GAMES
- Nintendo, Valve, Sony, and EA reported in Norway for breaching European consumer law – UPDATE: NCC reports Nintendo to German authorities after dropping other complaints
- We need parents on board if we want to protect their children: Following news of a sexual assault in Roblox and ‘addiction’ to Fortnite, parents want to cut kids off from these games – but that will only make the problem worse
- Video Game Deep Cuts: Livestreaming Your Fortnite Addiction
- The Truth About ‘Video Game Addiction’
- French gambling regulator concerned by loot boxes, but won’t take legal action
- How Journey eliminated online toxicity with a simple ping
- Fighting a toxic Steam community – and winning: Creative Assembly’s Grace Carroll said the “visible presence of moderation” was enough to turn around a toxic Steam forum in just a week
- Valve quickly shuts down developer method for estimating Steam sales: Steam API suddenly altered after The End Is Nigh co-dev uses achievements data as SteamSpy alternative
- Valve swiftly removes new method for estimating Steam sales
- Valve highlights the best selling and most played Steam games of 2018
- Valve leaks Steam game player counts; we have the numbers
- Team Fortress 2 leads as biggest player counts on Steam revealed
- Steam Spy and the need for numbers: For indie developers in need of metrics Steam Spy is imperfect, “but the other option is absolutely nothing”
- Launching a successful indie game in 2018: TheMoonlighter story
- Guild Wars 2 writers dismissed after Twitter spat with streamer
- ArenaNet cuts ties with Guild Wars 2 writers after Twitter spat: “Their attacks on the community were unacceptable,” says ArenaNet president
- ArenaNet sends all the wrong messages: Guild Wars 2 studio terminating employees after backlash discourages fan interaction, encourages player outrage
- ArenaNet “promised me that I wouldn’t have to check my identity at the door”: Fired writer says Guild Wars studio has damaged its reputation, but ArenaNet maintains that Jessica Price “attacked” community over a “perceived slight”
- ArenaNet firings inspire IGDA to remind devs: Ask about harassment protection
- IGDA asks studios to “clarify the guidelines and expectations around social media use”: ArenaNet firings show how “interacting with people as a game developer can jeopardize someone’s job and career”
- ArenaNet president: Fired devs ‘could have chosen not to engage’ on social media
- Women in Games launches strategy on improving gender diversity in esports: Encouraging women to participate in the industry is critical for the commercial success of the industry, says advocacy group
- Blizzard’s Pink Mercy event raised over $12 million for a breast cancer charity
- ESPN, Disney XD, and Blizzard pen deal to bring Overwatchmatches to primetime TV
- Blizzard and Disney partner to bring Overwatch League to ESPN, other networks: ESPN, Disney XD, ABC, related networks will broadcast the competition’s inaugural season
- Todd Howard: Games as a service ‘doesn’t mark the future’
- ESA president: Crunch “hasn’t been a significant issue” for ten years: Industry body’s leader Mike Gallagher also believes call for unions is “in its infancy”
- ESA: Strong wages and opportunities keep unionization from being a ‘significant issue’
- Disney’s ‘Moana’ production assets now available for the public
- RuneScape generates $800M in lifetime revenue during its 17 years online
- RuneScape has brought in over $800 million in lifetime revenue: After 17 years and three iterations, Jagex’s MMO has over 250 million player accounts and continues to grow
- Xbox: Accessible games can “mean the difference between existing and living” for disabled people – But platform holder’s Tara Voelker urges developers to add more accessibility options to their titles
- Monster Hunter World concerns trigger 13% drop for Capcom shares: US analyst predicts “significant risk of sales decline” as console version slows ahead of PC launch
- Supercell becomes first publisher to operate two multi-billion-dollar mobile games: Clash Royale breaks $2 billion lifetime revenue
- Durham College embraces eSports with construction of gaming arena
- ‘The Unspoken’ VR League eSports Final is Cancelled & Not Coming to Oculus Connect 5 After All
- Valve: Monthly Active VR Users on Steam Are Up 160% Year-over-year
- “There is no magic formula” for getting noticed on Steam
- Jurassic World already one of Steam’s 2018 top sellers: Frontier’s dino park management sim rubbing elbows with Grand Theft Auto 5, Far Cry 5 after less than a month on sale
- The Sims Mobile has amassed $15M in revenue in four months
