Last week some news shook the gaming world: “God of War Ragnarök” is coming out this next November. This is a very well-known/expected title for gamers all around the world, and one of Playstation’s main IP. The story –like the previous installment– takes place in the old Nordic lands and its lore tackles a fantasy story rich in characters, visual effects, music, and Nordic gods.

We in Merino love games, and recognize them to be incredibly complex works of art. In fact, videogames as a whole are not protectable, being sui generis works themselves given the plethora of elements that comes into play (pun intended). That means that several protection actions are taken in order to secure each and every element composing the game. In that sense, multiple IP mechanisms and cumulative protection strategies must be used to that end.

Common assets, game engines, music, script, voice actors and a large etc. are some of the protectable elements via copyright in a videogame, to which trademarks, patents and designs may be added to fulfill a comprehensive protection of the work.

Also, this game is one of the so called “console’s exclusive”, which means that only those with a Playstation console will be able to run the game. This fundamental fact is very well used by Playstation knowingly that when it comes to videogames, as with any other copyrightable work, abstractly considered ideas are not protectable, but concretely manifested ideas are. Which means that other games may embrace the same general idea (fighting gods, fatherhood, fantastic characters involved, fictional worlds, etc.) but not in the same specific manner, and certainly not with the same characters, music, specific lore and all the elements that makes God of War such a masterpiece.

This also means that a huge deploy of strategic intellectual property rights (IPRs) must take place to guarantee, not only the protection, but the safe exploitation of such IPRs for their holders.

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