GAMES
- Big Fish Games Reaches $155 Million Settlement over Online Gambling Games
- European Union sets limits on platform madness: A new regulation will create a more fair and transparent relationship between games companies and the app stores
- Three-quarters of all US households include someone who plays video games – ESA: Of 214 million gamers, 41% are women, and 21% are under the age of 18
- Ubisoft’s “most powerful creative force” resigns in wake of sweeping allegations
- Ubisoft executives resign amid sexual misconduct allegations
- Three more Ubisoft executives step down due to toxic culture: Chief Creative Officer Serge Hascoët and Ubisoft Canadian studios head Yannis Mallat leave the company as global head of HR Cécile Cornet leaves her role
- Toxic culture at Ubisoft connected to dysfunction in HR department: About half of the recent cases of toxic behaviour unearthed at Ubisoft had previously been flagged to HR, recent reports suggest
- What went wrong at Ubisoft? | Podcast: In this week’s double episode, we discuss recent developments at Ubisoft along with the wider issues of abuse in the games industry
- Top Ubisoft Executives Out Amid Allegations Of Company-Wide Misconduct
- Christophe Derennes named head of Ubisoft Montreal after Yannis Mallat’s resignation
- Interplay silent on Earthworm Jim developer’s racist, homophobic remarks
- Researchers criticise whiteboard technical tests: Software engineer hiring practice discriminates against women, suggests study
- Feminist Frequency launching Games and Online Harassment Hotline: Free text message emotional support service goes live next month, will be staffed by paid agents trained in crisis response
- WoW Alters Its Character Creation System to Add Diversity
- Blizzard will make changing character gender free in next WoW expansion: Most other aesthetic character changes can already be made without spending real money
- Swery apologizes for depiction of transgender individual in Deadly Premonition 2
- BAFTA Games Awards applicants will be challenged over diversity and inclusion
- Decades later, these remakes haven’t fixed their racial representation issues
- There’s a new initiative to create a game industry code of ethics
- 8,000 games have been pulled from the App Store in China over missing ISBNs
- Over 8,000 games pulled from App Store in China in one week: Apple clamps down on paid games or titles with in-app purchases that have not been approved by Chinese regulator
- EA developing an addiction to executive overpay, says investment group: CtW Investment Group launches shareholder campaign against publisher, highlights “fallacy” of above-ordinary compensation as a motivator
- ‘The Sims’ game has been turned into a reality show, and players are competing for $100,000
- You’ll Be Mad You’re Not Competing In This Sims Reality TV Show
- Global Mis-Steps: From acquisition to accusations – GlobalStep sources describe “culling” of staff, incorrect pay, and a stifling culture of fear at UK QA studio formerly known as Testology
- Tilting Point acquires Plamee Studios and FTX Games assets
- Huuuge Games has purchased interactive ad company Playable Platform
- Huuuge Games acquires Dutch advertising startup: Mobile developer now has 11 international offices and over 600 staff
- Animoca Brands buys social gaming platform Gamee for $6.53 million
- Former Ubisoft developers open new Canadian studio Beans
- Game companies line up for pandemic relief loans: Developers take advantage of a US program that will forgive loans for retaining staff, deadline to apply is August 8
- Analyst: Mobile games generated 1 billion downloads each week in Q2 2020
- Analyzing those Satisfactory sales numbers (& more!)
