{"id":8496,"date":"2022-01-14T17:10:43","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T08:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=8496"},"modified":"2022-06-01T15:40:00","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T06:40:00","slug":"20220114-8496","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220114-8496\/","title":{"rendered":"The measures game developers take to avoid unsolicited ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Written by. Nick Mosier based on the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/articles\/newsjp\/20220113-188617\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">original Japanese article<\/a>&nbsp;(original article&#8217;s publication date: JST)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>If you\u2019re a gamer, you\u2019ve probably thought to yourself, \u201cI wish that game had this feature,\u201d or, \u201cI wish that company would make this kind of game.\u201d Social media and forums are full of these kinds of discussions, and developers also look to these places to see what\u2019s being said about their games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what if you want to send your brilliant idea to a game developer directly? From a developer\u2019s perspective, receiving these kinds of ideas appears to be unwelcome. A tweet from former Sega employee Noriyuki Shimoda on the matter has been gaining attention online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u30b2\u30fc\u30e0\u4f1a\u793e\u306e\u5fa1\u610f\u898b\u53d7\u4ed8\u6b04\u306b\u300c\u9001\u3089\u308c\u305f\u30a2\u30a4\u30c7\u30a3\u30a2\u985e\u306e\u6a29\u5229\u306f\u3059\u3079\u3066\u30b2\u30fc\u30e0\u4f1a\u793e\u306e\u3082\u306e\u306b\u306a\u308b\u300d\u3068\u66f8\u304b\u308c\u3066\u3044\u308b\u306e\u306f\u306a\u306b\u3082\u30d1\u30af\u308d\u3046\u3068\u304b\u3044\u3046\u3093\u3058\u3083\u306a\u304f\u3066\u3001\u4e00\u65b9\u7684\u306b\u9001\u308a\u3064\u3051\u3089\u308c\u305f\u3042\u3052\u304f\u6a29\u5229\u4e3b\u5f35\u3055\u308c\u304b\u306d\u306a\u3044\u300c\u30a2\u30a4\u30c7\u30a3\u30a2\u300d\u62bc\u3057\u58f2\u308a\u304b\u3089\u9632\u885b\u3059\u308b\u305f\u3081\u306a\u3093\u3067\u3059\u3088\u306d\u3002<\/p>&mdash; \u4e0b\u7530 \u7d00\u4e4b|\u30e2\u30c8\u30b7\u30e2\u30c0 (@noshimoda) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/noshimoda\/status\/1480911761222270978?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 11, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><figcaption><font size=\"2\"><strong>Tweet Translation:<\/strong><\/font><br><font size=\"2\">When a game company\u2019s contact form says the company retains the rights to any ideas they are sent, it\u2019s not to nab someone\u2019s idea, but to protect themselves from someone claiming ownership over an idea they peddled onto a company.<\/font><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Shimoda worked as a producer at Sega on titles like <em>Border Break<\/em>, <em>After Burner: Climax<\/em>, and <em>Ghost Squad<\/em>. Shimoda has since left the company and is working as a teacher. Shimoda\u2019s tweet points out that game companies take measures to prevent receiving unsolicited ideas as to not have users claiming idea theft. And as confirmed by Shimoda, he is not talking about his former company Sega, but the industry as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bandai Namco\u2019s Katsuhiro Harada of <em>Tekken<\/em> fame also previously <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Harada_TEKKEN\/status\/438368698894536704\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">discussed an example<\/a> of a fan claiming ownership of an idea back in 2014. He said that because part of a game had coincidental similarities, a fan claimed it was their idea being used. A person can send their idea to a game developer unsolicited as say a sketch or an illustration, and even if the development team doesn\u2019t lay an eye on it, they can step forward and say their idea was used and claim ownership of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also brought up an example from over 20 years ago where they were accepting ideas for a game. Despite the submitter signing their consent regarding ownership, the submitter\u2019s parent caused a dispute by demanding a cut of any profits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From this experience, Harada said that outside of some kind of PR campaign, they don\u2019t invite ideas from the public. On top of that, he also said that if developers happen to see an unsolicited idea, they\u2019ll consider avoiding something like it all together due to the high level of risk involved.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s steer the conversation back to what companies are doing to mitigate this risk. Game companies implement various measures in their contact forms. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bandainamcoent.co.jp\/info\/contact.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bandai Namco<\/a> for example notes on their contact page, \u201cWe do not accept any sort of projects or plans from customers. In the event that we do receive such a message, it will be deleted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamefreak.co.jp\/contact\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Game Freak<\/a>, the developers behind the Pok\u00e9mon series, also have a similar message saying, \u201cPlease refrain from sending any requests regarding ideas (e.g. proposal, design, script etc). All requests sent by customers are checked by staff who are NOT directly involved in game design. In the case that ideas are included, we will dispose of, or return them without any other staff, development or otherwise, knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/help.ea.com\/en\/help\/faq\/how-do-i-submit-my-idea-for-a-game\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">EA<\/a> has a similar message stating, \u201cWe\u2019re not able to accept product ideas or game concepts from non-employees outside of Electronic Arts.\u201d They explain that &#8220;We receive thousands each year, and unfortunately due to the volume of these unsolicited submissions and ideas, we simply can\u2019t review or consider them. In fact, because we can\u2019t consider them, we can\u2019t even keep them \u2013 we have to return or delete all unsolicited submission materials that we receive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When it comes to Shimoda\u2019s former employer <a href=\"https:\/\/sega.jp\/contact\/kojin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sega<\/a>, they have this to say regarding receiving unsolicited ideas. \u201cWe have no responsibility to evaluate, consider, use, or keep secret any suggestions sent to us. Furthermore, neither Sega, nor any company under the Sega Sammy Holdings umbrella have any liability, including financially, if any of our products or services are similar to an idea we receive.\u201d There\u2019s no allusion to returning any materials or discarding them, but consent to the above conditions is required to send a message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can gather that companies are thorough in keeping ideas from fans from crossing the eyes of development staff in the first place. You could also say making that clear is one measure to avoid risk as well. Sega\u2019s message takes a somewhat different approach, but they also look to be trying to mitigate the same risk.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In general, game ideas themselves aren\u2019t protected as copyright, and if you want to protect such an idea, you must obtain a patent. But Shimoda says people that peddle their ideas pay no mind to these laws and make their claims anyway, so it\u2019s best for companies to play it safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/strebecklaw.com\/are-you-at-legal-risk-when-you-take-unsolicited-game-ideas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Zachary Strebeck<\/a>, an American lawyer involved in the games industry, even if there\u2019s not a contract with someone who has sent an idea, it\u2019s possible that a court can decide there\u2019s an implied contractual relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, no matter how great your game idea is, pushing it off onto a game company will not lead to it becoming a reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The measures game developers take to avoid unsolicited ideas. A tweet from a former Sega employee on the matter has been gaining attention online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":8498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-8496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The measures game developers take to avoid unsolicited ideas - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The measures game developers take to avoid unsolicited ideas. 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Loves gaming news from Japan and abroad. 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