In case my analyses on the Steam Deck controller patent and the Dbrand-Sony PS5 squabble didn’t tip you off, I suppose you could say I have severely Orwellian anti-corporate views on patents in gaming tech and mechanics, to put it mildly.
Sony recently patented a collaborative path-building mechanic that’s reportedly near-identical to the system found in their PlayStation exclusive Death Stranding (Psst, click here if you want to get the director’s cut of the game). The patent is titled “Terrain radar and gradual building of a route in a virtual environment of a video game,” citing Hideo Kojima as the creator, despite having (as far as I am aware of) no mention of any kind of royalties to Kojima for using his version of the system (not that that would make things much better).
In short, this is basically the same debacle as Warner Bros patenting the nemesis system making it so other creatives can’t use it to make games with a new spin on the format. Click here for the full Sony patent if you’ve got a handful of hours to kill and a fetish for dense legal jargon.
The patent’s core features for it’s patent of the mechanic include tracking info on who creates which pathways in-game, how often they’re used, basically all the bells and whistles of Death Stranding.
Speaking of which, Hideo Kojima has gone on record stating his dislike of the PS5 version titled as ‘The Director’s Cut’ because the original experience is a fully complete Kojima-accurate experience anyway, whereas ‘director’s cut’ usually denotes a version where the director has more creative control that wasn’t allowed for during the first release. I rank that three Etymology Points out of 5, for a deeper dive into the use and artistic philosophy of director’s cuts, have a butcher’s at Hbomberguy’s video on the topic… You know, this guy:
Needless to say, this is one of those rare times where I’ll admit that the ‘slippery slope’ argument is actually valid! And if you’ll indulge my intertextual poetic interlude coming up: First they came for the loading screens and I did not speak because… Well, I wasn’t born yet for that one! Then they came for the multiplayer collaborative features, and I 100% spoke the f*ck up because I’m into that shit! Then they came for the first-person shooters and I was like “okay, well I’m none to good at those, whatevs”. Then they came for the soulslikes and I said “who ’bout to catch these hands”, at which point the judge gingerly gestures over to Bobbert Kotique.
Product Poems:
I knew a mug name Tina, she from Shiganshina, cooking rice balls but can kick it back hard on Fifa.
Dying Light implies Living Darkness… Sleep paralysis weird, yo.
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