GAMES
- Steam must allow digital games to be resold, rules French court
- French court rules country’s Steam users can resell their games: Ruling contradicts EU law and would be “disastrous” for consumers and industry, says ISFE CEO
- French Court Declares That Steam Gamers Actually Do Own What They Bought
- Bandai Namco is suing AtGames over Ms. Pac-Man copyright infringement
- Ubisoft is taking legal action against Rainbow Six Siege DDoS attackers
- Suspect arrested in conjunction with World of Warcraft DDoS attack: Blizzard confirms individual believed to be behind wave of server outages this month is in custody
- Games professor accuses Kingdom of Loathing designer of abuse: A.M. Darke shares her story of physical, emotional abuse at the hands of ex-husband Zack Johnson
- UK Parliamentary Committee says ‘loot boxes’ should be considered gambling and regulated accordingly
- Dynamic and Nonliteral Elements Win Protection in Blizzard Copyright Suit
- RomUniverse To Attempt To Crowdfund Legal Defense, Which Isn’t Going Well At All
- Blog: How the California AB5 Labor Bill might affect game companies
- Ustwo: Apple Arcade “unshackles the finances” from mobile gaming – The developer of Monument Valley and Apple Arcade launch title Assemble With Care on the benefits of subscriptions
- Apple Arcade’s debut heralds the launch of dozens of games on iOS (and Steam?)
- Xbox’s Project xCloud launches in public preview this October
- Microsoft launching public xCloud streaming test on Android in October
- Google Stadia ‘Founder’s Edition’ pre-order bundle has sold out in Europe
- Google announces Play Pass subscription service: Android’s answer to Apple Arcade includes over 350 premium apps and games at launch for $4.99/month
- Play Pass and its library of 350 apps offers a different take on mobile subscriptions
- Devs that sign on to Play Pass are paid by the time players spend in their games
- Niko Partners: Cloud gaming revenue to reach $3bn in Asia by 2023 – Projections suggest there will be 500 million cloud gamers in Asia by 2028
- Control’s Epic Games Store exclusivity initially cost Epic $10.45 million
- Epic seems to have paid $10.5 million for Control’s PC exclusivity
- Epic paid 505 Games parent over $10m for Control PC exclusivity: Digital Bros financial statements reveal exclusivity deal payout for Remedy’s latest release
- Steam Labs rolls out new discoverability experiments
- Steam Labs adds two more experiments: Deep Dive, Community Recommendations – Prior experiment Interactive Recommender gets promoted to Steam Store home page
- TurboPlay’s grand ambition to be the Spotify of games: Co-founder Vince McMullin wants to take on other PC storefronts with different takes on algorithms, revenue sharing, and community
- Nicalis delists Ittle Dew 2 from console storefronts: Developer says he was ghosted by publisher for six months after terminating publisher’s license
- Do you need a publisher to ‘make your game sell’?
- NBCUniversal is closing its game publishing division
- NBCUniversal shuts down game publishing arm
- Summer games drought slowed inflation in the UK: Office for National Statistics points to video games as prime contributor to lowest inflation rate since December 2016
- Unity acquires game marketing and analytics specialist deltaDNA
- Unity acquires deltaDNA: Engine maker says live ops analytics firm will continue to operate independently as engagement tools are integrated into Unity Engine
- Borderlands 3 is the fastest selling game in 2K’s history: And 70% of all sales in the first five days were digital
- Borderlands 3 has sold over 5 million copies in five days
- New releases, led by Borderlands 3, shake up EMEAA charts: eFootball PES 2020 and Greedfall debut at No. 2 and 3, NHL 20 arrives at No. 5
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening topples Borderlands 3 in UK Charts – The most successful Zelda remake so far
- Zelda: Link’s Awakening review: This beach adventure looks 2019, feels 1993
- Link’s Awakening: Critical Consensus – Faithful modern-day remake of original Game Boy game charms reviewers despite underwhelming dungeon creator, frame rate issues
- PUBG becomes first mobile battle royale to surpass $1bn revenue: Since Chinese re-launch, PUBG Mobile has seen 540% growth year-on-year
- Pride Run developers: “We didn’t expect so much resistance” – The IV Productions team discuss the challenges they’ve faced in making a game that celebrates LGBTQ+ culture
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare expected to be US best-selling title of 2019: NPD – NBA 2K20 predicted second, Pokemon Sword and Kingdom Hearts III also make top ten