- F1 2020 overtakes The Last of Us Part 2 at No.1 | UK Charts:Codemasters licensed racing game enjoys its biggest launch since 2017
- Sony invests $250 million in Epic Games
- Sony Invests $250 Million In Epic Games, Reportedly Valuing The ‘Fortnite’ Publisher At $17.9 Billion
- Sony invests $250m in Epic Games: Tech giants plan to broaden existing collaborations across technology, social entertainment, and digital ecosystems
- Report: Sony increasing PlayStation 5 production by 50 percent
- Sony reportedly increasing PS5 production to 10m units by 2021
- Could Sony stumble on cross-generation games? | Opinion: If Sony tries to charge for PS5 versions of late-gen PS4 hits, comparisons with Microsoft’s consumer-friendly strategy will be harsh
- Are Xbox Series X developers being held back by Xbox One?: “Held back is a meme that gets created by people who are too caught up in device competition”
- Developing for Xbox Game Pass: “I could never pitch these ideas to a publisher”: Xbox, Double Fine, Obsidian, Mojang and InXile discuss how Game Pass is changing the games they make
- Microsoft details how Xbox Series X will load 4.8GB/s from memory
- Microsoft rolls out special version of Project xCloud for developers in lockdown: PC Content Test App allows games makers to access their Xbox development kits remotely
- How Minecraft and Mojang taught Xbox how to buy studios – Xbox’s new studios: “Things have been almost exactly the same, just without the terror of going out of business”
- Phil Spencer: “I don’t have any regrets about Mixer” – Xbox chief discusses what the Mixer closure means for its strategy
- PES 2021 “pared back” as Konami focuses on Xbox Series X, PS5 version: Publisher confirms there will still be a release this year with an “affordably priced” season update
- Stadia lands exclusives from Konami, Harmonix, and more: Bomberman publisher & Rock Band dev join Splash Damage, Uppercut Games, Supermassive, and Bad Dream in working on games for Google’s service
- Splash Damage exploring friendlier territory with Outcasters: Veteran developer of competitive online shooters aims for approachability with its new game for Stadia
- Stadia’s Click to Play aims to speed up game launches with sharable, instant-play links
- For the second time this year, Amazon Games puts a new title into hiding
- Amazon delays MMORPG New World into 2021: Company says alpha feedback demonstrated need for more endgame experiences
- Google Play apps with 500,000 downloads subscribe users to costly services
- The return of the $70 video game has been a long time coming
- Rising video game prices drove UK inflation in June: The Last of Us Part 2’s launch, plus ongoing Switch success stories, likely to be biggest contributors
- PUBG has sold over 70 million copies worldwide
- Unreal Engine devs can now capture facial animation using an iOS app
- Unreal’s new iPhone app does live motion capture with Face ID sensors
- The surprising way that paid DLC works
- Capcom says its game sales are 80% digital and rising: Publisher aiming to reduce physical media to just 10% of its game sales in the future
- Finnish mobile studio Traplight nets $9 million to support Battle Legion
- Traplight closes €8m investment round: Finnish mobile dev to focus on live-service development of latest title, Battle Legion
- Tencent is the latest potential buyer for Leyou Technologies: Chinese tech and games giant reportedly in talks to acquire parent of Warframe developer Digital Extremes
- Twitch Faces Sudden Stream of DMCA Notices Over Background Music
- Twitch reinstates Donald Trump’s channel after two-week ban
- What did (and didn’t) work for the first year of Valve’s Steam Labs experiments
- Valve secrets spill over—including Half-Life 3—in new Steam documentary app
- Half-Life Alyx developers want to make a full-scale Half-Life game for consoles: “This ice has been broken, now we’re hoping to smash through the ice completely”
- Far Cry 6 announced at Ubisoft Forward, launches next year: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and Watch Dogs: Legion also get release dates, smart delivery on Xbox
- Pokémon Snap had a different kind of focus | Why I Love: Tag Games CEO Marc Williamson believes developers could learn from the Nintendo photo safari’s escapist tourism without pressure
- How COVID-19 transformed Pokémon Go into “Pokémon stay-at-home”
- Nintendo and Lego team up on a $229 mechanical NES and TV set
- Paper Mario: The Origami King folds the usual RPG tropes into knots
- Why is this copy of Super Mario Bros. worth a record $114,000?
