News of the Week; January 23, 2019

GAMES

1. Westworld Mobile shuts down following Bethesda lawsuit
2. Bethesda bans Fallout 76 players who accessed secret developer room
3. Bethesda confirms bans for visiting hidden Fallout 76“developer room”
4. Star Control: Origins restored to Steam amid legal battle with series’ creators 
5. Eximius developer uses DMCA to reclaim Steam page from publisher: Ammobox claims publisher TheGameWall Studios “disappeared completely,” after launch, and lost revenue worth six months of operating expenses
6. Emulator project aims to resurrect classic Mac apps and games without the OS
7. How machine learning is helping fans remaster retro classics
8. Ubisoft issues apology for controversial Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC  
9. Ubisoft Apologizes To Players For Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC Controversy 
10. Ubisoft apologises for forcing heterosexual romance in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC: Publisher explains story-based decision behind relationship but admits it was “poorly executed”
11. Challenging the inevitability of online harassment | Opinion: Tackling harassment will be a long and bitter march, but understanding it is the first step
12. Tencent still absent from third round of Chinese game approvals 
13. Tencent and NetEase absent from third wave of Chinese game approvals: No games from China’s two key publishers have been included in the 257 cleared so far 
14. My Time at Portia devs compensate voice actors for unpaid wages
15. Atlas Player Gets Into Admin’s Account, Summons Swarm Of Whales And Other Mayhem 
16. Former Heroes of the Storm team files suit against ex-owner for unpaid wages
17. Square Enix has trademarked the name of Octopath Traveler’s art style
18. Square Enix trademarks terms for Octopath Traveler’s visual style: The publisher now has trademarks for “HD2D” and “HD-2D” in Europe 
19. Unity CEO clarifies Improbable violations, future plans in AMA: John Riccitiello emphasizes platform’s “developer-first” focus as driving TOS changes
20. NBA extends partnership with NBA 2K publisher 2K
21. Don’t Miss: How working on gross, violent games can affect developers
22. Netflix: “We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO” – TV and film streaming service points to Epic’s battle royale title as a major competitor 
23. Netflix thinks ‘Fortnite’ is a bigger threat than HBO
24. Netflix claims Fortnite is now a bigger competitor than HBO 
25. Insights: The Real Competition for Netflix Is…A Single Videogame? Yup.
26. Cybersecurity firm exposes Fortnite vulnerability: If exploited, hackers could have viewed personal information, purchased items, and overheard chat through affected accounts
27. Fortnite Dances Its Way Into More Lawsuits
28. Blog: Why the Epic Games Store could be huge for influencers
29. Epic Games acquires digital character specialist 3Lateral
30. Analyst: PUBG out-earned every other premium PC and console game in 2018  
31. Digital Extremes and PUBG company Krafton looking for developers at PAX East
32. UK Charts: Ace Combat 7 breaks franchise records, but Mario holds No.1: Bandai Namco’s flight game debuts at No.2
33. Microsoft says its game streaming service has an advantage thanks to Xbox
34. Microsoft CEO states “Netflix for games” ambitions: Satya Nadella points to game catalogue and PC business as key advantages over competitors
35. As Twitch Subscriber Race Heats Up, Ninja Is Annoyed That “Everyone’s Just Out To Look For The Next Guy” 
36. U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Helps Twitch Streamer ‘Hbomberguy’ Raise $340,000+ For Transgender Nonprofit
37. Streamer raises $340,000 for trans charity by playingDonkey Kong 64
38. Games industry names help YouTuber raise $340,000 for trans charity in Donkey Kong 64 marathon: Grant Kirkhope, Jon Romero and Jim Sterling join the challenge
39. Machinima has been wiped clean: The end of an era
40. Otter Media blocks all Machinima content on YouTube: Parent company says new Machinima content will be “distributed on new channels” to be announced later this year
41. Changing industry economics let Bungie forge a new destiny | Opinion – The idea of a developer operating an expensive online game would once have seemed ludicrous – Bungie’s new independence shows how much has changed
42. Capcom Really Loves Remaking Resident Evil 2
43. Resident Evil 2 Review
44. Resident Evil 2 remake review: Beautiful, terrifying, and annoying
45. Resident Evil 2’s time-restricted demo has been downloaded over 3 million times
46. Blog: Overcoming genre in Ni No Kuni 2
47. Starbreeze delays console release of Overkill’s The Walking Dead
48. Starbreeze delays Overkill’s The Walking Dead on console: Troubled publisher pushes game beyond its planned February release, more information “at a later date” 
49. How to build a Bandersnatch: Developers shares advice on how to create interactive movie games that can stand toe-to-toe with Black Mirror’s latest
50. The Bandersnatch effect: Netflix’s Black Mirror outing has everyone talking about interactive fiction — but what does this mean for the game developers who got there first?