- Pokemon GO just saw its best month since 2016 – SuperData: Niantic’s deluge of summer events helped the game gross $176 million in August
- Can Nintendo learn from its mistakes with Mario Kart Tour? | Opinion: All eyes are on Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo’s most important mobile release so far
- Nintendo’s free-to-play mobile Mario Kart now offers a monthly subscription
- Nintendo fought hard to lower the Switch Lite’s price to $200, say suppliers
- Nintendo Switch Lite is the best portable system Nintendo has ever made
- Nintendo Switch Lite: Critical Consensus – Few see any faults with Nintendo’s new hardware, and even its critics concede that it’s just about perfect for handheld gaming
- Report: The Switch Lite has already sold over 170,000 units in Japan
- How do you manage software and saves on a second Switch? It’s complicated
- Dead Cells crosses 2.4M sales due to ‘ridiculous’ Switch performance
- Twitch Acquires ‘Internet Games Database’ (IGDB) To Improve Search Functionality
- Content Moderation At Scale Especially Doesn’t Work When You Hide All The Rules
- Esports investment: Building resilience in a volatile space – New Wave Esports CEO Daniel Mitre on the glamour of teams versus the sustainability of platforms
- UTA Adds To Burgeoning Esports Roster With Call Of Duty Star Seth ‘Scump’ Abner
- Is it time to retire virtual currency? | Opinion: The industry doesn’t want to curb loot boxes, but it could address some concerns by giving up another consumer-unfriendly tactic
- Take-Two: Next-gen won’t see dev costs spike – CEO Strauss Zelnick says the days of console transitions putting significantly increased burden on publishers are long gone
- Revealed: The 2019 GamesIndustry.biz Best Places To Work Awards winners
- LVP raises $80 million to fund new game startups
- Manticore Games raises $30m for accessible development platform: Core platform aims to enable players to quickly and easily make high-quality games
- Removing Denuvo DRM doesn’t improve performance for Arkham Knight
- Immutable raises $15m for blockchain card game Gods Unchained: Australian studio will also use investment to build out its Immutable Platform toolkit
- 21 game companies join Playing for the Planet Alliance to combat climate change
- PlayStation, Xbox, Stadia and more sign up to United Nations climate change initiative: Platform holders pledge to save the planet with carbon neutral Xbox units and low-power suspension mode for PlayStation 5
- PlayStation teams with UN to reduce carbon footprint of game hardware
- PlayStation 5 to increase energy efficiency—but only if users opt in
- PlayStation cuts out the middleman, starts selling its own consoles and more online
- 20% of the Oculus Store’s $100 million lifetime sales were Quest titles
- Where Oculus’ VR games go from here: Facebook’s Jason Rubin and Mike Verdu talk Vader Immortal, Respawn, and the future
- Oculus Quest’s secret trick: It can double as a wired PC VR headset
- Oculus announces plans to build augmented reality glasses
- Controller-free hand tracking comes to Oculus Quest in early 2020
- Oculus adding hand-tracking to Quest
- Oculus Rift games are coming to Quest via Oculus Link this November
- Oculus will add new social features powered by Facebook: The brand integration gets tighter and tighter
- Mobile AR game Dragon Quest Walk passes 5 million downloads in Japan
- Respawn’s first VR game is Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond
- Ex-Owlchemy devs land $4.4 million for new XR studio absurd:joy
- Absurd: joy aims to “invent a genre of content no one has ever seen before” – Ex-Owlchemy Labs devs Alex Schwartz and Cy Wise launching new VR/AR company making things that may or may not be games
- MTG invests in emotional regulation app Mightier: Swedish outfit puts $250,000 toward app and subscription service intended to help children with ADHD, anger, or anxiety issues
- Manticore Games raises $30 million for its social game platform Core
- Unit 2 Games launches £100,000 fund indie development: Finance available to developers who want to make the first wave of games for multiplayer platform Crayta
- Untitled Goose Game review: HONNNNNNK
- Getting goosey with Debussy: Creating an adaptive score for Untitled Goose Game
- Unheadlined Goose Game interview: House House’s Jacob Strasser and Michael McMaster on the studio’s surprising growth from gosling to gander
- Video: Ars talks Civilization with the man himself: Sid Meier
- Video: Living a long, full, and fulfilling life in game development
- Making people understand and care about your game
- How to grow as a designer: What to read, where to get ideas, and knowing thyself
