Reply To: FFG pulls the plug on Android: Netrunner

[motioninpoetryParticipant 1704xp 0]

for the most part yes, but it’s much like the way no other company can call turning a card sideways “tap”, because WOTC owns the concept of “tapping” cards, but many other games feature turning cards sideways as “exhausting” them, because no one owns the concept of something being exhausted 😛

WOTC owns the concept of “running” and “breaking ICE” using “Icebreakers”, but they don’t own the concept of a program with subroutines, because they do in real life 😛 so if FFG want to do a new running game, they would have to call it a hacking game, but defenses can’t be called “ICE”, and programs can’t be called “Icebreakers”, so they have to not only rework the game, but rework the story and setting that has developed further using these concepts (like Next Design), maybe by creating newer types of server defenses, and new programs, that may work in a similar way, but can’t be the same thing for legal reasons, and if FFG paid substantial amounts of money to use the concept of these mechanics, and then continued to use them without paying that money, Hasbro could potentially sue them … so it’s a bit more complicated than it may at first seem unfortunately … it would have to be different enough for them to avoid potential lawsuits from the biggest toy company in the world … (X , X)

… and as you say, if that secret project Lukas is working on for WOTC uses the same mechanics … oh dear