51. Blog: How to make the marriage between cinema and games last
52. Get a job: Crystal Dynamics is hiring a Camera Designer
53. Hothead Games opens new publishing division
54. Metro Exodus publisher confident over showdown with Crackdown and Far Cry: Deep Silver on how it has readied a marketing assault ahead of crowded February 15 launch
55. Switch dominates a great year for game consoles in 2018
56. NPD: The Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console of 2018 in the U.S.
57. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sold 5 million globally in first week: Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa says Nintendo Switch seeing fastest software sales in Nintendo history
58. Media Create: New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe sells through over half of first-week shipment 
59. Don’t Miss: The secret history of Donkey Kong 9
60. Former PlayStation, Take-Two, Nintendo execs launch blockchain publisher: Planet Digital Partners will use $38m blockchain token sale to secure investment for up to ten new games
61. Blog: Games and crowdfunding in 2018  
62. Nexon reportedly up for sale: Tencent, EA, Activision, and Disney listed as interested parties in Korean publisher of MapleStory
63. Layoffs hit NCSoft’s Iron Tiger Studios: Publisher confirms an undisclosed number of layoffs at San Mateo developer 
64. Supergiant’s fourth outing Hades introduces a more mature, organized dev process
65. Splash Damage has released the full game design document for Dirty Bomb
66. Cloud Imperium Games spent $4M a month in 2017 developing Star Citizen
67. Blog: The mysteries of studying game design
68. Blog: Why nobody cares about your indie game
69. CI Games establishes United Label, a new publishing label dedicated to indies
70. IndieDB, ModDB founder launches mod-focused publishing arm: Modularity to use mod.io to offer a “fully cross-platform and store-agnostic modding solution”
71. With CryEngine’s SpatialOS GDK in the works, Crytek reaffirms open-platform goals
72. US, Canada mobile gaming brought in $9.37 billion in 2018: Candy Crush games topped revenue charts for the year as puzzle, strategy, and casino genres dominated
73. Chad Wild Clay, Vy Qwaint Launch Mobile Game Inspired By Their Kids’ YouTube Spy Series 
74. FIFA 19 trumped Red Dead and COD as Europe’s highest selling game in 2018: Gfk Entertainment data shows EA Sports’ football title as the most popular across 15 countries
75. Sony is rolling out PlayStation Now to new European territories
76. Fast Travel Games sold more on PSVR than Steam, Oculus and Viveport combined: PSVR accounts for 58% of Apex Construct sales, said CEO Oskar Burman, and Sony’s lead is getting wider 
77. ‘Apex Construct’ Studio: Big Boost in PSVR Installs Thanks to Recent Increase in Headset Sales
78. VR headsets, augmented windshields, and multiscreen infotainment at CES
79. VR Train Simulator ‘Derail Valley’ to Launch into Early Access This Week
80. The Digital Revolution: Fundamentals of virtual, mixed and augmented reality
81. Mortal Kombat 11 gameplay as seen by a ‘90s arcade rat
82. How European expansion bolstered Bulkhead against Brexit: Setting up a German subsidiary enabled recruitment of new talent amid political turmoil in the UK, says Bulkhead Interactive CEO Joe Brammer
83. New esports league crops up around Farming Simulator 19 
84. GAME’s shares improve following “solid” Christmas results: UK dips offset by Spanish growth over festive period
85. Kingdom Hearts III Is An Unreviewable Video Game
86. 9 Video Game Secrets That Took Years to Find: In the olden days, programmers could hide something in the code of a video game and be confident that it would never be revealed.
87. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, video games, and the new online town square
88. Video: How I got my mom to play through Plants vs. Zombies

DIGITAL

1. China creates app to tell you if you are near someone in debt and encourages you to report them: The app will allow the public shaming of “deadbeat debtors”
2. Russia tries to force Facebook and Twitter to relocate servers to Russia
3. Pay for Trump’s border wall with $20 online porn fee, Ariz. lawmaker says
4. Herrick V. Grindr – The Section 230 Case That’s Not What You’ve Heard
5. Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Case That Threatened CDA 230 
6. There Was Heavy Tech Lobbying On Article 13… From The Company Hoping To Sell Everyone The Filters
7. Disney is already losing over $1 billion in streaming, and its Netflix competitor has yet to launch
8. Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music
9. Facebook may be hit with “record-setting fine” by FTC, report says
10. Facebook Just Removed Hundreds of Pages Linked to Russia
11. President Trump Posts Altered Photos to Facebook and Instagram That Make Him Look Thinner
12. Viral Is Still Copyrighted, Even to Learn Where Trump Is 
13. Parody Washington Post Leads To Bogus Legal Threat, And A Reminder Of An Old Internet Lawsuit 
14. Judge unseals trove of internal Facebook documents following our legal action
15. Google, Facebook, and Amazon Spent Record Cash Lobbying Washington in 2018
16. Google’s lobbying spending set new records in 2018
17. Blocking Constituents from Facebook Page Violates First Amendment–Davison v. Randall
18. Why Silicon Valley’s “growth at any cost” is the new “unsafe at any speed”: For years, Ashkan Soltani has warned of Facebook’s privacy-eroding tendencies.
19. Fourth Amendment Limits NYC’s Demands for Airbnb Customer Records
20. Pie Company Has A Rogue Twitter Impostor, But Decides To Be Totally Cool With It
21. Lawmakers seek harsh penalties against ZTE and Huawei
22. US asks Canada to turn over Huawei’s CFO on alleged sanctions violations 
23. Will Social Media Websites Become State Actors?
24. Researchers discover state actor’s mobile malware efforts because of YOLO OPSEC
25. BuzzFeed Set to Lay Off 15% of Its Employees
26. Why Do People Fall for Fake News?
27. Deepfakes and the New Disinformation War: The Coming Age of Post-Truth Geopolitics
28. Social media can predict what you’ll say, even if you don’t participate
29. “The Linux of social media”—How LiveJournal pioneered (then lost) blogging
30. Not all Opinions are Fit for Sharing
31. Risky Business Just Got Riskier – DOJ Changes Stance on Internet Gambling 
32. DOJ Opinion Leaves Industry Hanging: If UIGEA Exclusions Don’t Modify the Wire Act What Does That Mean for Intrastate Gambling Transactions? 
