First, I'm a regular guy new to game design. Like thousands of inventors I think I have a slam dunk idea blah blah blah. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself however, as you can infer by the subject line that I may be fighting an uphill battle.
With that in mind, does anyone have experience or insight into using movie names, characters, or images for a game? Not just a mention of the movie, but actually having the game based on it's characters and plot? How are these games started? Do you approach the studio and ask to license the movie name? How do you protect yourself from getting the idea stolen? Will they even consider it for less than 100's of k?
Also, if this thing is possible I hope to find a company or individual to consult on the project and figured this was the perfect place to look!
Thanks for the time and help.
At least you have the right attitude. Now, have you taken the obligatory vow of poverty required of all game designers? :wink:
As to your question, there has been a lot of discussion of late here (tip: check the search function, very handy!).
Essentially, if you are putting together a game to send to a publisher who will then do all the leg work to establish the proper licences for the movie name, characters, etc., then feel free to use and design. I am not a lawyer (a phrase that has been coming up a lot lately), but I believe this falls under the fair use act in regards to the intellectual property that you would be using. You don't own it, but you are not depriving the rightful owners of their due profits/royalties, then you are in the clear.
That method puts the onus on the publisher to secure the legal rights to the property since they are the ones who will be publishing the game and selling it to the public.
If YOU are the intended publisher (you intend to self-publish), the you are responsible for having the necessary licenses inplace before selling (or indeed giving away) you game. Before you write to the owner of the property, first take a quick look in either hand. If you're not holding a winning lottery ticket, then you may not be able to afford the rights to the property (that's under the assumption that you're not a well established game designer and/or producer in which case you probably already have a contact to all the licenses you want including the new Hillary Duff "I Can TOO Sing!" game).
I don't know what property you're talking about, but if you feel that it has the appeal to drive game sales, then you may find that the rights are either already bought out or very expensive. Either way I'd be very interested to hear what something like that goes for these days.
As for protecting your game, fully copyright the rules and any unique visual components (game board, etc.). Since you're using copyrighted material (the movie graphics and stills), you may want to leave them off and copyright a more generic layout. That will give you about as much protection as you can get. Don't worry about patenting the mechanics, it probably won't be worth the high cost. Just be sure to include a copyright symbol and you should be OK.
Best of luck!