- The Sims Mobile brings in over $15 million in four months: Popular life sim game was only EA’s eighth highest earning mobile game in June
- The Sims Mobile brings in over $15 million in four months: Popular life sim game was only EA’s eighth highest earning mobile game in June
- EA acquires Industrial Toys: Midnight Star development studio brings mobile expertise to EA Worldwide Studios
- id Software: Avoiding cannibalization in the post-apocalypse – Tim Willits on the role of Fallout 76 in Rage 2’s pre-E3 reveal, and why id no longer uses its tech to sell its games
- Nexon and EA cancel Asia-exclusive Titanfall Online
- Asia-focused Titanfall Online canceled: Nexon, EA, Respawn collaboration abandoned after over three years of development
- Electronic Arts snaps up Alex Seropian’s studio Industrial Toys
- THQ Nordic acquires German developer and publisher HandyGames
- Coming out from under Grand Theft Auto’s shadow: For years, Take-Two’s other games have lingered in the shadow of Rockstar’s series, but GTA V’s monumental status means it’s pointless to compare it to the upcoming Red Dead Redemption 2
- Todd Howard: Service-based Fallout 76 doesn’t mark the future direction of Bethesda – “Anyone who has ever said ‘this is the future and this part of gaming is dead’ has been proven wrong every single time”
- “Millions of people” are still playing Skyrim every month – Todd Howard on the many Skyrim ports: “If you want us to stop releasing it, stop buying it.”
- How do companies like Nintendo and CD Projekt Red approach crunch?
- ‘Gatcha’ is a good fit for Fire Emblem, but it isn’t Nintendo’s standard for mobile
- Many more indie games will be coming to Switch if Nintendo has its way
- Nintendo aiming for 20 to 30 Switch indie releases per week
- NPD: Nintendo Switch on track to be the best-selling console of Q4, and all of 2018 – Industry analyst predicts all three current generation consoles will sell at least 4m units total this year in the US
- Nintendo reportedly rolls out hardware patch following Switch exploit
- Nintendo reportedly rolling out new, more hack-resistant Switch hardware
- Ideally, Nintendo wants 20 to 30 new indies to hit the Switch per week
- GameStop says Nintendo Switch sales doubled following E3
- Pokemon Quest nabs 7.5M downloads across Switch and mobile
- Analyst: Two years in, Pokemon Go crosses $1.8B lifetime revenue
- Pokemon GO has brought in $1.8 billion since launch: Pokemon’s foray into augmented reality sees players spending $2 million per day
- Pokémon Quest downloads pass 7.5 million: Free-to-play mobile and Switch game gets off to a strong start
- Niantic’s Ingress to get Netflix animated series later this year: Series based on Pokémon Go forebear will be used to introduce upcoming sequel Ingress Prime
- The Binding of Isaac card game raises $1 million in a week on Kickstarter
- Games account for 94% of Google Play revenue in South Korea: Messaging and communication apps only bring in 2.2%, even less from social media and dating apps
- Newzoo: Taiwanese gamers expected to spend $1.3 billion in 2018 – With 14.5 million players, Taiwan is the world’s 15th largest gaming market
- Warner Bros. acquires mobile platform Plexchat to improve social features in its games
- Tencent to publish Game of Thrones mobile game in China: Yoozoo is developing Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming through a partnership with Warner Bros
- Tencent going global with WeGame digital marketplace as Steam targets China
- The negativity of Keita Takahashi: The developer behind Wattam and Katamari Damacy has spent his career trying to show the potential of games, but doesn’t think he’s been successful
- The European TV channel making documentaries with video games: Arte project manager Adrien Larouzée tells us why games are the perfect storytelling media to spread culture from the continent
- The video games of Ecuadorean fishing village Santa Marianita: We take another look at how people find ways to play games everywhere
- Shuhei Yoshida reflects on the PS2 launch: “We were awfully unprepared”: President of SIE Worldwide Studios discusses what went wrong and what went right for PlayStation over the years
- Levine on BioShock: ‘I don’t think I was conscious of how Jewish it was until afterwards’
- Meet the dev making his first DOS game — in 2018
- Time bandits: Check out the ’80s and ’90s titles still going strong
- The 80s and 90s PC games still unbelievably being updated today
- Blog: Retro games as a revivalist movement
DIGITAL
- NZ court rules Kim Dotcom can be extradited to US on copyright charges
- Kim Dotcom Loses Latest Round In Extradition Fight, Will Try To Appeal Again
- Technoleviathan: China, Silicon Valley, and the rise of the global surveillance state.
