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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."
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)
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?
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 ----
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?
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.
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.
Not to mention all the adventure games where the game generates some sort of narrative based on player-triggered events. I recently encountered these in Culpa Innata's diary and the new Monkey Island series's save game descriptions, but similar auto-generated "stories" have been in games for a long time.
And don't forget Dwarf Fortress; a rather audacious attempt to procedurally generate entire fantasy worlds complete with lore based in part on your actions. I can't do it justice with a few sentences, so here's someone else's description of the feature:
Legends mode
Legends mode does not fit the criteria of a traditional game; indeed, you don't control anything in it at all. Instead, Legends mode serves as a log of sorts for the entire history of the world you generated, from year 1 to when it stopped generating. In it you can read up on various historical figures (great warriors, kings, or even common folk) as well as read an event log describing various wars, nation expansion, and megabeast (dragons, giants, etc.) activity. You can also view historical maps and watch as civilizations expand as cities are created and destroyed.
Though seen as boring to some, many feel the entire purpose and intent of Dwarf Fortress is to create an generated world full of interesting stories and historicial figures. Legends mode allows you to keep track of all, and serves as link between both Fortress and Adventurer mode. For instance, you may lose your fortress to a certain goblin warlord. By using Legends mode you'd be able to look up the warlord, find out his lineage, how many wars he had been in, and where he currently rules from, and from there you can take an adventurer to kill him out of revenge.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
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.
$ 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?
They thought about patenting the idea before anyone else. As long as the system is broken and lets them get away with this kind of thing, they'd be stupid not try.
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.
Just because a system is broken doesn't mean it needs to be taken advantage of. Those that take advantage of it rather than fixing it ARE stupid. And greedy. And scum.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
I thought the electronic toilet seat was out of production.
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.
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
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?