- Vintage ‘Super Mario Bros.’ Video Game Sells for $114,000
- Rare copy of Super Mario Bros sells for a record $114,000: The NES classic seta new standard for vintage game prices at auction last weekend
- Free-to-play brawler Ninjala surpasses 3 million downloads on Switch
- Moderating the “marketplace of ideas” with user-made gaming platform Core: Manticore Games co-founder Frédéric Descamps discusses challenges & potential with new platform that promises to be YouTube of gaming
- Twitch deletes Black Lives Matter video after criticism it lacked Black creators: Twitch partners from the Black community said they were overshadowed, spoken over by white personalities
- Ninja Denounces TikTok As Concerns Surrounding App’s Ban Mount — And Byte Soars To Top Of Apple App Charts
- The New Frontier of Esports Sponsorship
- TikTok Collab House SwayLA Launches ‘SwayGaming’ Offshoot For Esports Creators
- ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator’ VR Support Still a Post-Launch “top wish list item”: No direct confirmation of future VR support
- A ‘nod’ to Command and Conquer’s Construction Yard
- The Chinese Room’s ambition to move out of the art house niche: With Sumo at their side, Dan Pinchbeck and Ed Daly want to make the best games of the decade
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla hands-on: An incomplete Witcher-ization
- Watch Dogs: Legion hands-on: Play as anyone, care about no one
- Ghost of Tsushima review: An open-world haiku of honor, stealth, and revenge
- Video: Emergent storytelling techniques in The Sims
- Video: A game dev’s guide to organizing your levels and mechanics
- Don’t Miss: An oral (‘Sporal’?) history on the development of Maxis’ Spore
- Don’t Miss: How adding 0.2 seconds to Halo 3’s sniper rifle fire rate changed the game
- Blog: Balancing Tips – How we managed math on Idle Idol
- Blog: Camera evolution in third-person games
- Blog: Money or passion? How to become an indie entrepreneur
- Blog: Improving narrative accessibility
- Blog: A beginner’s guide to making your own games
- Media Molecule’s Dreams named GOTY at 2020 Games for Change Awards
DIGITAL
- ‘Too big to fail’: why even a historic ad boycott won’t change Facebook – The company has survived previous seemingly existential crises with little damage to its monarchical structure
- Zuckerberg and the Facebook ad boycott; how will it end?
- The Fake Nerd Boys of Silicon Valley
- We need tougher action against disinformation and propaganda
- Musk, Obama, Biden, Bezos, Gates—bitcoin scam hits Twitter in coordinated blitz
- Twitter lost control of its internal systems to Bitcoin-scamming hackers
- Trump’s Twitter Tantrums Are Affecting How Judges Evaluate Online Discourse–US v. Cook (Eric Goldman)
- Trump admin caves to Harvard and MIT, won’t deport online-only students
- White supremacist pleads guilty to multiple “swatting” incidents
- Reports of a Silicon Valley/Military Divide Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
- UN Special Rapporteur Warns of Racial Discrimination Exacerbated by Technology
- Emerging digital technologies entrench racial inequality, UN expert warns
- Heller v. Uber – What Employers Need to Know
- Canada: Supreme Court Strikes Down Uber’s Arbitration Clause In Uber Technologies Inc. V. Heller, 2020 SCC 16
- Uber Technologies Inc. V. Heller (2020 SCC 16)
- Images and misinformation in political groups: evidence from WhatsApp in India
- Rise of The Karen. feat. Apryl Williams
- When Piracy Literally Saves Lives
- EFF, Orin Kerr Ask The Supreme Court To Prevent Turning The CFAA Into A Convenient Way To Punish Site Users, Security Researchers
- French parliament passes porn age-verification legislation
- What A Shock: Scammers Are Abusing YouTube’s Notice And Takedown System With DMCA Claims
- Now That USMCA Is In Effect… Can Congress Even Reform Section 230 Without Violating The Agreement?
- DOJ Section 230 report unintentionally highlights dangers of internet heckler’s vetoes
- House Government Appropriations Bill Would Bar FTC & FCC From Doing Anything Related To Trump’s Inane Anti-230 Executive Order
- Understanding The ‘Splinternet’
- Americans Disagree On What Content Should Be Moderated, But They All Agree Social Media Companies Suck At Moderation
- Spotify Launches Podcast Charts, Challenging Apple’s Status As Industry’s De Facto Ranker
- Google Finally Gets Around To Banning Ads For Stalkerware
- Google bans ads for stalkerware apps—with some exceptions
- Google Search Results Allegedly Promote YouTube Videos Over More Popular Clips From Competitive Platforms
- YouTube Now Tells Creators Exactly How Much They Make From Ads, Super Chat, Channel Memberships Per 1,000 Views
- What Makes A YouTube Video Hit The Trending Tab? This Data Scientist Broke Down Every Single Video That Trended In 2019.
