Been thinking a lot about this and what is actually taking place here. A few things we do know is the license was bought 6 years ago, came due and wasn't renewed. We don't know exactly why but we are given a pretty strong clue of when they decided this which was some time ago. Reign and Reverie looks like a half a data cycle pooled together into a deluxe expansion stamped with the omega symbol signifying the end of the game. They announced this back in early March and with type setting and all, this must have happen well before then. The timing of the public announcement has more to do with either distributors finding out due to no more stock of netrunner being offered or something appearing in a quarterly report which would tip people off netrunner was over.

So the reason is why, and that reason is always money. The idea that Wizard will out of the blue start making something other than Magic, more Magic and way too much Magic doesn't sound correct nor does the notation that they hate money and refused to cash FFG's check. So it comes down to what exactly was FFG paying for? FFG owns Android which has all the corp names, runners, ICE, all the lore, all the art so no, they aren't paying for that. Game mechanics? Well Netrunner came out in 1996. It is possible they patented the game mechanics but patents only last 20 years, so 6 years ago maybe they need a licensing agreement, but not now. So what exact would they license? The name netrunner? A few copyrighted terms like click? Would FFG or more so Asmodee pay money to call an action a click? All the value is in Android at this point, not netrunner, which as far as I can tell doesn't have much left in it beside a few copyrighted yet easy to change terms. Wizards doesn't have anything to build a game on, FFG does. So what exactly is FFG paying for and why would they ever give perfectly good money to Wizards when they don't have to?

They certainly acted as if they would get an extension on the license but then again, companies act like that even when they know they won't. They like to keep their employees in the dark so they don't get scared and get another job and they sure in **** don't want their customers finding out so they keep buying, hence all the damage control when this was announced. Renewing may never have been in the plans, or if they were going to renew, it would have to be a rather small check to write. At this point FFG knows from L5R a new LCG will sell good. So there isn't any down side to them making a new LCG based on the Android IP and in fact, a reboot may sell even better than a revised core.

So the real question I guess is why would FFG pay Wizards anything?

While I am not happy Netrunner is lost, I'm actually excite about the future. Michael Boggs has proven himself more than a competent developer by righting the sinking netrunner ship. I am sure they are keeping him around and hopefully have him working on the next Android LCG be it an asymmetrical competitive game or a co-op game. I am hoping for both and there is nothing that I can see that is standing in the way of this. Wizards really doesn't have anything of value and they are out of the picture now.

It’s very simple: they licensed the game Netrunner. They localized it to their in house IP, everything else is WOTC property under copyright.

31 minutes ago, Grimwalker said:

It’s very simple: they licensed the game Netrunner. They localized it to their in house IP, everything else is WOTC property under copyright.

Actually not true. Game mechanics - not copy writable. Wayland, Jentiki etc.. belong to FFG. So what does Wizards own again? Not much from what I can tell. They just have to call certain things by a slightly different name here and there.

wotc owns the name Netrunner.

Whether or not you believe it's necessary *that's what the license was actually for.* This is a fact. Everything about the game aside from setting and flavor was always treated by FFG as WOTC's property.

Are you an attorney? Almost every armchair copyright attorney on the internet is talking out of his rectum. At any rate, FFG doesn't share your permissive view.

I am asking what is actually in the License. Everything? Well we know that is not true. Game mechanics can be patented, not copyrighted. Any patents are expired now. So it isn't that, at least not anymore. The Art work? That gets used all over the Android stuff. All the names, characters and places, all Android. So what is left? C2K is right, they own the name "Netrunner" and probably a few other terms used in the game and not much else. If Wizards owned everything, all of android would get shut down, which isn't the case. So what does Wizards owns other than the name "Netrunner"?

Yeah, they can't just remove the name Netrunner from everything and proceed like it is a brand new game. However there is nothing stopping them from coming out with a very similar game.

Anyways I am excited about what FFG is going to reveal mostly likely at GenCon 2019 about the new Android LCG. They seem to want more co-op LCG so that is probably they way it will go where a group of runners go through a story driven adventure trying to fight the big bad corp and avoid getting "Neural Damage" or something like that. I like the Android IP and interested in what is next.

yeah, should have clarified that wotc owns the definitions of most the states in the game. its the reason why no one can use "tap" to describe turning a card 90 degrees. WotC lawyers in the 90s did a good job protecting their IPs.