33. Hulu Drops Price Of Ad-Supported Subscription Plan, Increases Price For Hulu With Live TV
34. Hulu will make its basic plan cheaper as Netflix gets pricier
35. US Media Companies Engaging In Proactive Censorship Of Content Ahead Of India’s New Hate Speech Laws
36. Netflix Signs Indian Content Code Banning Offensive Material, Agrees To Self-Regulate
37. Netflix Spent $12 Billion on Content in 2018. Analysts Expect That to Grow to $15 Billion This Year 
38. Netflix Joins the Motion Picture Association of America 
39. Why Does Everyone Else Want To Stop Netflix Password Sharing, When Netflix Is Fine With It?
40. Netflix on streaming rivals: ‘We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO’
41. The whirlwind success of Netflix’s ‘You’ and ‘Bird Box’ shows it’s become a well-oiled FOMO machine
42. The Great Google Hangouts Shutdown begins October 2019
43. YouTube TV Expanding to Cover Entire U.S., No International Launch Plans Right Now
44. YouTube TV Rolls Out To Remaining U.S. Markets Ahead Of Super Bowl 
45. Netflix Says Viewership, Subscriptions Spiked During Brief YouTube Outage In October 
46. 2 Years After ‘Adpocalypse’, AT&T — The World’s Second Largest Advertiser — Returns To YouTube
47. AT&T returns as a YouTube advertiser marking the end of the “adpocalypse”: January might be a slow month, but big ad spending is on the horizon
48. YouTube Demonetizes Channel Belonging To Anti-Islam Political Advisor Tommy Robinson
49. YouTube Cover Singer Lands Starring Role In Steven Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story’ Remake
50. YouTube Trick Shot Stars ‘Dude Perfect’ Announce First Live Tour And Memberships, Ask Fans To Help Them Tie PewDiePie’s Subscriber Count 
51. After Stunning Australian Open Win, Stefanos Tsitsipas Urges Stadium to Subscribe To His YouTube Channel 
52. Vice Media, Hulu Japan Ink Original Content and Licensing Deal 
53. Vice Media sets up experience division: Ten-strong team will create experiences for youth media company’s own brands as well as for partners.
54. Viacom Purchases Free Streaming Platform Pluto TV For $340 Million
55. Font expert exposes phony trust documents
56. Online Publishers Beware: An iPhone Snap May Go Viral, but Unauthorized Commercial Use is Still Not Fair Use 
57. NSA Puts Phone Charging Station at Hacker Conference in Plot to Go Viral
58. Instagram Influencers Are Seeking The Services Of Ethical Hackers To Reclaim Their Stolen Accounts 
59. “A never-ending war”: top influencer on what brands should know about fakes in China
60. Analysts Project Instagram Will Rake In $14 Billion In Revenues In 2019
61. Patreon Gained 1 Million New Patrons In 2018, Will Pay Out Its Billionth Dollar This Year
62. Blockchain justice: Crypto-currency and blockchain will increasingly be the subjects of litigation in Canada 
63. I Tried to Block Amazon From My Life. It Was Impossible.
64. Amazon begins testing deliveries with sidewalk drones
65. The Prime Challenges For Amazon’s New Delivery Robot
66. Microsoft: Switch to iOS or Android because Windows 10 Mobile is ending
67. Google buys $40 million worth of smartwatch tech from Fossil Group
68. Even with the Google/Fossil deal, Wear OS is doomed
69. Google Play malware used phones’ motion sensors to conceal itself
70. Google planning changes to Chrome that could break ad blockers 
71. Jake Paul Dropped By Legal Firm In Case Involving Prank That Damaged Man’s Hearing
72. The 8 Signs That Machine Learning Will Automate Some or All of Your Job
73. Globally, Most Workers Think Robots Couldn’t Handle Their Jobs 
74. Robots on the rise
75. Sony Invests in Geolocation Startup Used to Shoot ‘Ready Player One’
76. For teens, digital technology is good. Or bad. Or maybe neutral?
77. Instagram Helped Me Bond With My Dentist Dad by Recommending I Watch Gross Teeth Videos
78. How running websites has changed in the last two decades (for an Ars IT guru)
79. Now That’s What I Call Ars Technica, Volume 1: Favorite stories from Ars’ 20 years
80. Twenty legal battles that stand out across Ars’ 20 years of covering them
81. Technology with limits: How can we tame technology to do what we need and then let it go so that we can be more connected to each other in real life?
82. Deregulation is the New Buzz Word in Washington –  Except in the Tech Industry
83. Can a Server Be a Regular and Established Place of Business? Examining the SEVEN Networks Decision

CREATIVITY

1. It’s Finally Happening – Major New Trademark Law Takes Effect in Canada on June 17, 2019
2. Toronto DJ wins trademark registration despite association with Drake: Application was challenged by October’s Very Own
3. McDonald’s loses Big Mac trademark after legal battle with Irish chain: Supermac strips US food giant of trademark across Europe after landmark EU ruling
4. UK fashion label says it owns trademark on “collusion,” EFF says no way: Last year, a man bought Collusion.so, pointed it to Lawfare. ASOS didn’t like that.
