I’m sure that once the game is published, it can’t be protected. But if I were developing a game, I wouldn’t put the concept out in public exactly because the ideas can’t be protected — once they are discussed.

If I were producing a game, I would be sure that my developers and staff had limited non-compete and non-disclosure agreements to protect the game during development (limited to the duration of development basically — I’m not fond of the idea of long-term non-competes within an industry).

Likewise closed beta testers get an NDA, for whatever good that really does these days.

That *would* protect the idea of the game until open beta, in theory — which doesn’t mean that the idea can be protected long term, but it does give a mechanism for the developer to have a decent head start.

That head start is vital for the independent developer, who can be predated upon and overtaken by a big studio, just on the basis of resources.

If I’m off base here, please enlighten me further!