weird spam...anyway...
I'd like to address the elephant in the room as easter bunny is the third person to raise the concern of IP infringement. I really appreciate the support from you guys. I'm going to talk a minute about what copyright is (in relation to games) and what steps we've taken to insure that Wordspionage does not infringe on others' intellectual property.
First, when we had this idea a couple of years ago we spent a lot of time wondering: "How can so many versions of Scrabble exist?" So we did a bit of research and I'd like to point you all to the US Copyright Office website's description of
Copyright registration of Games. It clearly states that the idea, title, and method for playing a game does not fall under copyright law. Of course the title of a game can be protected under trademark as has been exhibited in recent cases against apps using "With Friends" (Bangs With Friends) in their title and an older case of
Scrabulous (now Lexulous) vs Hasbro/Mattel. In the case of Scrabulous it was indeed a direct copy of Scrabble including board layout, number of letters, rules (and their reference to Scrabble rules), as well as the closely related name. However with a name change and a couple of minor modifications Scrabulous quickly came back as Lexulous.
Next we examined any patents in relation to Scrabble to insure we're not infringing on those. There is an expired patent on Scrabble which expired in the 1970s which was not on the game itself, but for a device on the board that allowed you to see multipliers (
more info here). That is all.
Finally we took the time to discuss all of this with a lawyer who deals with IP law and we were assured we should have no problems as the method for playing a game is not protected under copyright or patent laws.
Also, Wordspionage differs in a number of key elements:
1) Not only does our board include quadruple letter and quadruple word multipliers, but the layout of the multipliers can be done in 2 ways - random or standard. The standard board layout is unique to Wordspionage.
2) We have incorporated special moves into the game called "Spec Ops" these allow you to spy on your opponent's tiles, obtain a blank tile (the blank tile is not naturally in the tile bag like similar games), scramble the remaining multipliers on the board, exchange a tile from your hand with an opponent's highest scoring tile, make all of the multipliers on the board invisible and unusable by opponents for 1 turn, deduct half of the score of an opponent's last word, and deduct half of your opponent's last word score and add the score to your own.
3) Playing Spec Ops requires the use of WS$ which are obtained by spinning bonus wheels when you play a word that uses all tiles in your hand or one of the 3 "Mission Words" randomly assigned to the game, when you wni a game, or they are available for purchase through the store.
4) You are awarded skill points whenever you win a game which determines your level (Recruit, Level 1 Operative, Special Agent, etc.). This allows you to be matched with players of similar standing.
5) We also have a number of subtle variations in the game rules that are unique to Wordspionage (
rules).
Even without all of these differences (which are the main reason we even wanted to develop a game like this) a game that is like Scrabble or Words With Friends is completely fair game. This can be seen by the number of similar games on the App Store and Google Play. For example:
iOS:
Scrabble, Words With Friends (near exact clone of Scrabble before any affiliation with EA or Hasbro), Wordfeud (scrabble with some different languages), Abble Dabble ,Words With Pirates (not sure why Words With Friends hasn't attacked them for trademark infringement yet), Luxulous, Smart Words VIP, Sky Words (some pretty cool differences here), Words by Post... the list goes on.
Google Play:
Scrabble, Words With Friends, Wordfeud, Classic Words Solo/Plus, Cross Craze, Angry Words, My Word Game, Words by Post, Happy Words, Word Pirates, Android Word Hero, Words With Android... the list goes on.
I could also mention the many popular web-based crossword games, but that list is also very extensive. There are also a number of board games that are nearly identical to Scrabble (and now the Words With Friends board game).
Most of these games sadly copy Scrabble rules and board layout to the T or with very minute changes. They make little or no effort to be substantially different as we have. Not only should we have no issues with submission to the App Store or Google Play, there is no legal ground with which they can deny us and there is no legal ground for the most popular word games (Scrabble and Words With Friends) to attack us with.
We truly do appreciate your support and that you are sharing your concerns with us as, in the beginning, these concerns were our own. We truly hope that Wordspionage differs from the classic crossword games in such a substantial way that it will not only entertain people who enjoy the classic word game, but it will make the game more appealing for those who think that the original method of playing this type of game was just boring.
Thank you for your feedback! Please check us out at
facebook.com/wordspionage where you can see some of the videos and images of the Spec Ops moves. We hope to release the game by mid to late November.
Cheers!