- Spy For Us – Or Never Speak To Your Family Again: China is using its huge digital surveillance system, and the threat of sending family members to reeducation camps, to pressure minorities to spy on their fellow exiles.
- China producing x86 chips nearly identical to AMD server processors
- iPhone crashing bug likely caused by code added to appease Chinese gov’t
- Uganda Bans VPNs To Prevent Users From Dodging Its Absurd New Social Media Tax
- A Numerical Exploration Of How The EU’s Article 13 Will Lead To Massive Censorship
- EU sends controversial internet copyright reforms back to the drawing board: It’s a strong rejection of the legislation in its current form, but not the end of the battle
- European Parliament rejects discussions on controversial copyright law
- EU Parliament Votes To Step Back From The Abyss On Copyright For Now
- EU copyright law sent back for a rethink
- Don’t Believe Those Who Wish To Diminish Digital Rights By Falsely Implying It’s All Big Tech Lobbying
- What can the Copyright Directive vote tell us about the state of digital rights? (Andres Guadamuz)
- Movie Industry Denies Lawsuit Strategy Despite Proliferation of Legal Actions and Settlement Demands Against Thousands of Canadians (Michael Geist)
- Lawyer loses appeal, fails to expand internet privileges
- Trump’s Supreme Court pick: ISPs have 1st Amendment right to block websites
- Online Review Website Cannot Be Forced To Remove Defamatory Posts
- Section 230 Immunity Protects Yelp from Injunction Order to Remove Defamatory Posts
- Section 230 Helps Facebook Defeat Pro Se Defamation Suit–Jefferson v. Facebook
- Amazon Again Avoids Liability for Defective Marketplace Item–Fox v. Amazon
- Over The Top Sports Streaming Comes To Europe With Amazon’s Deal With The Premier League
- Court Rejects Evidentiary and CFAA Vagueness Challenges to Conviction for Botnet Hacking Scheme
- Sales tax in the digital era : major impacts for retailers in the United States
- How Facebook’s Rise Fueled Chaos And Confusion In Myanmar: The social network exploded in Myanmar, allowing fake news and violence to consume a country emerging from military rule.
- Facebook Says It’s Sorry for Removing a Part of the Declaration of Independence That Includes a Racial Slur
- Facebook Runs Full-Page Ads in Indian Newspapers to Fight Fake News
- Blaming The Messenger (App): WhatsApp Takes The Blame In India Over Violence
- Fake News Is A Meaningless Term, And Our Obsession Over It Continues To Harm Actual News
- Fining Facebook: ICO issues £500,000 fine following data breach
- Facebook could face legal claims totalling ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’
- When a Facebook Like Lands You in Jail: NYPD’s Social Media Monitoring Raises Civil Liberties Issues
- Sex, Beer, And Coding: Inside Facebook’s Wild Early Days – When the young Mark Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto in 2004, he and his buddies built a corporate proto-culture that continues to influence the company today.