- Blog: Development stress, choices that matter, and language of games
- Blog: Why you should invest more in community management
- Blog: Strategies for growing player loyalty and retention rates
- Raven Software devs look back at the making of Jedi Outcast
- Video: How to be an effective, high-performance game producer
- Don’t Miss: How Everything connects the arts of animation and game design
- Don’t Miss: A 2007 look at the essential open-world games for game designers
- Don’t Miss: How Naughty Dog designed The Last Of Us’ brutal melee system
- Don’t Miss: A deep dive into the art that gives colors back to Dead Cells’ cryptic worlds
- Using the language of film & theater to entice new players in FMV game Erica
- Influencers and E3: Invasion of the tweens | Opinion – E3 as a festival for influencers and celebrities may horrify some, but is likely a good move – as long as we’re realistic about the age demographics it will reach
- GDC YouTube Top 5: NYU Game Center’s Mitu Khandaker
- U.S. Patent No. 9,308,458: Automatic movement of player character in network game
DIGITAL
- Facebook Is Making Millions by Promoting Hate Groups’ Content: Despite a company policy banning hate speech, the social media giant has taken in nearly $1.6 million from hate groups since mid-2018.
- Top Court Rules Google Doesn’t Have to Censor Around the World Because of European Privacy Laws
- Other Big CJEU Case Says Google Must Put Certain Links At The Top Of Search Results
- Paper leaks showing a quantum computer doing something a supercomputer can’t
- AT&T tells court: Customers can’t sue over sale of phone location data
- Missing Link: Tibetan Groups Targeted with 1-Click Mobile Exploits
- Inside the campaign that tried to compromise Tibetans’ iOS and Android phones
- Defense media tweet threatening Area 51 “raiders” pulled, DOD apologizes
- Google takes hard line, refuses to pay French news sites despite new law
- No, it wasn’t a virus; it was Chrome that stopped Macs from booting
- Another Day, Another Major Disinformation Effort Facebook Thinks Is Ok
- Snapchat reportedly has “Project Voldemort” dossier on Facebook’s bad behavior
- Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier: Antitrust investigation gives competitors chance to air complaints about Facebook’s hardball tactics
- Meet Facebook’s latest fake: An “Oversight Board” programmed by Facebook should not be confused with democratic oversight
- Facebook and Google have ad trackers on your streaming TV, studies find
- The Best People: White House Emailed Talking Points Meant For Surrogates To Dems, Tried To Recall Email Afterwards
- Facebook confirms its “standards” don’t apply to politicians
- Facebook is Building an AR Headset, Starting By Making a Digital Copy of the Real World
- Facebook will be sticking ads with polls, games and AR into News Feed: The interactive advertising formats were already being tested in Instagram and other parts of the Facebook universe. Now they’ll be in your feed.
- Facebook suspends tens of thousands of apps in ongoing privacy investigation
- Facebook Watch And ESPN Team Up For New Slate Of Interactive Sports Shows
- Coder deletes open source add-on for Chef in protest over ICE contract
- NYAG Sends Cease & Desist Letters to Online Gun Marketers
- Clickwrap Litigation Trends 2019
- Jerks ‘Reporting’ Women Who Swipe Left On Them In Tinder, Once Again Highlighting How Content Moderation Gets Abused
- Defamation and Social Media – the ordinary, reasonable tweeter
- Deepfake Legislation: A Nationwide Survey – State and Federal Lawmakers Consider Legislation to Regulate Manipulated Media
- SCC rules that class actions in lawsuits against tech giants can proceed
- Source Hacking: Media Manipulation In Practice
- Voltage v. Salna & ~55,000 – the “Reverse Class Action” (Howard Knopf)
- Twitter rolls out ‘hide replies’ to let you tame toxic discussions: Trying to win back its reputation as a platform for healthy conversations
- Twitter details new policies designed to crack down on financial scams
- Romance Scams Harm Victims and Lead to Prosecutions
- Cyber-dystopianism: The Internet seen through the lens of nightmares (Andres Guadamuz)
- Jeff Bezos pledges that Amazon will swiftly combat climate change: Retail giant vows to meet climate goals ahead of schedule
- Amazon orders 100,000 electric trucks to fight climate change
- “Grassroots” anti-Amazon nonprofit turns out to be retailer astroturfing
- People Freaking Out About Amazon Copying A Shoe Are Totally Missing The Point
- Apple says it will make the new Mac Pro in Texas: Media reports had suggested Apple could shift Mac Pro work to China.
