Slashdot Mirror
Apple Wants Patent On Video Game-Based iBooks
theodp writes "Patently Apple reports that a new Apple patent application has surfaced describing an application that would record your personal journey through a video game and turn it into a custom comic or iBook when you're done playing. Imagine how thrilled little Billy's Mommy would have been if she only had the chance to read the story of her son's foray into Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or see how he dealt with BioShock's Little Sisters."
Pretty soon they will be asking for patents on applying for patents!
The only thing novel is, well there's nothing novel, and certainly nothing patent worthy.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
The Sims kept an automatic photo album.
I was playing Need For Speed on my new 3DO machine the other day and when I finished a race I had the replay option which lets me view the whole race from several angles. I could then make a video and turn it into a personal video game comic.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
All the terrible narrative pacing of video games with none of the gameplay or freedom of choice! Shit. Can I get a video game based jarhead too?
Didn't one of Stardock's 4X games already do this exact thing? Tried to put together a narrative space opera about the entire universe as a whole, even trying to figure out the player's motivations.
Lucasart's "Grim Fandango" saved a transcript of your game in a marked up HTML format that was a script of your game back in 1998. It's only a tiny step from there to turn it into a comic (add screen captures from the game), screenplay (add stage directions) or an eBook (add narrative), so I'm not sure that Apple's application meets the sufficiently novel requirement of a patent. Oh, wait. It's the USPTO we're talking about, isn't it?
As an aside, given the brilliant humour in the game, its cult popularity and the movie making talents of LucasArts I was quite surprised, and more than a little disappointed that it didn't make it onto the big screen.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Would make an interesting book :)
---- Booth was a patriot ----
For I, Grobbolus, the Lord of the third realm and Master of Kapawnga forbade it to them.
Genuinely surprised this isn't coming from Will Wright, this meta-gaming/user-content-generating stuff is right up his alley. I also thought The Sims already did something along these lines.
Does know one remember this being an idea from Big, the 1988 Tom Hanks movie?
Little Johnny's mother wondered what his new comic book "Hot Coffee" was about?
Imagine how thrilled little Billy's Mommy would have been if she only had the chance to read the story of her son's foray into Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
See Billy shoot the cop.
BLAM!
BLAM!
BLAM!
See Billy beat up hooker.
PUNCH!
KICK!
PUNCH!
See Billy run over pedestrian.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
All those genius roundtable discussions we've had on in-game chat will finally get the story-telling immortality they deserve.
Douchenozzle: YOU'RE A FAG.
Player L333T: lulz!
PinkPenis: Dood stopp cheating!
GiantCockMonster: I'm not haxxing you noob.
NoobBoobies: FAG.
Mangina: You're just butthurtz!
Oh this should give the literary world a run for it's money - hooray. Can't wait for them to show on the NYT best-sellers list.
no - I didn't RTFA
I think it's pretty cool that now you can get a patent on some stoned "what if" scenario.
"What if we could totally make like a comic book out of my game went? Wouldn't it be totally gnarly if I could make it like a comic book of my shenanigans dude?!"
It's funny those dickholes came up with literally just some idea probably 50,000 people have talked about at one point or another, and then add just a super-high level set of "details" on how to do it, the same details that anyone would come up with if asked how to do it. They like to throw in various specifics like "with an XBox" or "With a PS3" so they can claim it's specific.
Transparent dickholery.
I had the same idea (and a few others) back when I was working on a game project that crashed and burned. Things never progressed far enough for it to be implemented but for Apple to pretend they're the source of all innovation and patent this just shows to me how aggressive and greedy they are.
I doubt anyone will believe this but I also created the trademark and concept for "Think Different" and made the mistake of posting it online back when I messed around on 3D Realms forum. If 3D Realms still have archives of the forum from a couple of weeks before the ad agency made their pitch to Apple (which was six months prior to the airing of the first Think Different ad) it should be easy to prove. I strongly suspect their ad agency pinched it from there but I couldn't even afford to speak to a lawyer let alone pursue a case.
Without Wozniak's engineering and other peoples money Steve Jobs would be a burger flipper. So stop trying to crush and gouge the little guy you stubborn greedy selfish fuck.
for an audience that can't read.
Well, at least that is close to the segment of the market were Apple tends to be popular. The hipsters.
Lets face it, a book with an audience of 1 will be a major hit with hipsters
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
One of the Pokemon games (Diamond and Pearl, I think) presents you with a slideshow consisting of pictures of what you did last time you played the game, along with text captions every time you start up your DS. I would think that this qualifies as prior art.
I wouldn't mind a copy of my journey through WoW, at least I would have something to read at the end. As it is at the moment, the day they turn the servers of is the day that a piece of a player dies.
does anyone else get captchas that seem linked to the content of my post? 'arenas'
$ wump | tee book.txt
(Actually, I use zsh, which doesn't seem to understand the patent issue with this command.)
Dear Penthouse,
I never thought I'd be writing to you, but I just got this new app for my iPad...
