Arthur Parsons - TT Games Game Director

This week we had the game director from Traveller’s Tales talk to us, a man with credits on games from 1998’s A Bug’s Life to the recent LEGO titles. Focusing on intellectual property and how to develop video games by fully utilising the access given by IP licensing.

My report will talk about this IP development and how to get the most out of the property, as well as discussing what an IP really means to a developer.

Intellectual Property

For Arthur at TT Games, he has access to a major worldwide franchise, LEGO, which means he can utilise every aspect of it to create games and experiences to sell. His talk shared some very useful information about fully using an IP license, and gave three great points to remember:

• Know the IP - Make sure to understand every inch of it.

• Get creative with the IP - Use it in ways not commonly thought of.

• Use all of the IP - There is no point only using a small part of something.

I personally have never really thought about IP development, so seeing this information has shown me the importance of making the most of what you have in game development, especially if you pay good money for the opportunity.

Modern day gaming has shown the importance of IPs, with sales of physical copies of video games on the decline, developers are no longer manufacturing items to sell, only offering licences to people to use their products. An IP attorney on techli.com (Siders, 2013) talks about how the IP is all a developer has anymore and the information around protecting the ideas they create.

However, this protection can't cover the core idea of a game (i.e. game mechanics), the IP owned by a developer will stop people stealing art assets and code but competitors can easily recreate the same game with their own assets. The article (Siders, 2013) has a good example of this:

"For example, an internal THAC0 table for an RPG might be a trade secret, but the mechanics of the RPG advancement system generally are not."

In conclusion, an intellectual property is what protects a developer, whether it's 343 Industries with Halo or Arthur and LEGO, but ultimately you cannot patent a core component that makes great game play. But it is important to fully understand your IP so that you can create the best experiences possible.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

References:

Siders, Ben. (2013) Game Developers: Intellectual Property Is All You've Got, So Make Sure You Get It [Online]. Available from: <http://techli.com/2013/05/game-developers-intellectual-property-is-all-youve-got-so-make-sure-you-get-it/#.> [Accessed 18 April 2015].