game idea that was never implemented (at least one i know of, and i searched internet a bit). My question is if I have an idea, how I can be sure that no one else use/steal it? I want to make the game but i don't have the skills at the moment and I don't want that another dev do it before me. For example: if you have created pong. How can you be the only one owner of the game? Do I have to patent it or something?

Dont do that - Think it would be terrible for you not to use this idea (you thinking on) because other man had blocked it