FFG still owns the Android universe though. That was there before they acquired the netrunner license.

2 hours ago, C2K said:

yeah, should have clarified that wotc owns the definitions of most the states in the game. its the reason why no one can use "tap" to describe turning a card 90 degrees. WotC lawyers in the 90s did a good job protecting their IPs.

FFG still owns the Android universe though. That was there before they acquired the netrunner license.

This is true. FFG uses the word exhaust or active instead of tap. So we have neural damage instead of brain damage. It will be silly at first but after a while, it will seem normal enough.

Without any professional backup for my words I can add that WotC can safely file a lawsuit should FFG remake a game of "programming specialists" "hacking" into "systems" protected by "cybershields"... which is basically the core of Netrunner. This comes after a quick search on the Internet about similar cases and the DaVinci Editrice SRL (publisher of Bang!) vs. Yoka Games and their US distributor, ZiKo Games, LLC came out. Here is the source:

http://strebecklaw.com/court-rules-favor-cloned-tabletop-game-no-protection-us-copyright-law/

Seems ZiKo Games won in court only because they changed the entire theme of the game regardless of outright stealing (yes, for me it is an idea theft and I dislike that, to avoid stronger words) most of the game mechanics. Quoting the article “Unlike a book or movie plot, the rules and procedures, including the winning conditions, that make up a card-game system of play do not themselves produce the artistic or literary content that is the hallmark of protectable expression. The undisputed summary judgment evidence shows that Bang!’s characters, roles, and interactions are not substantially similar to those in LOTK. The aspects of the roles, characters, and interactions that are similar are not expressive, and aspects that are expressive are not substantially similar." In short game mechanics are not protected but the roles and interactions forming the basis of the game are. The very idea of a person breaking the software security of a server to access some data in it forms the artistic content that can be disputed at court.

The important part is it is not granted that WotC would win such a case but the tension and problems a continuation of Netrunner using a different name would bring will be even worse than simply pulling the plug of the game.

However a ninja (runner) passing a series of locked doors (ice) and traps while evading guards (sysops) to steal information/kill important person (accessing an agenda) or just spying on the imperial court (running R&D) should do nicely - game mechanics are intact, artistic flavor set in L5R in this instance is different enough.

Again I am in no way a lawyer so any or all of the above might be irrelevant. Just felt like sharing what I see is an answer to the topic.

10 hours ago, Mep said:

I am asking what is actually in the License. Everything? Well we know that is not true.

As in all things, Mep, you’re stating your speculation as fact. You’re not a lawyer.

You should stop to consider that perhaps a game company that makes its living making creative products might not take a cavalier view of what a game company could or could not claim to own. Especially one with so much invested in maintaining the goodwill of many license partners such as Bethesda, iD, Lucasfilm/Disney, and other relationships with Hasbro for other properties.

I’ve had enough conversations with people at the company to know that what you think isn’t true actually is what they did. As far as FFG is concerned WOTC owns the original game Netrunner, lock, stock, and barrel, and their right to publish a modern edition of that game is a matter of licensing the original property.

Further reading:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2015/9/25/9399821/wizards-of-the-coast-cryptozoic-magic-the-gathering-lawsuit-settlement

4 hours ago, Valdemart said:

However a ninja (runner) passing a series of locked doors (ice) and traps while evading guards (sysops) to steal information/kill important person (accessing an agenda) or just spying on the imperial court (running R&D) should do nicely - game mechanics are intact, artistic flavor set in L5R in this instance is different enough.

There are no ninjas in L5R come on!!

I doubt FFG will be bold enough to do an Android asymmetrical game and risk the suit. I completely see them doing co-op game where a group of runners have to break into a corps computer systems before the corp advances their agendas. The game system is actually their Arkham Horror system and the IP is Android. Wizards has no case for something like that. Still not the same game we all like, but it is something.

Also, FFG has no problem stealing game design from other game companies. Seriously, take a look at some of their games, it is obvious. The game industry as a whole does nothing but steal ideas from each other.

Sounds like Hex Shards won that case, seeing as they are still around and Wizards would rather cash a small check than taking it to court to shut them down completely and cashing a bigger check only to lose the case completely and getting to cash no check at all. For all we know, Wizards got a very small check once it was pointed out they really didn't have much of a case at all. If they did have a strong case, Wizards would have shut them down. Since that didn't happen, Wizard didn't really have much of a case at all did they?