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
This has been done by Fallout 3 and other games, I'm sure. Don't think it being in an iBook format is special enough to require a patent o.0
I did this manually in 6th grade. We had to write a story, so I wrote a story about when I was playing Adventure (the Atari game). Sure it was more of a story than a straight walk-through, but I did get a ribbon for it.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
No doubt about that.
Lost in space at an early age. Survived the vacuum. Now rebuilding castle in air.
Prior art of this has been discussed as a concept in the City of Heroes forums, repeatedly. Going back six years or so.
My video game Wild Earth, published a few years ago, did almost exactly this. Players took photos and then a story was generated after the game using their content. Does anyone know the best way to submit prior art to the USPTO?
I recall that Civilization (versions?) gave you a narrative world history at the end of the game, showing you what happened when and where during the game. It also saved the text of that history to a file - I used to take them to school to compare with friends. I've not looked at the patent, but I hope it doesn't put a damper on rewarding elements like this at the end of other games... It was always a treat to see those recaps at the end of a long game! The plumbing is already there obviously, the simply next step would have been to simply edit the text that gets written out to the file, instead of saying "Rome has been founded", say something more narrative using information from the map like, "Rome was founded by in 1262. The region was rich with fields of grain, with mountains eastward and the Persian border to the west."
There would be a patent on this now? Suck.
Pretty much any save game will hold a record of how you went through a game. Choices you selected, etc. Just look at games like Mass Effect, which transfers MANY of your choices to Mass Effect 2. So suddenly, this must violate the Apple patent because you could go through the save game to see your choices? Ummm, no thank you Apple, prior art comes into play.
I thought the electronic toilet seat was out of production.
I can picture it now....
Killed a rat.
Killed a rat.
Killed a rat.
(32,000 pages later)
Killed a rat.
KIlled a rat.
Killed a snake. Ooh, the variety!
rosetta stone rosetta stone rosetta stone language rosetta stone language rosetta stone spanish rosetta stone spanish abercrombie and fitch abercrombie and fitch Abercrombie Fitch Abercrombie Fitch Abercrombie Clothing Abercrombie Clothing pandora pandora pandora schmuck pandora schmuck pandora armband pandora armband tiffany tiffany tiffany jewellery tiffany jewellery tiffany rings tiffany rings
should be interesting if they try to patent it, Bungie would have prior use
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Dwarf Fortress logs all of your activity in story form as you play. Also, you can explore your creations in Adventure Mode, which is essentially creating a game from a game. Assuming Apple is smart (stupid?) enough to patent the general concept of using the result of one form of media to create another form of media, most every game will be infringing simply due to the incredible amount of fan-content created.
If you are interested in playing Dwarf Fortress, I highly suggest watching the video tutorials. They are dated, but they give you a great start
Civ 1 store the evolution of your civilization,and generate in the end a flipbook with it.
Can we burn the idea of patents, please? this is not a "invent", this is just a use of computers.
-Woof woof woof!
Meh, patent this crap all you want Apple because I claim copyright on all the actions I take it the games I play.
Your patent will be public domain in 18 years, but with the current state of Copyright law I'll own my game-play-through-comics until everyone on the planet is dead.
Until patent expiration Apple may choose to prevent me from making and selling my own game-play-through-comics,
but that's OK because my copyright will keep them from selling comics I make that infringe.
This game is based around the idea that you play, and it generate a flipbook with your game.
This is monstruous evil, corporations taking over ideas. Please *DESTROY* the ability to patent this type of stuff.
-Woof woof woof!
When I see "iBook", I too still think of an entry-level laptop Mac from the PowerPC era.
Yes, fiction can provide prior art to bust a patent. For example, Charles Hall couldn't patent the waterbed because Robert A. Heinlein had invented it first.
Steve Jobs starts requiring that all users have a tattoo placed on them saying "I'm Steve Job's Bitch".
I suppose this is a completely new and novel approach to fucking over consumers, and Apple just has to protect such a brilliant and wonderful idea, but is it really necessary to issues yet another goddamn software patent?
now they are trying to get a patent for what i, MYSELF are going to do.
how many examples of stupidity and greed you need to realize allowing patenting IDEAS is allowing patenting THOUGHT ?
Read radical news here
This looks like a thinly veiled scam to threaten Hollywood over the next video game based movie.
The write up say that killing has been 'linked' to potential for violent behaviour.
But, so far as I can tell they missed an opportunity to criticise the game, for the more sinister and bio-shocking and I believe true reason for the girls.
Clearly they want to turn us all into pedos, in-fact the first comment on the article quite clearly says.
I've been saving them so far...I just couldn't bring myself to kill the first one.
Saving them for what you pedo!
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Reading about Apple's ridiculous patents and new products failures I think Apple is becoming the new lemon.
Of course Dragon Age's ending doesn't display your progress, but it generates an ending story based on what's been recorded of your progress. Would this count as prior art?