Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-29934911-20161006121432/@comment-24577221-20161013042721

It's not an absolute that they can't use such suggestions. But there are messy legal complications that make them very reluctant to do so.

Game suggestions can't be copyrighted, but a lot of people don't understand that. If people see their ideas being used, they sometimes demand compensation, even though the company may have already had the idea, even if the company never actually saw a suggestion from outside. The simplest policy, the policy which saves them time and trouble, is to never use ideas from outside. Some companies go out of their way to avoid seeing ideas from outside, for this reason.