IP Funny reports on Nintendo's filing of patent for a "video game and game system incorporating a game character's sanity level that is affected by occurrences in the game such as encountering a game creature or gruesome situation." From the abstract:
A video game and game system incorporating a game character's sanity level that is affected by occurrences in the game such as encountering a game creature or gruesome situation. A character's sanity level is modified by an amount determined based on a character reaction to the occurrence such as taking a rest or slowing game progress and/or an amount of character preparation. That is, if a character is prepared for the particular occurrence, the occurrence may have little or no affect [sic] on the character's sanity level. As the character's sanity level decreases, game play is effected [sic] such as by controlling game effects, audio effects, creating hallucinations and the like. In this context. the same game can be played differently each time it is played.
The comments on this at IP Funny already mention what many of you will be thinking: that this has been seen before, not only in video games but also in tabletop RPGs like "Call of Cthulhu". So Nintendo's patent may get knocked out by the prior art.[fn1]
But for me the most interesting thing is how the patenting of particular types of experience in VWs--mental disturbance, euphoria, whatever--kinda creeps me out. I know why the IP system says that this type of patent is justifiable (even if Nintendo gets knocked back in this case) but it just seems strange to think that my experience of the world is mediated by a patent, and so I can't experience that in other VW environments.
I'm not going to campaign against patents for experiential features of VWs. I'm not suggesting (at least not right here) that this is normatively wrong, or even necessarily suspect. But this sort of thing does remind me of the conceptual difficulties we have separating our lived experience in the real world and in the virtual. And it's all too easy to forget that the enjoyable experience I'm having in the VW is really just a part of someone else's business plan.[fn2]
(Thanks Beth for the headsup)
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fn1: As at the time of writing no-one at IP Funny had commented on the fact that Nintendo's patent attorneys need to learn when to use "affect" and when to use "effect". As the old joke goes: "Yesterday I couldn't spell 'patent attorney', today I are one."
fn2: Yes, yes, one can say the same thing about the enjoyable experience I'm having right now, lounging by the infinity pool at my five star hotel on St Kitts: Hilton Hotels & Resorts don't love me, they just want me to have a market-mediated enjoyable time, so that they can make a profit. But there is something different, I would argue, between the relationship I have with a vendor IRL and the relationship I have with the provider of my virtual life. Perhaps I'm just being naïve. I've been accused of precisely that by a well-known games industry person in the last 24 hours, so you wouldn't be the first to think it.
Reminds me of "Humanity" in Vampire, the Masquerade.
If you lose too much, you lose control of your character (literally, the GM just takes your character sheet) and then fun ensues.
Posted by: Psyae | Oct 21, 2005 at 10:19
I remember we'd yell "SAAAAAN CHECK!" at the top of our lungs, whenever something scary happened in a movie (etc.) when I was a kid, inspired by our many Call of Cthulu RPG allnighters.
If you missed these sanity checks when playing the RPG, you could loose control of your character for some time. It would then be played by the GM, since it had a temporary freak-out and would be acting all crazy.
A sanity check would be triggered by such things as seeing a monster, a bloody corpse or reading an evil book with Old One lore. The trick to sanity i CoC was that a missed check would lower your score, making it even harder to make the check next time. The slippery slope of sanity would ultimately lead to complete insanity or suicide for your character. A mind is a fragile thing...
I think it was quite a nice gameplay mechanic, and I'm glad to see that some games are picking up on it. Lets hope this patent (and other patents like it) wont get approved, though.
Posted by: Thomas | Oct 21, 2005 at 10:24
Prior art 4TW. In a video game context, there is the Alone in the Dark series from the 90's -- which was clearly influenced by the Call of Cthulu pen and paper RPG. I haven't seen the details of the latest Cthulu PC game coming out, but I'm sure it has an insanity mechanic, which would again be prior art.
Even Nintendo has done it before, specifically with their amazing Eternal Darkness.
Posted by: hikaru | Oct 21, 2005 at 12:41
For those interested, Slashdot posted this a little while ago, and the comments contain several references to other insanity-like systems in various games. As the Video Game Law Blog pointed out, the patent is presumably related to the sanity meter in Silicon Knight/Nintendo's "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem" . They also point to a new game from Headfirst - “Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth” - slated to be released for the Xbox with its own (in)sanity system.
