Patently absurd

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Who owns the gaming features you take for granted?

Patent number 6,604,008
“Scoring based upon goals achieved and subjective elements”

What does it cover? Quite literally, scoring points in a game - though specifically by the player setting himself a goal and attempting to achieve it. “Sliding, spinning, jumping, blocking an opponent, passing an opponent and avoiding obstacles” are listed as possible means of point-scoring.

Patent number 5,577,913
“System and method for driver training with multiple driver competition”

What does it cover? “A second driver responsive software representative of a second user, wherein the second driver responsive software is responsive to said position information provided by the second user for a first time.” Ghost cars that replay your last race in racing games, in other words.

Who owns it? Midway, for their 1989 arcade game Hard Drivin’. Since then, they’ve done a lot of hard licensin’, having made everyone from Sony to Sega cough up if they want to include the concept.

Patent number 5,718,632
“Recording medium, method of loading games program code means, and games machine”

What does it cover? Playable minigames on a game loading screen. That’ll be because it’s generally more fun to shoot asteroids or play Tetris than watch a “...” slowly elongate.

Who owns it? Namco, who’ve been at it with their console games for ages - for instance, a crude 3D shmup playable before Tekken 5’s main menu hits. It’s a great idea, but Namco’s patent means it’s sadly denied to other publishers. Playable arcade machines within games such as GTA: San Andreas and Doom 3 are a more widely used alternative.

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