- Apple Watch Series 5 review: A better, more independent timepiece
- After a five-month delay, the $2,000 Galaxy Fold arrives in the US on Friday
- Huawei’s new flagship smartphone ships without Google apps: Trump’s export ban means no Google apps for the Mate 30 Pro.
- Xiaomi’s crazy new $2,800 phone has display on the front, sides, and back
- YouTube Security Warning For 23 Million Creators As ‘Massive’ Hack Attack Confirmed
- YouTube Exec Says Some Conspiracy Videos Aren’t “Causing Harm,” And Can Remain Uploaded
- Susan Wojcicki Says YouTube Won’t Remove Politicians’ Content Because “It’s Important For Other People To See”
- YouTube will remove politicians’ content if it breaks rules, but there are some exceptions: Context of videos is important, CEO says
- YouTube creators may lose verified badges as company makes verification program even stricter
- YouTube Apologizes, Reverses Course After Creators Balk At Verification Update
- Creators Lash Out After YouTube Retroactively Strips Them Of Verification
- YouTube Revamps Verification System With New Look And Eligibility Requirements
- YouTube Launches New ‘Video Reach Campaign’ Ad Format, Brings ‘TrueView For Action’ To Home Feeds
- Jellysmack’s New ‘Creator’s Program’ Invests Time, Money, And Tech In YouTubers
- How Mattel Harnessed YouTube To Help Bring Its Iconic Barbie Character Down To Earth
- Louis Vuitton Launches ‘LV TV’ YouTube Series With Emma Chamberlain, Dolan Twins, More
- Journalists Seek Answers To YouTube Users’ Burning Questions In Upcoming Vox Original ‘Glad You Asked’
- YouTube Music Spins Itself Up As Spotify Challenger With Weekly 49-Song ‘Discover Mix’
- YouTube Backs 14 More Independent Artists Via Its Foundry Development Program
- Spotify artists can now see how many listeners they have in real time: Thanks to the revamped Spotify for Artists app
- Play It Again, Sam: Spotify’s Newest Playlists Are Based on Repeat Listens
- Snap Sets Series With Nikita Dragun, Bhad Bhabie, Will Launch New ‘Shows’ Page To The Right Of ‘Discover’
- Every Single Video MrBeast Has Made In The Past Year Got More Than 10 Million Views
- Emma Chamberlain To Drop Sunglasses Collection With Eyewear Brand ‘Crap’
- Issa Rae Takes Stake In Streamlytics, Which Lets People Monetize Their Own Streaming Data
- SeatGeek Taps David Dobrik To Launch Its First Branded Series, ‘Postgame Press Conference’
- Russian national confesses to biggest bank hack in US history
- In India, you don’t need a Google phone to have a Google Assistant
- How Google Changed the Secretive Market for the Most Dangerous Hacks in the World: Google has funded a team of hackers with the mission of finding bugs in software. Are they making the internet safer?
- Nielsen Now Tracks Interactions With TV Stars’ Social Media Posts, Which Drive 60% Of Engagement For Shows
- Nielsen Buys Minority Stake In OpenSlate, Which Measures Brand Safety In Online Video
- Vimeo Debuts ‘For Hire’, A Marketplace For Video Professionals To Find Clients (And Vice Versa)
- Insights: Apple And Comcast Giveaways May Net Tens Of Millions Of Subscribers And Send SVOD Super Derby Back To Where TV Started
- Meet the Women Leading Netflix Into the Streaming Wars: Apple, Disney, and others are challenging its dominance like never before. Here’s the team behind the tech giant’s big bet on original content.