Suits get settled out of court all the time, often for amounts less than the cost of moving the suit forward for both parties. They both walk away feeling like they won since they avoided more legal fees.

Companies often sue just as a matter of defending their turf and showing due diligence to stockholders. I have every expectation that if FFG did decide to perversely disregard industry norms and make a version of Netrunner of their own, that they’d have been sued too. Then there’d be the inevitable settlement, nobody wins, better to just grant WOTC their druthers and respect intellectual property.

”Copies games?” Not sure what you’re referring to. They license games to make new editions all the time, sure, but copy? I’m not aware of any and “take a look at some of their games, it’s obvious” is a pretty weak argument.

I heard wizards of the coast are to release some new settings for D&D 5th edition. For example Spell ammer... it's not too much of a stretch to think they might want to release a netrunner campaign setting.?

This announcement is very similar to the Games Workshop licence dropping where GW wanted excusivity on their IP. Same with Wizards maybe wanting control back of a succssful IP to develop their own games. They have more board games too.

3 hours ago, asgardianphil said:

I heard wizards of the coast are to release some new settings for D&D 5th edition. For example Spell ammer... it's not too much of a stretch to think they might want to release a netrunner campaign setting.?

WotC does not own the Android universe. They can not use the world that is themed in netrunner without getting the license to it.

Besides, there is a really good chance an Android RPG will be released using the Genesys system, based on clues found in that sourcebook and that they released a supplement for Terrinoth.

Do I risk a lawsuit from Hasbro/WOTC? Not unless you've got all the money in the world.

On 6/13/2018 at 12:59 AM, asgardianphil said:

I heard wizards of the coast are to release some new settings for D&D 5th edition. For example Spell ammer... it's not too much of a stretch to think they might want to release a netrunner campaign setting.?

It is a stretch. Trust me on this. They haven't even officially used the M:tG setting for D&D in all those decades. (Although they released a few 'Plane Shift' articles unofficially, which are a pretty cool starting point.)

In fact, there is no Netrunner setting. The original CCG used 'Cyberpunk 2020' from Talsorian games as a setting and FFG used their 'Android' setting.

On 6/12/2018 at 2:35 PM, Valdemart said:

Without any professional backup for my words I can add that WotC can safely file a lawsuit should FFG remake a game of "programming specialists" "hacking" into "systems" protected by "cybershields"... which is basically the core of Netrunner. This comes after a quick search on the Internet about similar cases and the DaVinci Editrice SRL (publisher of Bang!) vs. Yoka Games and their US distributor, ZiKo Games, LLC came out. Here is the source:

http://strebecklaw.com/court-rules-favor-cloned-tabletop-game-no-protection-us-copyright-law/

Seems ZiKo Games won in court only because they changed the entire theme of the game regardless of outright stealing (yes, for me it is an idea theft and I dislike that, to avoid stronger words) most of the game mechanics. Quoting the article “Unlike a book or movie plot, the rules and procedures, including the winning conditions, that make up a card-game system of play do not themselves produce the artistic or literary content that is the hallmark of protectable expression. The undisputed summary judgment evidence shows that Bang!’s characters, roles, and interactions are not substantially similar to those in LOTK. The aspects of the roles, characters, and interactions that are similar are not expressive, and aspects that are expressive are not substantially similar." In short game mechanics are not protected but the roles and interactions forming the basis of the game are. The very idea of a person breaking the software security of a server to access some data in it forms the artistic content that can be disputed at court.

The important part is it is not granted that WotC would win such a case but the tension and problems a continuation of Netrunner using a different name would bring will be even worse than simply pulling the plug of the game.

However a ninja (runner) passing a series of locked doors (ice) and traps while evading guards (sysops) to steal information/kill important person (accessing an agenda) or just spying on the imperial court (running R&D) should do nicely - game mechanics are intact, artistic flavor set in L5R in this instance is different enough.

Again I am in no way a lawyer so any or all of the above might be irrelevant. Just felt like sharing what I see is an answer to the topic.

I have no idea how much of the core mechanics FFG would have to change for a judge to quickly tell WotC not to waste his or her time, but the idea that WotC owns the very concept of hacking-themed asymmetrical card games is utterly laughable, no matter how much they might thuggishly claim to do so. The point of the case you quoted is that ZiKo Games didn't copy both theme and ruleset, which would be a whole different beast. And because any Netrunner patents would have since expired, chances of WotC actually winning against FFG would be slim regardless (case in point, just compare Eternal to Magic), but they might very well drag it out for years.

