Scared of Copycats? How to Protect Your Board Game Idea *Board Game design*

I have been the recipient of one of those "cease and desist" letters from a big publisher. They wanted all rights and wanted all the work done upon my game turned over to them. Sent a response basically laughing at them while pointing out how baseless and ridiculous their claim on my work was. Never heard back from them.

Actually, that was THE ONE question I had like forever

If Days of Wonder doesn’t want Shadows Over Brooklyn, then they shouldn’t have any problem seeing it get published by someone else, especially if it gets renamed. That’s just the nature of rejecting something.

Glad to have you back!

Thanks Adam. Insightful as always. On non-disclosure agreements: I'd always be very wary of signing one because if during a meeting an idea was mentioned by the other party that was very similar to one of my own existing but independently developed ideas, then I wouldn't want to feel prevented from using it. Though if Hasbro or one of the big players were interested in one of my designs then I guess I'd grit my teeth and sign. On independent invention: I've had a similar experience. There's a game I first invented in 2012 which I've yet to get to market. About 3 years ago a couple of other games came out with some very similar features - though the game play is different and they were less well implemented as mine (at least so I and other designers think!). Its highly unlikely they were influenced by my idea (as they were in Australia and the US), but I was worried that they might feel I'd copied their ideas. Fortunately, I'd done a small self-published production run in 2012 which was already on BGG, so got in touch with the American publisher and mentioned the situation and safeguard my interests should I ever release an updated version of my 2012 game.

Great to receive your incite and experience on this. It helps to hear not just the technical stuff but the culture around it, the experience. Like, how often do these fears come to life. Seems like not often.

Hooray! Adam is back! I look forward to watching this later today

Excellent insights Adam !

I was so happy to see your channel pop up in my subscription feed again. This was - as usual - a very informative video and I learned quite a bit. As I told you on twitter about 6 months ago you inspired me to start designing board games and I still think I'm making progress every single day. I'm very much looking forward to seeing more videos from you soon. Cheers from Germany.

Great to see you back, Adam. I hope you stay safe and healthy.

Thanks a lot. The key, as I hear it, is to get a group of board gamers, who are not designers themselves, as playtesters!

Good to see you back. Always interesting. Hope all is well with you and your wife. 😀

Super super helpful! I am making a board game version of a video game that I loved playing growing up and I think it would be awesome of more people could enjoy this real life version that uses main core concepts and ideas from the video game but makes it better by making it real life and real life interactions with mini games and engaging with each other rather than engaging a screen.

Thanks a lot , this video answered all my questions 🙂

The vicious world of board game designers! 😂

Im creating a chess variant cards, and this video is really helpful. Thank you.

Great video!

Hey thanks for this :o I didn't know the legal stuff. I made a prototype of my game with wood and tiles and the main mechanic I BELIEVE is very unique. Havent played alot of board games though.

Creating is the easy part. Selling is the hard part. Borrow all you want and it won't help you.

I think most enthusiasts board games at some point have an idea about a game from time to time. Clearly the importance is getting a prototype ready played. Talking about it online always strengthens ones position.