Despite the ingenious invention of a completely new game that can be played with equipment of a standard chess set (plus 4 coins), Arimaa has failed to catch on.
I speculate that the reason is because it deviated from the existing intellectual inertia of piece names and notation, instead opting for completely new names (elephant, etc.) and ugly piece icons on board diagrams. All the pieces look too similar and don't print out well in black and white. Through the centuries, chess had already solved these mundane problems.
I strongly suspect these changes were in hopes of maximizing commercial intellectual property revenue (and in particular, in hopes of winning legal disputes about intellectual property), in contrast to the many other chess variants -- far more successful -- which make no such claims.
Because there are so many other worthy chess variants, or other games in general, I would not invest effort in learning to play Arimaa for fear that an ugly intellectual property claim by the inventor would put my efforts to waste. One can imagine a commercial, sponsored tournament being canceled because the sponsor and inventor failed to agree to a license for royalties.
For a chess-like game with high branching factor, consider chess with moving armies.
1 comment :
It's a bit premature to say that Arimaa has failed to catch on. Every year now for nine years running, more people play Arimaa than played it the year before. The Arimaa community is small compared to some, but it is both thriving and growing.
In the short run, superficial factors like piece names and images may play a large role, but in the long run what matters most is infinite replay value. Arimaa is strategically deep, free of draws, free from color advantage, and admits many styles of play. Most chess variants that have been played over 200,000 times (and there are not many) have issues in one or more of the long-term categories in which Arimaa shines.
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