Can’t copyright game mechanics, because copyright involves a particular arrangement of words, visuals, or sounds. But can potentially patent them, not sure what the legal consensus in the Questionably United States is like about that.
As is tradition, copyright keeps getting confused with trademarks and patents time and again.
You can copyright the rulebook and the description of the rules.
You can’t copyright the rules themselves.
Like, for a dumb example, if you invented the game of baseball, you could write a book explaining the rules of baseball and how to play, and you could copyright that book and if anybody made unauthorized copies of that book or even just portions of it, you could sue them for copyright infringement. But you could not sue people for copyright infringement just because they were playing baseball without your permission … or writing books about playing baseball, etc.
Can’t copyright game mechanics, because copyright involves a particular arrangement of words, visuals, or sounds. But can potentially patent them, not sure what the legal consensus in the Questionably United States is like about that.
As is tradition, copyright keeps getting confused with trademarks and patents time and again.
You can copyright the rulebook and the description of the rules.
You can’t copyright the rules themselves.
Like, for a dumb example, if you invented the game of baseball, you could write a book explaining the rules of baseball and how to play, and you could copyright that book and if anybody made unauthorized copies of that book or even just portions of it, you could sue them for copyright infringement. But you could not sue people for copyright infringement just because they were playing baseball without your permission … or writing books about playing baseball, etc.