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Blockchain Presentation Follow Up – $300m lost ‘accidentally’
In case anyone wants to further read about the incident, here’s the link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/cryptocurrency-300m-dollars-stolen-bug-ether A really expensive accident I must admit.. Idan
Esports Presentation Follow-up
In my presentation this past Friday I thought it would be fun to include some video clips showing what the atmosphere is like inside the stadiums where these big esports tournaments are held. I decided not to include them because of the technical difficulties we had with videos in the past few weeks, but for […]
Violence & Criminal Acts – Liability and Defences
[x-post from Forum post last Friday which I put in the wrong place] Good afternoon all, This is the particular mission in the COD series which I referenced during our class today. https://youtu.be/gXBDkevx5lM?t=84 I can definitely see this influencing someone to commit such acts, but in terms of liability for any damage caused, I still […]
Owning Genres
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-10-16-does-anyone-own-the-battle-royale-genre I find the idea that a developer could own the rights to a video game genre to be ridiculous. It goes back to Boyden. There are so many ways in which a battle royale video game could be “expressed” that to allow the developers of PUBG to retain exclusive rights to all battle royale […]
Loot Boxes and Gambling
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/307428/Loot_boxes_dont_count_as_gambling_in_the_ESRBs_books.php I saw this piece in the News of the Week and found it interesting. The ESRB, which establishes age and content ratings for video games, has reasoned that loot boxes do not constitute gambling because the player is always guaranteed to win something–i.e. there is no risk of loss. While the particular item or […]
Taking Legal Action Against Cheaters
TL;DR – video game company sues cheating gamers for copyright infringement. I find this one really annoying. Shouldn’t they invest the money in making their product better instead of spending money on legal fees, chasing gamers? is this the right approach against cheaters? are they so beaten up? I don’t completely understand the reciprocation between […]
The Gaming Industry as a Case Study to the Implications of Cloud Computing
Last class, Anoop introduced the power of the cloud in the gaming industry. It reminded me an article I read about the early stages of the internet when classic mainframe systems were in use (explanation can be found here: https://goo.gl/pBgp4k). we could argue about the differences and the similarities between cloud computing and mainframe systems, […]
Acceleration to Authenticity: Emerging Trends in Online Legal Education
For those of you in class on Friday who witnessed me prattling on (hopefully as minimally as possible) about the pedagogical intentions behind what we are embarking on, and somehow are curious about that, you may want to sneak a peak at the slides attached above. They are from a presentation from the day before […]
Hacking of Video Game Networks
I happened to come across an interesting article this morning which discussed the need for a two-factor authentication system for Gaming Networks in the wake of the many data breaches over the past number of years: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/gaming-network-hacks-prove-need-two-factor-authentication/ This article highlights a concern for video game companies which acquire personal information of users, such as credit […]