Posted by: Peter Edelmann | Oct 21, 2005 at 12:45
Reminds me of "Humanity" in Vampire, the Masquerade.
If you lose too much, you lose control of your character (literally, the GM just takes your character sheet) and then fun ensues.
They had "Humanity Cost" in R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk years before White Wolf. Get too much cyberware and it effects your ability to deal with people. Go over the line with way too much borg appliances and the GM takes your character away. However, Call of Cthulu was probably the first to have some sort of built-in psychological mechanism that had an effect on game play.
Posted by: Young Freud | Oct 21, 2005 at 13:24
Yeah, I remember Cyberpunk, too, and its near-twin Shadowrun. Both implemented a cyber-related humanity check.
As for Call of Cthulu (rather "Call of Cthulhu," originally released by Chaosium in 1981) being the first... I agree, but for computer-based RPG, I think Microprose had an early best:
In 1992-1993, Microprose came out with a first person RPG game called The Legacy. This is an excerpt from the Spring, 1993 newsletter:
****
The Legacy: MicroProse's New Horror RPG That's Best Played With The Lights On
Take gothic horror, mystery, suspense, and action and mix it all together, add in some magic and a good dose of the supernatural, toss in an insane asylum and a few demons from the outer planes, and you have a recipe for terror that could only be MicroProse's new horror role-playing game, The Legacy: Realm of Terror.
****
I actually bought this game when it came out, and played it relentlessly. (I never did complete it)
It incorporated an "insanity" device based on your willpower. The scarier a creature was, the more difficult it would be to retain your sanity (or at least control over your fears). If you fail your fear check, you could just stand there, wide-eyed with your hair standing on end, letting the various creatures rip up your flesh. If you survived, you'd eventually come out of your fear. You could also use experience points to boost your raw willpower.
The fear was quite unpleasant, and that game was scary as hell. WoW actually incorporates something similar (Priests and Warlocks (and a few trinkets, etc.) can "Fear" opponents. However, this is more of a mental attack rather than a true reaction to something frightening in the game. The power of fear is handled somewhat awkwardly in WoW, and is annoying and certainly silly. I'd rather see something implemented that loosely affects player abilities based on factors such as creature level, player level, player attributes, and "scariness" of creature. For instance, a level 5 warrior should not be frightened by a level 6 deer. However, a level 20 druid might just get frozen solid with fear by a level 35 hydra. Something, at least.
Posted by: Psyae | Oct 21, 2005 at 14:08
Yeah, I remember Cyberpunk, too, and its near-twin Shadowrun. Both implemented a cyber-related humanity check.
As for Call of Cthulu (rather "Call of Cthulhu," originally released by Chaosium in 1981) being the first... I agree, but for computer-based RPG, I think Microprose had an early best:
In 1992-1993, Microprose came out with a first person RPG game called The Legacy. This is an excerpt from the Spring, 1993 newsletter:
****
The Legacy: MicroProse's New Horror RPG That's Best Played With The Lights On
Take gothic horror, mystery, suspense, and action and mix it all together, add in some magic and a good dose of the supernatural, toss in an insane asylum and a few demons from the outer planes, and you have a recipe for terror that could only be MicroProse's new horror role-playing game, The Legacy: Realm of Terror.
****
I actually bought this game when it came out, and played it relentlessly. (I never did complete it)
It incorporated an "insanity" device based on your willpower. The scarier a creature was, the more difficult it would be to retain your sanity (or at least control over your fears). If you fail your fear check, you could just stand there, wide-eyed with your hair standing on end, letting the various creatures rip up your flesh. If you survived, you'd eventually come out of your fear. You could also use experience points to boost your raw willpower.
The fear was quite unpleasant, and that game was scary as hell. WoW actually incorporates something similar (Priests and Warlocks (and a few trinkets, etc.) can "Fear" opponents. However, this is more of a mental attack rather than a true reaction to something frightening in the game. The power of fear is handled somewhat awkwardly in WoW, and is annoying and certainly silly. I'd rather see something implemented that loosely affects player abilities based on factors such as creature level, player level, player attributes, and "scariness" of creature. For instance, a level 5 warrior should not be frightened by a level 6 deer. However, a level 20 druid might just get frozen solid with fear by a level 35 hydra. Something, at least.