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 7/13/2020
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 7/13/2020
- YouTube Adds Mental Health Information Panels To Videos About Depression, Anxiety
- YouTube Kids Finally Arrives On Amazon Fire TV
- Amazon supermarket will roll out fancy new smart cart when it opens
- Amazon bans TikTok on employee phones, then calls it a mistake
- Amazon Doubles Back, Saying Email Instructing Employees To Delete TikTok Was “Sent In Error”
- TikTok Says It Removed 49 Million Videos For Content Violations In The Second Half Of 2019
- FYP.RIP Lets TikTok Creators Download Every Video They’ve Ever Made At Once
- Addison Rae, TikTok’s Second-Biggest Star, Soars Past 50 Million Followers
- Jason Derulo Says He Makes “Far More” Than $75,000 Per TikTok
- Tiktok deletes 49 million videos for rule-breaking over 6 month period
- Snapchat Tests Special ‘Brand Profiles’ — Complete With Ecommerce, Lens Collections, More
- NBCUniversal’s Peacock Debuts With 13,000 Hours Of Free Content
- Noted Incubator Reportedly Shells Out $10 Million To Develop Patrick Starrr Beauty Brand, Launching At Sephora
- Influencer-Enmeshed Beauty Brand Morphe Ceases All Ties With Jeffree Star
- Just 8% Of Quibi’s Early Free Trial Users Converted To Paying Subscribers
- What’s wrong with WhatsApp:As social media has become more inhospitable, the appeal of private online groups has grown. But they hold their own dangers – to those both inside and out.
- Jukin Launches Fourth OTT Brand, ‘WeatherSpy’, A Hip Weather Hub Targeting Cord Cutters
- Spotify Launches Podcast Charts, Challenging Apple’s Status As Industry’s De Facto Ranker
- Registration of generic Top Level Domains (gTLD)
- Tesla’s stock soars as tens of thousands of Robinhood users buy it
- New York State Department of Financial Services Proposes Framework for a Conditional BitLicense
- Who Should Be in Charge of Cyberspace? The European Union, Member States and the Constitution of Structural Power (Moritz Weiss)
- The Postdigital Emergence of Memes and GIFs: Meaning, Discourse, and Hypernarrative Creativity (Albin Wagener)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Dealing With Misinformation In Search (2004)
A.I.
- Don’t ask if artificial intelligence is good or fair, ask how it shifts power
- Fan Uses AI Software To Lipread What Actors Really Said In TV Series Before Chinese Authorities Censored Them
- Detroit PD Now Linked To Two Bogus Arrests Stemming From Facial Recognition False Positives
- Algorithmic state surveillance: Challenging the notion of agency in human rights (Eleni Kosta)
- The algorithmic regulation of security: An infrastructural perspective (Rocco Bellanova, Marieke de Goede)
- Data and the Task of the Humanities: We have automated the society of clues to act on its own divinations, with consequences far beyond the individual.
- CFPB Highlights the Growing Role of Artificial Intelligence in the Delivery of Financial Services
- Deepfakes Can Mean Deep Water and Deep Pockets for Your Business
- Transparency in artificial intelligence (Stefan Larsson, Fredrik Heintz)
COMMUNICATIONS
- Federal Court Defends CASL, Says Prohibition on Spam is Constitutional
- Supreme Court Upholds Robocalling Restrictions but Leaves Future of Regulatory Exemptions Uncertain
- Supreme Court Makes Debt Collection Robocalling Illegal (Again)
- TCPA Restrictions on Robocalls Expanded by SCOTUS
- The U.S. Supreme Court Broadens The TCPA Class Action Trap For Unwary Businesses
- FRACTURED LANDSCAPE: This One Graphic Explains Exactly why SCOTUS is Taking Yet Another Look at the TCPA
- The TCPA and the First Amendment: Where We Are and Where We’re Going
- Breaking: SCOTUS Will Decide ATDS Definition in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid et al.
