Despite how far game technology has come over the years, loading screens can still be found in plenty of titles, and while load times are generally faster these days, no one enjoys staring at a screen waiting to be told that they can continue playing.

Namco Ltd (now part of Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc) had actually come up with a solution to that problem in the 1990s by using fun little minimages to help pass the time during loading screens. If you are wondering why such a neat invention has not made its way into other games, it is because Bandai Namco has held a patent on it for the last 20 years, but that is about to change with the patent expiring on Friday.

The description of gaming in the patent itself, which was filed by game publisher Namco a decade before it merged with toy maker Bandai Co Ltd, shows how obviously dated the document is.

“Recent advances in hardware technology have made it possible for games players to use domestic games machines to enjoy the same sort of three-dimensional, action-packed games as those provided in games centers,” the patent says. “A particular trend in recent years is the popularity of domestic games machines of a type in which an external recording medium such as a large-capacity compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM) can be set in the main unit of the games machine, to make it easy to play exciting games.”

It sounds like how Dr Evil would describe videogames. You can practically hear the air quotes around “CD-ROM.”

Loading Screen Game Jam

With the explosion in independent game development over the last few years, many young developers have questioned whether patents should be allowed for basic game design principles, especially for a medium that depends on constant evolution for its survival.

In honor of the expiring patent, some game developers and hobbyists will be holding a Loading Screen Game Jam, which is themed around “creating interactive loading screens (or anything that infringes on the abstract) and defiling the patent that held back game design for so many years!”

The creators of the game jam gave a couple of alternate joke titles for the event, saying it could also be called “Game design shouldn’t be held back by patents jam” or “Seriously you shouldn’t be able to patent something that basic jam.”

Photo by zigazou76