Posted by: Psyae | Oct 21, 2005 at 14:10
Dan Hunter wrote:
But there is something different, I would argue, between the relationship I have with a vendor IRL and the relationship I have with the provider of my virtual life. Perhaps I'm just being naïve. I've been accused of precisely that by a well-known games industry person in the last 24 hours, so you wouldn't be the first to think it.
I think you're being naive, and I mean no offence by that. First of all, you're setting up a false dichotomy by labeling your relationship with Hilton as one with an "IRL vendor" but not your relationship with your virtual world provider. They are both "IRL" relationships. There is no other kind. Your credit card gets given to a company, and then they provide you with a service in return for debiting it. It's an identical relationship.
Second, I think that the misunderstanding is driven by the idea of a "virtual life." Everything you do is part of your real life. It cannot be otherwise, since your real life encompasses everything you think or do. You're not living a separate life in a VW. You're just living your real life.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Oct 21, 2005 at 14:28
Here's one thing that doesn't make sense to me, probably since I'm not a lawyer. At the site with the patent application, [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,935,954.WKU.&OS=PN/6,935,954&RS=PN/6,935,954], it lists the date filed as December 14, 2000, with additonal dates listed (such as 371 date and 102(e) date) that make little sense to me. So is this actually an old patent application? Or one being re-introduced?
Posted by: Mia | Oct 21, 2005 at 14:32
I sort of agree with both sides- there is something creepy about experience as commodity, but I also so see this as really seamless - although the mechanisms are a bit more obfuscated (if only by our involvement in them) there is no shortage of examples in the non-virtual world of intentional creation of an experience or perspective - from Disneyland to political propaganda. I believe Confucious even talked about how best to influence young minds and create appropriate social behavior. I think the really interesting thing is how the creation of virtual worlds and online communities can make such dynamics accessible and visible.
Posted by: Ron Meiners | Oct 21, 2005 at 14:46
Mia > Here's one thing that doesn't make sense to me...
Patent applications can take a while to get approved - there are several stages in the process. The date of 2000 seems to be the initial filing, the other dates are subsequent stages. The filing in late 2000 makes sense, considering it's around the time that "Eternal Darkness" (2002) would have been in development.
Posted by: Peter Edelmann | Oct 21, 2005 at 15:07
So... the uber issue, as Ron points out, is about the filing of process patents on experiential events. If this provisional patent stands, I'm going to have to spend a month watching every classic movie, and re-reading all of Shakespeare, et al. Then I'll have my company file for every major plot device I find (but in a video-game/synth-world venue)
I think I'll also patent some new ideas for movies and "all future story-telling entertainment mediums" as well... Just think: I'll own the sole right to create any interactive experience pertaining to or similar to "a coming of age story" and a host of others! Woot! My fortune is made.
Sigh.
Posted by: Michael Steele | Oct 21, 2005 at 18:16
Just because they currently have a patent on this does not mean no one else can do it. You just can't do exactley what they did without paying them. If you find some other way to do this then your fine, or if you find prior art and invalidate them your also fine.
Most patents are not a big deal, and never really get the inventors more than a nice piece of paper from the patent office.
Posted by: Tom Hunter | Oct 21, 2005 at 19:42
Just a point of reference:
Harley Davidson filed for a patent on the noise (the rumble of the muffler) that its motorcycles make.
It didn't get the patent.
Posted by: Psyae | Oct 21, 2005 at 21:28
[note: could have been a TM (trademark)... google it! still, same principle. not everyone gets what they ask for]
Posted by: Psyae | Oct 21, 2005 at 21:31
Mental health meter in the new game "Indigo Prophecy". CNN article here:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/fun.games/10/21/indigo.prophecy/index.html
Official site:
http://www.atari.com/indigo/
Yes, Atari. Not Nintendo. :)
Posted by: Hiro Pendragon | Oct 23, 2005 at 19:03