5. UK clothing company: Oops, our trademark doesn’t cover collusion.so
6. Oh Na Na What’s My Name?: Rihanna Sues Father for Trademark Misuse of “Fenty” Surname
7. Proposed Update To Singapore’s Copyright Laws Surprisingly Sensible
8. The Updated Canada Food Guide: New Advice, Old Restrictive Copyright Rules
9. Port Talbot Banksy sells for six-figure sum 
10. The King of Wakanda Holds the Oscars’ First Best Picture Nod for a Superhero Film
11. Viceland Will Relaunch Primetime With Nightly Live Two-Hour Variety Show 
12. Leslie Jones Is No Fan of the New GhostbustersMovie 
13. Key IP Takeaways from the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
14. Copyright Act amendments to unveil our hidden history
15. An Analysis of Title I and Title III of The Music Modernization Act, Part 1 of 2 (Tyler Ochoa)
16. An Analysis of Title I and Title III of The Music Modernization Act, Part 1 of 2 (Tyler Ochoa)
17. Duty of loyalty: A limit to freedom of expression

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1.  The Canadian Wireless Story: Comparative Data Shows World’s Highest Carrier Revenues Per SIM
2. Sunlight on the Submissions: Why the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel Should Reverse Its Secretive Approach (Michael Geist)
3. Woman sues T-Mobile after employees allegedly snoop on racy private video
4. Verizon blames school text provider in dispute over “spam” fee
5. Verizon offers free robocall blocking, two years after AT&T and T-Mobile
6. Trump Hotel Fracas Highlights How T-Mobile’s Consumer-Friendly Brand Schtick Is Wearing A Little Thin
7. Sorry, Ajit: Comcast lowered cable investment despite net neutrality repeal
8. Remember When Ajit Pai Said Killing Net Neutrality Would Boost Network Investment? About That…
9. Terabyte-using cable customers double, increasing risk of data cap fees
10. Government Shutdown May Cause FCC to Cancel January 30 Public Meeting 
11. FCC Wants Delay In Net Neutrality Trial Due To Government Shutdown, But Isn’t Likely To Get It
12. Statements by third parties – What are the liabilities of publishers and broadcasters?
13. Brexit and broadcasting: Luxembourg as the ideal gateway to provide audiovisual media services throughout the EU (without a major impact on operations in the UK!)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Max Schrems Files New Privacy Complaints That Seem To Show The Impossibility Of Complying With The GDPR
2. How The GDPR Is Still Ruining Christmas
3. GDPR Enforcement Actions, Fines Pile Up
4. Google must pay €50 million for GDPR violations, France says
5. Attorney General Nominee Seems Willing To Let The DOJ Jail Journalists Over Published Leaks
6. YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Spotify, And More Accused Of Violating E.U. Data Privacy Legislation Per Article 15
7. Yahoo! Derivative Data Breach Suit Yields Unprecedented $29 Million Settlement
8. Mother of All Breaches Exposes 773 Million Emails, 21 Million Passwords
9. Monster 773 million-record breach list contains plaintext passwords
10. How to Stop Worrying About Every ‘Mega’ Password Breach That Comes Along
11. GoDaddy weakness let bomb threat scammers hijack thousands of big-name domains
12. Hackers Hijacked A Family’s Smart Home, Spammed Nuclear Missile Alerts
13. Exploring the EU’s new rules for the free flow of non-personal data
14. Seattle Newspaper Wins Federal Court Case, Opens Up Reporting On Secret Law Enforcement Surveillance
15. NY Court Tells NYPD It Can’t Hide Surveillance Of Protesters Behind A Glomar Response
16. The creepy rule
17. 41 California Privacy Experts Urge Major Changes to the California Consumer Privacy Act (Eric Goldman)
18. Fourth Amendment Limits NYC’s Demands for Airbnb Customer Records (Eric Goldman)
19. Privacy and Data Security 2018 Year in Review
20. 2018 Privacy Year in Review
21. ‘The goal is to automate us’: welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism
22. 41 California Privacy Experts Urge Major Changes to the California Consumer Privacy Act
23. Is Privacy a Right? (Doc Searls)

Jon