For those of you who don't know, a work or IP in the public domain is an endeavor who's copyright has either expired, if it had one. It is the reason that you can legally download Mozart or Vivaldi for free.

A copyright expires around 75 years after it is filed, but varies for country to country. Once it expires, a new copyright usually cannot be filed, even if the creator wants it. For more information here is a wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

Video games are a relatively new art (yes, I said art.), one that has yet to see many frays into the mysterious pool that is the public domain, so this question might be foreign: What will happen to video a video game when it enters the public domain?

Perhaps I should elaborate: Let's say a song enters the public domain. Anybody is legally allowed to do anything with it. They could take the percussion and use that beat in a song of their own. They can remix it. They can burn it on a CD and sell it to whomever they please.

I recently came across a hard rock rearrangement of Vivaldi's Spring, which piqued my curiosity on this subject. Here is the link, if anyone is interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvRpkidj8FQ

Let's say that somewhere down the road that The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time becomes in the public domain. Someone could mod the game to play on a browser, and add online connectivity to it, and make an MMORPG based on it, for the fraction of the cost. And the best part with that is once someone edits a work in the public domain, the edit is that person's IP, and is not in the public domain. This means a game designer could legally use the majority of a game's engine, and mechanics, and not have it be able to be legally downloaded for free.

What do you guys think will happen to games like Uncharted 1\2, Mario, or LBP 1\2 when they enter the public domain? Truthfully I think that once the copyrights expire on modern video games we will see an explosion of creativity and a flux of games designed. I think that indie designers will become more financially secure, but most importantly, I think that we will not be disappointed by the creativity of our fellow man.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

In 75 years time no one will want to play Ocarina of Time with those graphics. We will probably have something like 3D ultra reality augmented with sensory information including smells for dog poo.

Sorry, but by the time any of our video game franchises reach public domain, they will be long gone and so will what we currently think of 'browsers, pcs, and games'.

We're already knee-deep in the revolution of 3D and motion gaming with both controllers and cameras. What do you think the next huge leap is after that? Virtual reality. 70 year old Zelda graphics... HA.

The phonograph is gone, same with vinyl records. But baroque music still gets played on my speakers today.

That's the beauty of being in the public domain: You can change the work. The graphics could easily be remastered, but the core mechanics are harder to change.

Something tells me that the core mechanics of a video game that fits in a 1MB ROM file wouldn't be that hard to replicate NOW, let alone 70 years down the road.

Interesting discussion, though most of us either won't be alive or will likely not be playing games anymore by the time we start seeing theven NES games in the public domain.

Due to a crazy mix-up, Night of the Living Dead is already in the public domain, way before it should be.  It's free to watch online, OR... remake or remix.  You could make a film called Night of the Living Dead that doesn't even have zombies in it.  Or you could make one where zombies attack a pot farm, and it's in 3-D.  Oh wait, that last one already happened.

there are different things in effect:

Trademarks can last forever.. (Mario, Halo etc are also trademarks so you can't use them)
70 (not 75) years is for when author after they die.. so life author plus 70 years..
but it doesn't work like that in software:
In the US: it's 120 years after publication day..

I think that by the time videogames start entering public domain, those same videogames will be hopelessly aged. It's not like music, because the only thing that has really changed there is how it is recorded and sold. Many instruments are the same as they were 100 years ago, and the new ones that have come still fit in well with the old ones.

But 60 years from now, we're going to be playing games in a radically different way then we do now, so playing Ocarina of Time will probably feel incredibly old school. I can't even think of anything to compare it with, that's how old school it's going to be.

There might be people who want to play it old school, or others who want to bring it up to standards, but I don't think we will see any huge uptake on it.

I am not a copyright lawyer, but I think any game released without a copyright notice before 1989 and that was not later registered would be in the public domain. 

Plenty of computer, arcade, and video games were released and enjoyed before 1989. Instead of waiting around for Halo and Ocarina of Time, perhaps you should look into this?

Edit: I guess this only applies to the USA.