- Cory Doctorow: Zuck’s Empire of Oily Rags
- Regulation coming for Facebook
- Facebook Watch May Pay Upwards Of $10 Million For Cristiano Ronaldo Reality Series
- Facebook will broadcast live Premier League games in Asia: The £200 million deal helps Facebook’s push into the world of sports.
- Facebook To Launch News Programming On July 16, Will Organize ‘Watch’ With New Categories
- Reddit CEO tells user, “we are not the thought police,” then suspends that user
- More Than Half of ICO-Funded Startups Fail Within 4 Months, Study Says
- Are the UK’s intellectual property laws ready for AI?
- Google Applies More Machine Learning To Increase The Reach Of Ads Across Its Properties
- “Google Was Not A Normal Place”: Brin, Page, And Mayer On The Accidental Birth Of The Company That Changed Everything
- Inside X, The Moonshot Factory Racing To Build The Next Google: Seven years after its secretive launch, X is starting to spawn mind-blowing companies – and show us what an ever expanding Google means for the world.
- Despite Chrome’s pending “mark of shame,” 3 major news sites aren’t HTTPS
- What Soda Taxes And Lead Paint Have To Do With Internet Regulation
- Malaysian Government Decides To Dump Its Terrible Anti-Fake News Law
- YouTube, Whose Users Promoted Fraudulent Cryptocurrency Bitconnect, Is Added As Defendant In Lawsuit
- After Losing NCAA Scholarship Due To YouTube Channel, Donald De La Haye Gets A Win In Court
- YouTube to fight fake news with links to real news and context
- YouTube Tweaks Site Design, Dedicates $25 Million to Combat “Fake News”
- YouTube Pledges $25 Million To News Organizations As It Continues Fight Against Fake News
- YouTube Launches Initiative to Fight Fake News, Pledges $25 Million to Support News Orgs
- YouTuber in row over copyright infringement of his own song
- YouTube Guitarist Claims He Got A Copyright Strike For Infringing Upon His Own Song
- YouTube Rolling Out ‘Copyright Match’ Tool To Creators With More Than 100,000 Subs
- YouTube to Launch Tool to Detect Re-Uploaded Videos Automatically: New Copyright Match tool initially will roll out to channels with more than 100,000 subscribers
- YouTube TV Outages Draw Ire From World Cup Viewers
- Two Co-Creators Of Travel YouTube Channel High On Life Die After Waterfall Accident
- Constitutional Challenge Against FOSTA Filed–Woodhull v. US
- More Police Admitting That FOSTA/SESTA Has Made It Much More Difficult To Catch Pimps And Traffickers
- Preparing for the Next Phase of Influencer Marketing – The CGI Influencer
- Jake Paul’s Team 10 Involved In Yet Another Lawsuit For Trashing Rental Property
- Logan Paul Is Filming A Documentary About “What Actually Happened” During Suicide Video Scandal
- Hank Green Apologizes To Tana Mongeau For VidCon Slight, But Calls TanaCon “Inexcusable And Terrifying”
- Twitter is Suspending More Than One Million Accounts Per Day in Latest Purge
- Twitter Users To Lose Tens Of Millions Of Followers After Company Excludes ‘Locked’ Accounts
- Twitter Sheds $3.1 Billion After Suspending Millions of Questionable Accounts
- These are the ‘invisible’ challenges that make it harder for Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter to grow
- Snap and Amazon Are Reportedly Working on a Visual Search Feature for Snapchat
- Tinder Users Can Now Upload Two-Second Looping Videos On Their Profiles
- Are You Ready for Even More Expensive Netflix Options?
- Netflix To Create A Digital Comedy Festival By Releasing 47 Specials At Once
- Netflix Is Shutting Down User Reviews This Summer
- Netflix is killing off user reviews
- European Networks Are Joining Forces to Take On Netflix and Amazon
- HBO must ‘change direction’ to flourish, says its new boss: User engagement must be increased to make HBO into a perennial product.
