In all our many roundups at the turn of the year, we’ve never done one on the legal dramas that have affected the MMO genre. That changes today!
Of note, there’s…
- the lockbox scuffle as various countries turn their watchful gaze on the industry and self-regulation collapses in a puddle of shrugs;
- the Crytek lawsuit against Star Citizen studio Cloud Imperium;
- the potential for dead online games to skirt DMCA laws;
- multiple Pokemon Go-inspired lawsuits and criminal trials;
- the end of the Warner Bros. and Tolkien estate lawsuit;
- the continuation of the Oculus/ZeniMax Media lawsuit;
- the cease-and-desist filed against Asheron’s Call emulators;
- and a whole ton of Blizzard lawsuits, including the capsizing of the Bossland cheaters following multiple Blizz victories.
My favorite, however, is Andrew’s research into whether lockboxes legally constitute gambling – from last January. Enjoy!
Video game voice actor strike continues, union claims it could aid developers - You might not realize this, but the voice actor strike that started last October is still ongoing in 2017. Video game voice actors have been holding out…
Frontier sues Atari over Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 profits - We may associate Frontier with Elite Dangerous these days, but there was a time in the early 2000s when the studio was widely greatly known for…
The $2B ZeniMax Oculus Rift trial begins - Virtual reality headsets may be but babies on the gaming scene, but already one of them has landed in hot legal water. This week, a trial…
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will testify in ZeniMax VR trial today - The stakes are high -- $2 billion dollars high -- for the outcome of the ongoing ZeniMax vs. Facebook trial, in which the former is accusing…
MMO lockboxes, keys, and booster packs: Gambling or gaming? - Lockboxes have become a hot topic over the last couple of years. Last month, both our writers and readers crowned SWTOR worst business model of the year…
ARK modders fight over Pokémon projects - Gotta catch 'em all... unless we're talking about Pokémon mods for ARK: Survival Evolved, in which case there might only be one in the end. So…
Blizzard defeats Bossland bot-maker in German supreme court ruling - Score one for Blizzard: The gaming giant managed a win in its long struggle against German bot-maker and plague-on-honest-gaming Bossland GmbH. The German Federal Court of…
Palmer Luckey took the stand in the ZeniMax/Oculus lawsuit - The lawsuit between Oculus and ZeniMax Studios is a complex one, but you knew that the person behind the genesis of Oculus and the Oculus Rift…
ZeniMax vs. Facebook trial wraps up as damages sought balloon to $4B - The high-profile legal battle between ZeniMax and Facebook over alleged intellectual theft involving the Oculus Rift VR headset has entered a new stage, as the trial…
ZeniMax partially wins Oculus Rift lawsuit, awarded $500M - It may not be the $4 billion that ZeniMax was hoping for, but the studio still made out well today as a jury awarded it $500 million…
Shots are still being fired in the Oculus/ZeniMax lawsuit - All right. The Oculus/ZeniMax lawsuit ended, ZeniMax was awarded $500 million in Oculus money by the courts, and while the plaintiffs got less than what they…
FIFA YouTubers plead guilty to charges under UK gambling act - Back in September, we reported on the UK's case against Craig "NepentheZ" Douglas and Dylan Rigby, the YouTubers charged under the Gambling Act with running an…
Pokémon Go needs park permits in Milwaukee County to use park locations - The Milwaukee County Parks Department had a bit of a problem with Pokémon Go last year. It turns out that when you place various locations in…
Valve is working on three VR titles, feeling effects of travel ban - Valve's Gabe Newell and Erik Johnson have confirmed that the company is working on a trio of VR-centric games, not cheapie experiments but full-scale games built…
League of Legends data feature in New York state lawsuit against Time Warner - Remember back in the day when you'd complain about your lag and connectivity issues in an online game, only to have the studio tell you the…
ZeniMax attempts to block Facebook’s use of Oculus Rift code - Not content with a partially (and lucrative) legal victory over Facebook and Oculus Rift, ZeniMax is now looking to block the use of specific lines of…
Shooter denied bond in Virginia Pokemon Go murder case - Back in January, we reported on the tragic case of Jiansheng Chen, a 60-year-old Virginia resident who was playing Pokemon Go in his family's Chesapeake neighborhood…
Riot Games wins $10M in a lawsuit against League of Legend cheating software - [AL:LOL]At least today, cheating does not prosper, particularly for those who attempted to circumvent the rules in League of Legends. A court awarded $10 million to…
Nexon is heavily affected by China’s new game import laws - Getting non-Chinese games into the Chinese market is a lengthy and challenging ordeal as it is, but the latest set of Chinese restrictions for South Korean…
John Carmack is suing ZeniMax for breach of contract as the Oculus drama lingers on - One round of the Oculus lawsuit may be over, but the saga isn't going away. Oculus CTO John Carmack is now suing ZeniMax Media for breaching…
Blizzard seeks $8.5M from cheat software company Bossland - It's all fun and games... until you start selling software to help players cheat, then it's all lawsuits and court dates. Blizzard is asking the California…