See also Hasbro and anytime anyone tries to make a Monopoly variant.

I don’t know about other project managers but “getting sued by one of the largest toy & game manufacturers in the world” is not something I want to have in my Risk register. Whether or not I think I’d be likely to prevail on the merits, it’s money that could pay for products, projects, and people if I can avoid that.

I'd say look at X-wing for stealing of ideas. FFG took Wings of War and became american distributor for the Italian game maker. Next thing you know, FFG has a dogfighting game with models and stands. Is it a different game? Sure, but man is it big copy of Wings of War. Different enough they would win a lawsuit, but read the threads on BBG about the Italian designers upset that FFG took their game....

So I'll agree with the OP that FFG will happily take an existing idea and try to make it better and profit from it. Easily could be done with Netrunner, and Im in the camp there WILL be a card game and prob co - op...

Quote

This is the thing. You can't copyright individual mechanics, but you definitely can claim it on a whole arrangement of specific ones, especially if they're using the same name for everything, hence how even if they could copy the entire system, all the terminology'd need to go. It's a massive mess and basically boils down to how the system could be licenced in the first place. The thing they paid for wasn't the name "Netrunner" but everything that conceptually went with the game.

Paraphrasing: otherwise, what's to stop you shoving the rulebook for Warhammer 40k through a thesaurus and publishing it as your own unique game?

On 6/16/2018 at 10:55 PM, bassoon201 said:

I'd say look at X-wing for stealing of ideas. FFG took Wings of War and became american distributor for the Italian game maker. Next thing you know, FFG has a dogfighting game with models and stands. Is it a different game? Sure, but man is it big copy of Wings of War. Different enough they would win a lawsuit, but read the threads on BBG about the Italian designers upset that FFG took their game....

I think I found the thread you were referring to. The original Italian designers were hurt that FFG didn’t leverage them to design the new system once it was evident WOW/G publisher wasn’t stable enough for a license agreement.

Every other thread and post comparing the two cites mechanical differences at every level such that they only look similar when you zoom out to the level of “turn based dogfighting miniatures game” and within that broadest possible description, necessarily you’re going to have some similarities. How would you do a miniatures game about flying things without models and stands?

Youre confusing replication with inspiration. If I were to make a card game about hacking, I’d definitely look at Netrunner for “Lessons Learned” as we say in the project management industry, both what worked and what didn’t. Necessarily my game is going to have similarities: Asymmetry. Corporate defenses and resources, hacker tools both physical and virtual. Some kind of economy and tempo management.

Have I “copied” Netrunner? If every aspect of my game is significantly different but only reminiscent of NR overall, I’d say I didn’t.

As far as I can find after a bit of digging, it's a copyright issue, not a patent or trademark. You can view WOTC's official copyright claim on Netrunner here .

I actually couldn't find a patent specifically for Netrunner's game system. By comparison, the MTG patent can be found here , and I think may have been seen at the time as a catch-all for all of WotC's TCGs, hence why there's no patent on the Netrunner game itself. BTW, that patent has expired because patents still only last 20 years (while copyright duration keeps being extended into perpetuity thanks to Disney & co).

However, the copyright is enough to shut FFG down because they chose to release the game with the Netrunner branding and trappings, including original terminology unique to the original Netrunner game like Rez, Run, Stack, Ice, etc. Had FFG chosen to release a copycat game without putting the name Netrunner all over the packaging and with new original game terminology, they probably would have been in the clear. But the Netrunner name, as I understand it, was critical to the success of the reboot based on the nostalgia of customers who had enjoyed the game in early 2000s. They could create their own game that functions very close to Netrunner, but all of the product they've created so far with the Netrunner name is now untouchable to them. Also there is an unwritten code of honor between the established game publishers not to rip off each other's games systems without obtaining a license because it's so difficult to protect game mechanics without a huge legal team, so blatant theft and copying of other developer's games systems just hurts everyone in the industry.

4 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Also there is an unwritten code of honor between the established game publishers not to rip off each other's games systems without obtaining a license because it's so difficult to protect game mechanics without a huge legal team, so blatant theft and copying of other developer's games systems just hurts everyone in the industry.

THIS.