Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is remembered for many reasons, but perhaps best of all for its Nemesis system, an incredible mechanic for generating memorable Orc encounters. According to a former executive, the Nemesis system came about from trying to solve a different problem: secondhand sales.
In a new video, Laura Fryer — former vice president of WB Games who oversaw the publisher’s Seattle studios at the time — talked about her time with Monolith. While discussing the way trend-chasing affects the industry, Fryer mentioned that chasing trends is what “literally led to the Nemesis system.”
It’s patented.
A game mechanic should not be patentable in this manner. Fucking copyright law.
I mean you could make a game with it and argue it in court but that’s expensive af. That’s a bigger part of patenting for the big for corps. Whether it’d stand in court or not is less relevant than scaring people off due to costs.
Just don’t release the game in the US and Japan.
Now that the studio closed they should license it out.
The patent is owned by WB, not the studio. They won’t license it. Just sit on it and let it rot.
But they can earn money from licensing contracts or at least use it themselves
They haven’t bothered doing that in the last 10 years. I don’t see them starting now.
They only shut down last month, before which they were gonna use it themselves. I’ve still cope…
What’s the scope on that though? I bet someone could get away with a game that does a somewhat similar thing, just not in the exact same way.