What's the Point of Legal Litigation in Early Video Games?

There must be something about games that's IP that's copyrightable. And as it turns out, there's not a lot of litigation around board games. In early video games, you sort of had the question of stuff that was copying source code. But now, if I called the things that had you fall from one level to the next, would Parker Brothers or whoever makes shoots and ladders have grounds to sue me? Like, I think potentially.