- Facebook Watch And ESPN Team Up For New Slate Of Interactive Sports Shows
- 21% Of U.S. Households Will Buy A Disney+ Subscription (Study)
- Website Accessibility Claims on the Rise: A Higher Education Perspective
- BuzzFeed Hires New York Times Vet In Bid To Better Monetize Its News Business
- Levi’s CMO Jen Sey Talks Importance Of Taking A Social Stand
- E-Sign of the Times: Law Commission report promotes confidence in e-signatures
- Tristan Harris — Fighting Skynet and Firewalling Attention (#387)
- The Mysterious Death Of The Hacker Who Turned In Chelsea Manning
- How Peloton made sweat addictive enough to IPO: 13 reasons this bike has a cult
- The rise and fall of Flash, the annoying plugin that shaped the modern web: The web was a static, dull place. But the accidental creation of Flash turned it into a cacophony of noise, colour, and controversy, presaging the modern web
- The Unsolved Case of the Most Mysterious Song on the Internet: 12 years ago, a New Wave anthem appeared on the internet. Amateur detectives have spent thousands of hours since trying to figure out where it came from…
A.I.
- Chinese Authorities Call For Internet Companies To Add Bias To AI Algorithms — In Order To ‘Promote Mainstream Values’
- Google Says It’s Achieved Quantum Supremacy, a World-First: Report
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- How “information gerrymandering” influences voters: Study analyzes how networks can distort voters’ perceptions and change election results.
- Harnessing machine learning to make managing your storage less of a chore
- Human vs. Algorithmic Recommendations
- A facial recognition ban is coming to the US, says an AI policy advisor
- Pentagon seeks ‘ethicist’ to oversee military artificial intelligence: General says ‘We are thinking deeply about the ethical, safe and lawful use of AI’ as US seeks to catch up with China’s early lead
- Teaching machines to autonomously write stories
- For India’s Caste-Based Sewer Cleaners, an Uncertain Robot Rescue: Sewer robots and other new technology aim to end caste-based scavenging, which regularly costs lives. But are they enough?
- No Rage Against the Machines: Threat of Automation Does Not Change Policy Preferences (Baobao Zhang)
- MegaBots calls it a day, puts fighting robot up for sale on eBay
COMMUNICATIONS
- Can Price Caps or Virtual Competitors Solve Canada’s Wireless Pricing Problem? (Michael Geist)
- Net Neutrality Proposals for Tech Platforms Raise First Amendment Concerns
- FCC loses in court, judges say agency would fail “intro statistics class”
- Courts Shoot Down Yet Another FCC Proposal For Being Factually Sketchy
- Sprint took FCC cash for “serving” 885,000 people it wasn’t actually serving
- Cable Giant Spectrum On Quest To Outlaw ‘Insane’ Streaming Password Sharing
- Something Has Spooked AT&T Enough To Warrant Bringing Their Top Lobbyist Out Of Retirement
- AT&T Ponders Dumping DirecTV After Investor Backlash, But It’s Not Likely To Help
- Comcast promised not to raise prices—guess what happened next
- ‘Subscription Fatigue’ Looms As Comcast Reveals Yet Another New Streaming TV Platform
- Complexity Investing Applied to ViacomCBS
- Significant Changes to Media, Communications, and Data Claims in the English Courts
PRIVACY
- Busy North Korean hackers have new malware to target ATMs
- Yahoo data-breach settlement: You’ll get $100, if you’re lucky
- California Senate Passes Statewide Ban On Facial Recognition Tech Use By Law Enforcement
- Ninth Circuit Allows Class Action Against Facebook under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act to Proceed in California
- Ninth Circuit Declines to Shelve Lawsuit Alleging Facebook Violated Illinois Biometric Privacy Statute
- Court Says Compelled Production Violates Fifth Amendment… Unless The Gov’t Takes Certain Steps First
- Private Companies Gathering Plate Data Are Selling Access To People’s Movements For $20 A Search
- CJEU Judgment C-40/17: what are the implications of the ‘like’ button in terms of data protection?