- Supreme Court Agrees to Review Growing Circuit Split on Definition of ATDS
- SCOTUS to Resolve Autodialer Circuit Split
- Two FCC Fines for Contests Where Prizes Not Awarded on a Timely Basis – What Broadcasters Should Watch Out for in Conducting Contests
- FCC Continues to Prosecute Pirate Radio Operators – Two Settlements with Identified Violators
- FCC Proposes to Update Ex Parte Rules
- FCC releases new guidance on autodialers, leaves key questions unanswered
- Old School TV Gatekeepers (AT&T, Comcast), Struggle With Modern Streaming Gatekeepers (Amazon, Roku)
- Frontier misled subscribers about Internet speeds and prices, AG finds
- Charter’s hidden “Broadcast TV” fee now adds $197 a year to cable bills
- Verizon’s 5G network is tiny—Verizon ads “falsely implied” it’s nationwide
- UK bans Huawei from 5G networks in “victory for the Trump administration”
- Small ISPs Being Forced To Eat The Costs Of FCC’s Huawei Ban
- This Iowa Town Is Building An Open Access Fiber Broadband Network. Google Fiber Is Its First Customer
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- U.S. Court Of Appeals Hears Arguments That Lawsuit Against Disney For ‘Pirates’ Shouldn’t Have Been Dismissed
- Top EU Court Says Online Platforms Must Only Provide Postal Addresses Of People Who Upload Unauthorized Copies Of Copyright Material
- Neil Young ‘NOT ok’ with Trump playing his music at Mount Rushmore event
- Legal Implications of Syncing Copyrighted Music with Other Content
- Meek Mill, Atlantic Records Face Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Over Lifted Lyrics
- US copyright enters the social media age
- IP Insight – Brompton Doesn’t Fold Before Court of Justice
- How Absolutely Desperate Must You Be To Try To Claim That The Answer To ‘Cancel Culture’ Is Stronger Copyright?
- Are fundamental rights the answer to the deficiencies of EU copyright law, discussed in a European context? (Maria Christina Michailidou)
- Brexit: Intellectual Property and Software Code Post-Brexit Transition
- When Paying for It Doesn’t Mean You Own It
- Conducting your way through music licensing: common issues
- Random Issues to Consider as Media Businesses Adapt to the New World of the Virus – Music Uses on Zoom and Other Platforms, Unlicensed FM Transmitters
- A look at recent student athlete name, image and likeness legislation
- Not all pun and games: Federal Court not amused with cannabis company’s brand parody
- GOOGLES Wins Right to Sue Google
- PlanetArt v Photobox offers practical tips for designing UK-targeted apps
- “Trump Too Small” is Too Personal for Trademark Registration
- No, Trademark Trolls Collecting Various Fake Names For A Washington Football Team Will Not Get In The Way Of The NFL Team’s Renaming
- If It Isn’t Perceived as Generic, Then It Isn’t Generic: Takeaways from USPTO v. Booking.com
- Trade mark rights in generic terms: does the US booking.com decision open the door in the U.S. or Australia?
- Supreme Court: “Booking.com” Can Be Registered as Trademark
- The Greek Freak and celebrity trade marks
- Iconic Ferrari 250 GTO Trademark (Partially) Cancelled
- Ferrari loses EU trade mark for ‘world’s most expensive car’
- “Nosecco” lost its sparkle: Logo trade mark application rejected by UK IPO and decision upheld by High Court
- Owls swoop in to secure WAWAW trade mark
- Tiger King: Murder, mayhem and misuse of intellectual property
- A tale of conflicting data sets: filing and litigation statistics paint a contrasting picture of the US trademark landscape
- Trademarks for Business Owners: 4 (More) Things Every Trademark Owner Should Know
- I found out about this amusing Karen parody of American Girl dolls because they want it taken down
- American Girl Brand Sees The Light On Parody
- Knock It Off, Knockoffs? Ninth Circuit Affirms Trade Dress Rights but Not Fame
- IBM has a problem with Google’s Open Usage Commons: The ties between the Open Usage Commons and Google may be too strong and clear.