- AT&T Is Very Excited To Try And Ruin HBO
- Here are all of the future TV shows that Apple has signed deals for
- Feds arrest Apple employee for stealing self-driving project secrets
- Woman who once bought bitcoins for $300,000 cash in paper bags sent to prison
- ‘It’s not just video games’: Concordia partners with Ubisoft on VR: The initiative will focus on a set of technologies called extended reality, or XR.
- Ubisoft Opens XR:MTL An Innovation Factory Focused On XR Technologies At Concordia University – The Factory’s focus will be on developing applications that have market potential.
- 10 Projects That Have Us Excited About the Next Generation of VR & AR
- VR Treatment, Even Without a Therapist, Helps People Overcome Fear of Heights
- Driving Without a Smartphone: A new law in Georgia discourages drivers from even touching a screen. Whether or not it improves safety, it could help break people’s phone habits.
- How Music Fans Built The Internet
- What I’ve learned from nearly three years of enterprise Wi-Fi at home
- Strategies for the Shadows: Protecting your Company’s IP Rights on the Dark Web
- A Field Guide to “Social Engineering” Cyber Scams
- How will 3D-printing challenge IP rights?
- A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora’s Box For DIY Guns: Cody Wilson makes digital files that let anyone 3-D print untraceable guns. The government tried to stop him. He sued—and won.
- Wait—the RateMyProfessors.com “hotness” chili was about attractiveness?
- Hulu Hit ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Bafflingly Launches Wine Line
- How Wattpad Is Rewriting the Rules of Hollywood
- What the Russian Revolution would have looked like on social media
- The AI revolution has spawned a new chips arms race
- Understanding Media and Information Quality in an Age of Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Algorithms and Machine Learning (Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts & Nikki Bourassa)
- Algorithms and Justice (Christopher Bavitz & Kira Hessekiel)
- Global Governance and Inclusion: Reframing the Global Debate Around AI (Ryan Budish, Urs Gasser & Amar Ashar)
- Designing frameworks that allow for Intentions, Commitments and Exuberance in AI (Bobi Rakaova)
- The Industrial Era Ended, and So Will the Digital Era
- Q2 2018 Quick Links, Part 4 (Social Media, Section 230, Defamation) (Eric Goldman)
- Q2 2018 Quick Links, Part 3 (Privacy, Advertising, E-Commerce) (Eric Goldman)
CREATIVITY
- Unpacking Canada’s IP Strategy: Countering IP Abuse, Addressing IP Administration and Removing IP Barriers to Innovation (Michael Geist)
- No, you can’t patent the ability to pause a lesson recording, EFF says
- Lombardo v. Dr. Seuss Enterprises L.P.
- Selling Items with Political Messages? What about “Impeach 45”?
- President Trump Sends North Korean Dictator a CD of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ Because Our World is Just One Big Joke
- Girl Arrested in Iran for Posting Videos of Herself Dancing on Instagram
- How Warner Brothers Resisted a Hollywood Ban on Anti-Nazi Films in the 1930s and Warned Americans of the Dangers of Fascism
- Free Speech Doesn’t Protect Nazis. It Protects Us From Nazis
- Ninth Circuit Recently Slams PETA Over Monkey Selfie Lawsuit
- Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
- Police Union Upset Not All Books Paint Cops As Heroes, Calls For Removal Of Titles From School’s Reading List
- You Can Only Listen To Jaden Smith’s New Album On Instagram
- Hobbyists Lose Fight to Escape the FAA’s Toy Drone Rules
- Why local US newspapers are sounding the alarm
- 54 newsrooms, 9 countries, and 9 core ideas: Here’s what two researchers found in a yearlong quest for journalism innovation: “Our angle on the current state of journalism is this: The crisis of journalism and legacy news media is structural.”
