lTyl

In sloperama faq there is something like 'they can sue me for doing this kind of thing', but i still think that you can put real AK-47 or M4 in your game with its real name and not get sued.

There is a trademark filed with the United States Trademark and Patent office for the phrase "AK47", which covers video games and firearms, among others. So if you have a gun called "AK47" in your game without a license, you could violate this trademark and open yourself up to legal problems. I'm not a lawyer, but if you insist on calling equipment in your game with that name, it is best to consult a lawyer and see what he has to say.

I just want to make a quick note about this scenario:

or maybe he's a musician and he composed a theme and recorded it as MP3.

John can sell you a commercial license to use his work, however that does not mean you have a license to actually use MP3s. You will have to check the license specifics for MP3s and make sure your use fits within the license terms. If you want to use it for a commercial product, expect to pay.

Question 1) How can John check if his stuff is being used by people who didn't buy a commercial license?

Obvious answer is John maintains a list/customer database showing him who all licenses his work and for which product. John then finds out about a commercial product which does not appear on his list, so the assumption can be made it was not paid for.

Honestly, investing time and money into something to validate licenses for content like you mention is not worth the hassle in my opinion. The bigger studios are unlikely to steal content, smaller studios are not worth going after because they won't have the money to give you, so you invest in a expensive lawyer, and maybe even win a claims case, but then find out the other party has absolutely nothing to give you. You end up with less money than what you started with. US-based companies you can send them a DMCA/cease-and-desist letter, but even that is not guaranteed to do anything.

It's best to spend that time, effort and sanity on making high-quality work and focus on the clients who pay you to make that work.

Have you ever read Justin Cronin's novel The Passage? Reading your current characteristic traits for your post-apocalyptic creature really got me thinking about that book again. The creature in his book are vampire-like superhumans who hunt only in darkness for fresh blood, develop immortality and are driven by a primal-instinct to feed constantly. However, they still retain some form of human intelligence and later develop pack-like hunting behaviors and strategies to trap an ever-dwindling food supply. So if you have never read his book before, and are facing a mind-blank, try giving it a read and maybe it will help get your creative juices flowing .

In the end though, you can skin your creature to look like the hideous monster from children's nightmares and call it a cat, and in your world at least, stay the hell away from cats.

well ofcourse im investing to make money

Invest in something other than games. The returns are low and the risks are extremely high.

I don't agree that returns are low.. it's just for studios like Orymus3 that returns are low because like he said himself.. he isnt making games for money... just for fun.
That's the general attitidue with most indys.
If you get a serious indy team together then I think you can make a lot of money.

The video game industry is a creative industry that is hugely competitive. Back in 2008 I was ignorant enough to think that I could make a significant amount of money in the game industry. I put a lot of money into my first commercial project to make it shiny, smooth and fluid but skimped out on actually making it fun. I had no previous experience at the time, but had a lot of business experience before then. So I took an approach where I wanted to make games for the money, and because of that mindset the overall quality of the project suffered to the point where it was almost intolerable to play.You have to enter the industry because it is something you WANT to do and not because you heard of some game that sold two million copies and want a piece of the pie.

Entering the industry solely because of the money is a terrible excuse and will, in almost every case, cause you to fall flat on your face bleeding all of your investment capital. If you ask any of the very successful independent developers why they entered the industry, their answers will all be similar; they did it because it is something they love to do.

@DAEvo --- It sounds like you would benefit from using something like SQLite. It is a self-contained SQL database that does not require a server installation, and is public domain