I came upon this article that talks about marketing games and toys.
Most of the advice was good, with one caveat.
One of their early steps is "Get a patent." This might make sense for toys, but for games it's neither necessary nor practical. Board and card games are built upon common mechanics that can't even be copyrighted let alone patented. There is much prior art involved for just about any game. The big exception that I know of is Magic: the Gathering. It introduced the concept of collectible card games and received patent protection for several aspects of the game. In general though, board game designers will tell you to forget about patents and worry about creating and selling your game.
Aside from this quibble, it is a good article with some pertinent advice. Go have a look and let me know what you think.
-> WikiHow site
Most of the advice was good, with one caveat.
One of their early steps is "Get a patent." This might make sense for toys, but for games it's neither necessary nor practical. Board and card games are built upon common mechanics that can't even be copyrighted let alone patented. There is much prior art involved for just about any game. The big exception that I know of is Magic: the Gathering. It introduced the concept of collectible card games and received patent protection for several aspects of the game. In general though, board game designers will tell you to forget about patents and worry about creating and selling your game.
Aside from this quibble, it is a good article with some pertinent advice. Go have a look and let me know what you think.
-> WikiHow site
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