Looking up those patents, the first alludes to a system where a player aims and fires an “item” toward a character in a field, and in doing so triggers combat, and then dives into extraordinary intricacies about switching between modes within this. The second is very similar, but seems more directly focused on tweaking previous patents to including being able to capture Pokémon in the wild, rather than only during battle. The third, rather wildly, seems to be trying to claim a modification to the invention of riding creatures in an open world and being able to transition between them easily.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 hours ago

Software parents, specifically game mechanic parents, are fucking insane. You should see the stuff Square Enix has patented following death stranding.

I get the whole "they just reskinned my game mechanics!!!" but also: I don't. It's like saying Go, Draughts, Chess, etc. are copies or "infringing" on one another for being a board game set on a grid with black/white pieces.

Even the idea of intellectual property is shaky for me but at least it's more clear cut whether you've directly copied or deceived someone with a similar design of a character.