- Cortés-Ramos v. Martin-Morales
- What You Need to Know About Toronto’s New Arts and Culture Property Tax Subclass
- Keep on moving: the bizarre dance epidemic of summer 1518 – Five centuries ago, the world’s longest rave took place in Strasbourg – a ‘plague’ of dancing that was fatal for some. What caused it? Art, poetry and music of the time can provide some clues
- Creative types all go through hot streaks of superior production
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Government Memo Suggests Netflix Outspends Canadian Private Broadcasters on Canadian English Scripted Programming (Michael Geist)
- The State of Canadian Wireless in One Chart: No One Has Carriers That Generate More Revenue With Less Usage (Michael Geist)
- Ajit Pai’s FCC Doesn’t Want to Hear Your Complaints Unless You Pay Them $225
- “This is bonkers”: FCC wants to stop reviewing most complaints about ISPs
- FCC stands by decision to raise broadband prices on American Indians
- FCC Refuses to Back Down From Plan to Strip Phone and Internet Subsidies for American Indians
- Ajit Pai finally gets around to fighting fraud in FCC comment system
- Second Circuit Follows D.C. Circuit’s Reasoning in Vacating FCC’s Interpretation of an Autodialer
- SCOTUS Nominee Kavanaugh Bought Verizon’s Silly Argument That Breaking Net Neutrality Is A 1st Amendment Right
- CRTC Issues $250,000 in Penalties for Malware Distribution
- CASL Enforcement Action – $250,000 in Penalties for Aiding the Distribution of Malvertising
- Net neutrality makes comeback in California; lawmakers agree to strict rules
- Yes, Privacy Is Important, But California’s New Privacy Bill Is An Unmitigated Disaster In The Making
- Ten Reasons Why California’s New Data Protection Law is Unworkable, Burdensome, and Possibly Unconstitutional
- DOJ’s Challenge to Vertical AT&T/Time Warner Merger Experiences Failure to Launch
- Magic Leap grabs investment from AT&T as it sets up US distribution deal
- Echoing Apple’s iPhone Launch, Magic Leap Taps AT&T for Exclusive US Distribution
- AT&T wants to overhaul HBO, says it isn’t profitable enough
- After Backlash To AT&T Chicanery, California Salvages Tough Net Neutrality Law
- Streaming Video Sees Wave Of Price Hikes In Apparent Bid To Mimic Cable & Embolden Piracy
- Two years after buying, Univision wants to sell its Gawker, Onion portfolios
- Charter launches mobile service, throttles all video to 480p
- US forces smartphone giant ZTE to fire its CEO and leadership team
- Comcast’s Wireless Service Will Charge You More To Stream HD Video
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Court Compares Car Crash Data To CSLI, Cellphone Contents; Tells Cops Best Bet Is To Always Get A Warrant
- “Stylish” extension with 2M downloads banned for tracking every site visit
- Stolen certificates from D-Link used to sign password-stealing malware
- German Court Issues First GDPR Ruling
- CARU Protects Privacy for Child Karaoke Stars
- California Passes Consumer Privacy Act With “GDPR-Like” Provisions
- European Parliament Votes to Suspend EU-U.S. Privacy Shield
- Don’t Misrepresent Your U.S. – E.U. Privacy Shield Status: FTC Brings An Enforcement Action
- California Corporation Settles FTC Complaint Regarding U.S.-EU Privacy Shield Compliance Claim
- Police Chief Tries To Blame Newspaper Shooting On The Loss Of Social Media Monitoring Tool, But It Doesn’t Add Up
- For $80 Million, Yahoo! Settles Shareholder Class Action Claiming Stock Price Losses from Data Breaches
- What we buy can be used to predict our politics, race or education – sometimes with more than 90 percent accuracy
- DOD seeks classification “Clippy” to help classify data, control access
- Year-old router bug exploited to steal sensitive DOD drone, tank documents
- Tech-support scammers know EVERYTHING about my computer, Dell customer says
Jon