Hello fellow developers,

I'm thinking about an issue. When presenting my game in one or two sentences on my website, social media and what have you, can I mention the name of another game to say that I got inspired by it? Is it legal?

The purpose of doing so would be to give people an idea of the gameplay right away and to engage the fans of that other game. However I'm thinking, is it in my interest? Wouldn't I give a high expectation that could ruin the perception of my game then?

I would like to hear your knowledge and opinions.

Thanks ?

have seen games mentioning inspiration sources on steam, as far I know, game mechanics cannot be copyrighted, only assets.

Please correct me if i am wrong.

@AxeThrower I think you're right… You know it's a little scary to mention a long-term big title.

You can mention games that inspired the design, it's not illegal. But doing so might draw attention from the IP owners, who then might look for places where you were “over-inspired” (where it looks to them like you copied their IP). As for whether the mentions might raise user expectations, or otherwise attract criticism, that's something a marketing person might better answer.

@Tom Sloper Places where I'm “over-inspired”… that worries me. Cause my game is very similar in many aspects.

Tomsudobrej said:
However I'm thinking, is it in my interest? Wouldn't I give a high expectation that could ruin the perception of my game then?

Maybe you can dodge this by not mentioning the other game, but just the genre of both games as precise as possible.

@JoeJ Yeah, I have a one sentence description with a generic genere followed by what you do in the game.

Tomsudobrej said:
Yeah, I have a one sentence description with a generic genere followed by what you do in the game.

After some thinking back and forth, i think that's better.
It's clear mentioning the source of inspiration aims to provide a lot of information to others, but you do not know about their associations and expectations, so the 'lot of information' becomes more of a ‘lot of potential misunderstanding’ in the end.
And, while it's usual practice for us to copy mechanics from older games, it's not really something we may want point out, because it also is a bit of admitting a lack of innovation on our side.

Edit: One more:
The ‘lots of information’ associated to the older game is a product of effort and success for this older game. So by using it's name for a description, you somehow steal some of the effort invested into making the older game successful and well known.
Maybe this goes too far and beyond of just ‘taking inspiration’.

So from my side it seems clearly a ‘no’ now.

@JoeJ Well, I fully admit the lack of innovation in this game, it's like when someone makes a FPS classic thing that's like a retro remake of Doom, you really aim for that. As for the “a lot of potential misunderstanding” that's a worry of mine. But as @Tom Sloper said, I'm also worried about the “too much similar” issue to not being sueable…

JoeJ said:

Edit: One more:
The ‘lots of information’ associated to the older game is a product of effort and success for this older game. So by using it's name for a description, you somehow steal some of the effort invested into making the older game successful and well known.
Maybe this goes too far and beyond of just ‘taking inspiration’.

So from my side it seems clearly a ‘no’ now.

Yeah, I think so but more because it's better to not connect my game to that other in any way to not “attract attention”, let's say. But if I wanted to point out how the game works, I wouldn't mind mentioning the other game. I wouldn't feel like stealing, it would be just to say like “hey, you liked this, this could be for you”.