4 ms·

The 'Tapper' videogame patent (2015)

62 points by db48x 10y ago

joezydeco 10y ago
My initial reaction to discovering the Tapper patent was that it seemed like a hilarious parody. So what's missing here is some historical background to Tapper, which could give some insight into why the patent was written this way. Bally/Midway regularly contracted out to external design firms for game ideas. One of these firms was Marvin Glass and Associates, a toy design group in Chicago. MGA was responsible for many childhood favorites such as Mouse Trap, Simon^, Lite Brite, Operation, and many others. The toy industry is highly secretive and extremely competitive. Anything and everything that comes out of their design labs is immediately put into a patent application. Tapper was no exception to this rule. (^ Simon was designed by Ralph Baer, who was on MGA's payroll at the time. It can also be argued that, given the amount of copying that went on with Pong and other clones, Baer also made sure future video game designs within his view were more closely protected than before.)
- mjn 10y ago
  Yeah, that's a good bit of context. I expanded this blog post into a conference paper last year, and that version of the article does mention the Marvin Glass & Associates connection, along with a few other interesting historical things, like the fact that Bally/Midway chose to Budweiser-theme it mainly for distribution reasons, as they were hoping to get it sold through Budweiser's distributor network (many people assume it was an advertising game commissioned by Budweiser, but Budweiser basically didn't care either way, letting their name be used but not otherwise getting involved or funding it). Here's the paper version [PDF]: http://www.kmjn.org/publications/TapperPatent_DiGRA-FDG16.pdf http://www.kmjn.org/publications/TapperPatent_DiGRA-FDG16.pd...
tigeba 10y ago
One of my 'favorites' is the patent for (1986) Atari Gauntlet: "Multi-player, multi-character cooperative play video game with independent player entry and departure" It seems they could have caused quite a bit of carnage for later multi-player games if they had decided to enforce it. The full filing has a bunch of similar flow charts, and a bonus 100+ page rom dump :) https://www.google.com/patents/US4738451 https://www.google.com/patents/US4738451
- kabdib 10y ago
  Has some additional history, too: Atari coin-op essentially borrowed/stole the idea from an Atari 800 game called Dandy (which was really, really cool), done by my housemate when he was at MIT. [Insert legal stuff . . . they settled for a copy of the arcade machine. Being a housemate, I got to help move it every time we moved. Those things are heavy]
  - tigeba 10y ago
    Hah, I have moved my Atari Gauntlet cab many times and I agree it is both heavy and treacherous :)
rocky1138 10y ago
If you're interested in gaming patents, Genki patented the gameplay of Tokyo Xtreme Racer for the Dreamcast. http://documents.allpatents.com/l/32612971/US6422939B1 http://documents.allpatents.com/l/32612971/US6422939B1
emmelaich 10y ago
For those curious about the acronyms at the end. Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) and the Foundation of Digital Games (FDG)

62 points by db48x 10y ago

My initial reaction to discovering the Tapper patent was that it seemed like a hilarious parody. So what's missing here is some historical background to Tapper, which could give some insight into why the patent was written this way. Bally/Midway regularly contracted out to external design firms for game ideas. One of these firms was Marvin Glass and Associates, a toy design group in Chicago. MGA was responsible for many childhood favorites such as Mouse Trap, Simon^, Lite Brite, Operation, and many others. The toy industry is highly secretive and extremely competitive. Anything and everything that comes out of their design labs is immediately put into a patent application. Tapper was no exception to this rule. (^ Simon was designed by Ralph Baer, who was on MGA's payroll at the time. It can also be argued that, given the amount of copying that went on with Pong and other clones, Baer also made sure future video game designs within his view were more closely protected than before.)

mjn 10y ago
Yeah, that's a good bit of context. I expanded this blog post into a conference paper last year, and that version of the article does mention the Marvin Glass & Associates connection, along with a few other interesting historical things, like the fact that Bally/Midway chose to Budweiser-theme it mainly for distribution reasons, as they were hoping to get it sold through Budweiser's distributor network (many people assume it was an advertising game commissioned by Budweiser, but Budweiser basically didn't care either way, letting their name be used but not otherwise getting involved or funding it). Here's the paper version [PDF]: http://www.kmjn.org/publications/TapperPatent_DiGRA-FDG16.pdf http://www.kmjn.org/publications/TapperPatent_DiGRA-FDG16.pd...

tigeba 10y ago

One of my 'favorites' is the patent for (1986) Atari Gauntlet: "Multi-player, multi-character cooperative play video game with independent player entry and departure" It seems they could have caused quite a bit of carnage for later multi-player games if they had decided to enforce it. The full filing has a bunch of similar flow charts, and a bonus 100+ page rom dump :) https://www.google.com/patents/US4738451 https://www.google.com/patents/US4738451

kabdib 10y ago
Has some additional history, too: Atari coin-op essentially borrowed/stole the idea from an Atari 800 game called Dandy (which was really, really cool), done by my housemate when he was at MIT. [Insert legal stuff . . . they settled for a copy of the arcade machine. Being a housemate, I got to help move it every time we moved. Those things are heavy]
- tigeba 10y ago
  Hah, I have moved my Atari Gauntlet cab many times and I agree it is both heavy and treacherous :)

rocky1138 10y ago

If you're interested in gaming patents, Genki patented the gameplay of Tokyo Xtreme Racer for the Dreamcast. http://documents.allpatents.com/l/32612971/US6422939B1 http://documents.allpatents.com/l/32612971/US6422939B1

emmelaich 10y ago

For those curious about the acronyms at the end. Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) and the Foundation of Digital Games (FDG)