I like to watch. Heh heh. Heh heh heh.

According to this article, though, if I want to put an observer mode into my game, I’ll have to pay Microsoft, who apparently discovered and patented it.

Patent No. 6,999,083 “provides for a host of technologies that enable groups of networked game spectators to enjoy a unique and richer experience to viewing the action within a networked multiplayer game.”

The guy who patented it? He came up with this idea in, oh, the late 1990s, and patented it in 2002. One suspects he got the idea from Doom, which had dead people observing in the early 90s. Air Warrior has the technology going even further back to 1980.

“I had no qualms about patenting technology,” says Drucker. “When I was at MIT, there was a professor who came up with a potential treatment for epilepsy, but he didn’t patent his invention. By the time he approached drug companies about testing the treatment, it was already in the public domain and they wouldn’t do any work with it, even though it was potentially a huge improvement on existing therapies. That’s when I realized the importance of patents.”

Uh, yeah. That’s the way to ensure your idea is used – be sure that anyone who tries to to use the technology risks being sued out of existence. Good show.

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