- YouTube will Pay $170 Million Fine for Children’s Privacy Law Violations
- Should The Media Voluntarily Embrace A ‘Right To Be Forgotten’?
- European Court of Justice Rules on the Scope of the Right to be Forgotten for Search Engines
- Google wins case as court rules “right to be forgotten” is EU-only
- Google wins landmark right to be forgotten case
- Google wins CJEU right to be forgotten case
- Europe’s Supreme Court Places Limits on the Right To Be Forgotten
- ‘Right to be forgotten’, but only in Europe?
- The Right to be Forgotten Held to Apply Only to Europe in Landmark European Court of Justice Decision
- Forget-me-not: Google v. CNIL defines territorial scope of the right to be forgotten
- Google Search is not required to forget us outside the EU
- Phew: EU Court Of Justice Says Right To Be Forgotten Is Not A Global Censorship Tool (Just An EU One)
- Edward Snowden wants to come home: “I’m not asking for a pass. What I’m asking for is a fair trial”
- The FBI Tried To Get A Secure Phone Company To Create A Backdoor In Its Encrypted Network
- World’s most destructive botnet returns with stolen passwords and email in tow
- IE zero-day under active attack gets emergency patch
- Payment card thieves hack Click2Gov bill paying portals in 8 cities
- A New Era of COPPA Enforcement?
- CCPA Privacy FAQs: Does the CCPA require that a company allow consumers to opt-out (e.g., toggle off) analytics cookies?
- CCPA Privacy FAQs: Are businesses required to display the “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link during subsequent visits to the business’s homepage where the consumer does not “opt-out” during his/her first visit?
- Meaningful Consent: An Evolving Standard under Canadian Privacy Law
- Enhancing Understanding of Legal Trends Impacting Freedom of Expression and Privacy in the ICT Sector
- Fake veteran hiring site downloads spyware instead of jobs
- Milan Fashion Week and Fashion Law Trends – Is the retail and fashion sectors ready for the IoT revolution?
- Forget erasure: why blockchain is really incompatible with the GDPR
- Automatic License Plate Readers Are The Latest Neighborhood Perk
CREATIVITY
- Pro-China groups to tear down pro-democracy graffiti in Hong Kong
- Global Freedom Declines as Chinese, Russian Info Control Practices Spread, Says Study
- During A Police Raid, Russian Activist Uses Drone To Whisk Sensitive Data To Safety
- US Court Says Fair Use Nullifies French Rightholder’s Attempt To Extract $2.25 Million From A California Art Scholar
- French Picasso Judgement is Abstract Expression to U.S. Law
- The Controversial Use of Rap Lyrics as Evidence
- Mercedes Drives Suits Against Artists Forward
- Copyright clarification from Europe’s top court
- Copyright dispute over ‘Stairway to Heaven’ continues to climb in the courts
- The Differences Between Copyright And Possession: Gilda Radner Interview Copyright Lawsuit Dismissed For Lack Of Registration
- Strange changes discovered in Banksy painting ahead of auction
- Chuck Yeager Sues Airbus For Mentioning That Chuck Yeager Broke The Sound Barrier
- Chuck Yeager sues Airbus for writing “Yeager broke the sound barrier”
- Louisiana’s Terrible Criminal Defamation Law Again Being Used To Unconstitutionally Target A Critic Of Law Enforcement
- How Canada should deal with obscene trademarks
- LeBron’s “Taco Tuesday” Trademark Blocked
- LeBron James Declares Victory In Losing Bid For ‘Taco Tuesday’ Trademark
- The New Consumer Gatekeepers: Inside the Hidden Power Of The DJ Industry 2.0
- IP/Internet/Antitrust Professor Amicus Brief in 1-800 Contacts v. FTC (Eric Goldman)
- Duels, Dualities, and Destiny in Canadian Copyright – a Snapshot at Summer’s End 2019 (Howard Knopf)
- Milan Fashion Week and Fashion Law Trends – Karl Lagerfeld’s heritage: who is going to award the rights on his image? Does the cat really take it all?
Jon