- Can Trademark Law Combat Price Gouging? 3M is Testing Theories to Protect its Brand
- Amazon Will Display Seller Identifying Information On Seller Profile Pages – What Does It Really Mean For Brands Trying To Stop Unauthorized Sales?
- Descriptive marks: marketer’s nirvana or lawyer’s nightmare?
- Moving on Up: Increased Costs Awards in Canadian Patent Litigation
- Challenges in Canada: how CIPO is tackling a backlog caused by covid-19, legislative change and Madrid
- Device Having a Chamber “Loaded With” a Composition Positively Requires Presence of Composition in Device
- Do Lord Justice Arnold’s comments on Fibrogen v Akebia signify a change in approach to instruction of experts?
- Patentee’s Failure to Fully Define Non-Standard Physical Characteristic Leads to Invalidity Holding
- Lights Out for Light-up Shoe Patents Found to Be Obvious
- Lights Out for Light-Up Shoe Patent, Thanks to Non-Limiting Preamble
- Reliance on Common Sense Permitted in Obviousness Analysis
- Electronic Communication Technologies, LLC v. ShoppersChoice.com, No. 2019-1587 (Fed. Cir. May 14, 2020)
- Cochlear Bone Anchored Solutions AB v. Oticon Medical AB, No. 2019-1105 (Fed. Cir. May 15, 2020)
- Common Sense in Patents: Makes Sense?!
- Can One Have Too Many Patents?
- Patent Assignments: Difficult Decisions in a Difficult Time
- Patent Analytics Provider Tracks “Examiners Who Procrastinate”
- A Tale of Two Districts: Patent Trials in the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- The One Secret Everyone Needs to Know About Patents
- Canada Announces Accelerated Exam for Pandemic Related Inventions Filed by “Small Entities”
- China’s Latest Patent Law Amendment Introduces Patent Linkage and Patent Term Extension
- Keeping a secret: five tips for creating an effective non-disclosure agreement
- EUIPO Report Names Turkey as the Third Biggest Producer of Counterfeit Goods
- How Do I Protect Intellectual Property?
PRIVACY
- Clearview Calls It Quits In Canada While Under Investigation By The Privacy Commissioner
- Safety first! New Canadian cloud security guidance is issued
- Companies Are Selling Cops Access To Personal Data Harvested From Malicious Hacking And Data Breaches
- C Is for Cookie Lawsuit: Google Accused of Wiretap Act Violations for Collection of Web Browsing Data
- Malware stashed in China-mandated software is more extensive than thought
- Are consumers in Europe more likely than consumers in the United States to “opt-in” to cookies?”
- Ars readers hated this startup’s privacy policy—so the company changed it
- This device keeps Alexa and other voice assistants from snooping on you
- California’s Effort to Suppress the Publication of Age Information Violates the Constitution–IMDb v. Becerra (Eric Goldman)
- CCPA 2.0: How the California Privacy Rights Act is “Targeting” Digital Advertising
- The Nuances of Data Colonialism
- Data is Dangerous: Comparing the Risks that the United States, Canada and Germany See in Data Troves (Susan Aaronson)
CREATIVITY
- Judge Does The Expected: Gets Rid Of Prior Restraint Order Against Mary Trump, Allows Her To Publish Her Book
- Tucker Carlson’s top writer resigns after secretly posting racist and sexist remarks in online forum
- ‘His hatred is infectious’: Tucker Carlson, Trump’s heir apparent and 2024 candidate?
- A Letter on Justice and Open Debate
- A Deeply Provincial View of Free Speech: Many prominent writers and thinkers seem invested in the notion that simply facing strong public criticism is a threat to free speech.
- Documents Show SFPD Ignored The Press Pass The Department Had Issued To Brian Carmody In Order To Place Him Under Surveillance
- L.A. Newspaper Sues Sheriff’s Department Over Its Repeated Refusal To Comply With The Law
- What That Harper’s Letter About Cancel Culture Could Have Said
- Legally blown: Reese Witherspoon and her fashion line face breach of contract and privacy class action over ‘free dress’ giveaway
- France to exactly restore Notre Dame spire, ditching modern designs
Jon