With the development in the field of digital era, electronic games have become an essential part of the global entertainment industry.  According to the "2023 Global Gaming Market Report," the global gaming market is expected to reach a market value of hundreds of billions dollars. In this vast market, game mechanics, as one of the most attractive and innovative elements of games, have increasingly attracted the customers’ attention. In recent years, disputes over gameplay plagiarism have occurred frequently, and it has become a challenge faced by both the games companies and legal communities on how to effectively protect the IP rights of game mechanics through legal means. This article will start from a legal perspective to briefly analyze the IP protection path of electronic game mechanics, hoping to provide references and insights for the future development of IP protection in electronic games fields.

Overview of Game Mechanics

Game mechanics, to be brief, refer to a series of operations and interactive behaviors that players engage in during the game process, forming the core experience and interactivity of the game. Game mechanics not only include interactions between players and game characters, game environments, but also cover various aspects such as game rules, mission design, and level layout, etc.. These elements together constitute the unique charm of the game, allowing players to obtain an immersive experience in the virtual world.

Compared with other types of IP rights, game mechanics reflect the following significant characteristics:

1.  Dynamism and Interactivity: Game mechanics as a dynamic process has changed with continuous player operations and decisions. At the same time, game mechanics also show a strong interactivity, where player choices and actions directly affect the progress and outcomes of the game.

2.  Innovation and Uniqueness: An excellent game mechanic often has innovation and uniqueness, providing players with novel and interesting gaming experiences, which becomes one of the goals that game developers continuously pursue.

3.  Complexity: Game mechanics usually involve multiple aspects, such as rule design, mission setting, and level layout and these elements are interrelated and interdependent, forming a complex system.

In the game field, the position of game mechanics is usually pivotal as it is not only one of the important factors in attracting players, but also the key to the success of a game. Therefore, protecting the IP rights of game mechanics is quite crucial for game developers.

Applicability of PRC Copyright Law

PRC Copyright Law, as one of the important legal means of IP protection, is primarily aimed at protecting the exclusive rights of creators of literary, artistic, and scientific works over their creations. However, there are plenty of disputes regarding the applicability of PRC Copyright Law in the protection of game mechanics. Game mechanics are generally considered a form of creative expression, but whether they constitute a "work" in the sense of IP law is still controversial. On one hand, game mechanics have innovation and uniqueness and are the result of developers' intellectual labor; furthermore, they often fail to meet the traditional copyright law requirements for "originality" and "reproducibility." Therefore, in judicial practice, the protection of game mechanics often falls into a tough situation where there is no law to follow.

Nevertheless, PRC Copyright Law still plays a certain role in protecting game mechanics. For example, in the case of "Taichi Panda" vs. "Hua Qian Gu," the Court explicitly recognized that electronic game rules should be protected by PRC Copyright Law. This indicates that, under certain circumstances, some parts of game mechanics could be considered as works in particular situation and thus obtain corresponding legal protection.

In terms of specific judgment, only when the expression of game mechanics meets the constitutive requirements of PRC Copyright Law, and the real author / creator could be entitled to prove their original identity and seek protection through PRC Copyright Law.  In other words, this means that simply having a unique set of game mechanics does not automatically entitle one to copyright protection but requires further proof or evidence of the originality of its expression and compliance with the work's constitutive requirements. In practice, this places high demands on judges. For example, in the controversial "Rate the Land" case, a judgment often spans hundreds of thousands of words, requiring judges to meticulously dissect the game mechanics, like a plot, stripping away general gameplay or rules, describing and defining specific and unique gameplay or rules. Ultimately, through adjudication, the general game mechanics that belong to ideas are placed in the public domain, while protecting specific gameplay or rules, thereby stimulating gameplay innovation.

Applicability of PRC Patent Law

PRC Patent Law, as another important means of IP protection, mainly serves as protection for technical schemes that are unique, creative, and practical. So, is it possible for game mechanics to be protected by PRC Patent Law?

From the patentability criteria, game mechanics could be able to obtain patent protection if they meet the requirements of distinctive, creativity, and practicality. This reflects that game mechanics must be a completely new concept or method, have significant creativity, and can produce practical effects in actual application.

In practice, for the technologically innovative parts of game mechanics, such as specific physical collision algorithms, level generation algorithms, etc., one can attempt to apply for patent protection. When drafting claims, using technical language to describe multiple control steps involved in executing game mechanics in electronic games, integrating game rules into various control steps during game operation, can effectively avoid questions about the protectable subject matter. Attempting to obtain PRC Patent Law protection for various innovations in game mechanics provides new ideas for the IP protection of electronic games.

Supplementary Protection by PRC Anti-Unfair Competition Law

When PRC Copyright Law and PRC Patent Law have limitations in protecting game mechanics, PRC Anti-unfair Competition Law would usually serve as an effective supplementary means of protection. PRC Anti-unfair Competition Law mainly focuses on unfair practices in market competition, aiming to maintain a fair competitive market order and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.

In the case of "The King of Fighters" vs. "Digital Adventure," the Court held that "Digital Adventure" had obvious plagiarism in game rule design, which undoubtedly reduced its game development costs. With similar game rules, the difference in user experience is also small, allowing users to quickly adapt to the gameplay of both games, which to some extent weakens the attractiveness and interrelation between "The King of Fighters" and game players, causing a huge loss of player groups. At the same time, it can easily cause adverse effects among game players, leading to market damage for Yiqu Company, violating business ethics and the principle of honesty and credit, and is clearly a "reaping without sowing" type of free-riding behavior, constituting unfair competition against Yiqu Company.

In the case of "Douluo Continent: Martial Soul Awakening" vs. "Matchstick Man Awakening Mobile Game Software," the Court pointed out that the specific structure, order, and combination of the game belong to the category of game rules and are not the subject of PRC Copyright Law protection; due to the lack of work originality, it does not constitute copyright infringement. However, the game rules of the accused game are highly similar to those of "Douluo Continent: Martial Soul Awakening," and players will obtain a similar human-computer interactive experience when playing both games. This substitution effect will inevitably reduce the market share of "Douluo Continent: Martial Soul Awakening," hence damaging the interests and competitive advantages obtained by the plaintiff based on the involved game, constituting unfair competition.

In conclusion, the IP protection of game mechanics is a super complex issue that requires the comprehensive combination of PRC Copyright Law, PRC Patent Law, and PRC Anti-unfair Competition Law, for broaden protection. The IP protection of game mechanics is a long-term and arduous task under current process of rules.  Only through the joint efforts and continuous exploration of the whole society can we provide strong legal protection for the healthy development of the game industry.