Battlenet’s slow retirement, Overwatch toxicity, and Blizzard’s legal history with ‘modding’ - Last night's update saw the end of the Battle.net branding on the Blizzard launcher. You probably shed your tears back in September, when the company first…
Blizzard awarded $8.5M in Bossland WoW and Overwatch bot lawsuit - German bot company Bossland has lost another battle in its war with Blizzard, though that's to be expected since it didn't even show up for the…
U.S. district court hears Pokemon Go trespassing lawsuit - Last summer when Pokemon Go took off, so did the lawsuits from property owners who claimed Niantic was effectively encouraging players to illegally trespass on their…
MMOARG dev sues Milwaukee county over Pokemon Go-inspired park ordinance - Remember back in February when Milwaukee County in Wisconsin tried to handle the whole "Pokemon Go players are destroying parks and costing municipalities cash money to…
RuneScape DDoS hacker gets two years in U.K. prison - Ever hear that expression, "His name is mud?" It applies on every level to the incarceration of one Adam Mudd this week, who received two years…
Former Funcom execs convicted, sentenced in insider trading case - The insider trading case that's embroiled the former leadership of MMORPG studio Funcom has finally come to a close today with convictions and sentences for three…
Pokemon Go player faces up to 3.5 years in Russian penal colony over blasphemy law - A 22-year-old Russian vlogger is facing prison time for playing Pokemon Go inside a church. Last summer, Ruslan Sokolovsky recorded himself playing Pokemon Go on his…
Russian Pokemon Go player sentenced over blasphemy law - The 22-year-old Russian vlogger convicted of playing Pokemon Go inside a church has been hit with a 3.5-year suspended sentence. Ruslan Sokolovsky was found "guilty of inciting hatred,…
RIFT’s Starfall Prophecy name change was provoked by a trademark lawsuit - If you were a little bit puzzled by Trion's announcement this week that it was changing the name of RIFT's latest expansion from Starfall Prophecy to Prophecy…
Second Life bunnies doomed to death - If Second Life had a mascot, other than a pile of soiled sex toys, it might just be Ozimals. These are adorable little bunnies that can be…
World of Tanks demonstrates how to chill games criticism on YouTube in three easy steps - The World of Tanks community is in uproar this week over the removal of a prominent YouTuber from the game's developer-backed promotional program and the deletion…
The jury is out on whether or not DOTA 2 actually belongs to Valve - It's not very interesting to see a big company take knockoff companies to court to argue that the knockoff companies are violating intellectual property. It is,…
World of Tanks apologizes for threatening to censor YouTuber - World of Tanks developer Wargaming has apologized for essentially threatening to abuse YouTube's copyright law to retaliate against an unpaid promotional partner who published a video critical of…
CD Projekt Red claims Cyberpunk 2077 design docs are being held hostage by thieves - CD Projekt Red, the maker of the acclaimed Witcher RPG series, claimed that cyber thieves have made off with "internal files" and "early designs" for its…
ZeniMax seeks another half billion bucks in Oculus injunction hearing - The Oculus/ZeniMax Media lawsuit still isn't over, all these years after the start: ZeniMax is this week arguing before a Texas district court that Oculus should…
Survival sandbox Rust has refunded $4.38M to players so far - Have you ever wondered how many copies of any particular game players return for refunds on Steam? In the case of the popular survival sandbox Rust,…
With the Lord of the Rings lawsuit settled, LOTRO moves on with sunflowers and Weatherstock IX - [AL:LOTRO]It looks like things are cooling down on the legal front following a protracted court lawsuit between Warner Bros. and the Tolkien Estate concerning alleged "digital…
Riot Games files a lawsuit against the developer of an alleged League of Legends clone - [AL:LOL]Once upon a time, a studio named Riot Games made a game called League of Legends, which was essentially a Warcraft III map given some slight…
No, exploitative gacha mechanics are not a good idea for western devs - We've been talking about exploitative gacha games and related business models on Massively OP for a long time, most recently and notably in depth earlier this year…
Pokemon Go: Milwaukee County lawsuit injunction and preparing for legendaries - Back in February, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, tried to prevent Pokemon Go player-inflicted park damage by requiring ARG developers, including Niantic, to acquire permits before implementing games within the park. The county…
Pokemon Go is being sued over the disastrous Chicago live event - If you live in the midwest and are out only a ticket and a tank of gas for your trip to the botched Pokemon Go event…
Crunch mode caused a young Netmarble game developer’s death, Korean government says - South Korean MMO studio Netmarble is being criticized this week for contributing to the death of an overworked game developer in 2016. The Korea Times is…
League of Legends skin based on soccer player Edgar Davids is going to cost Riot money - See the charming dark-skinned gent in the header image? That's the Striker Lucian skin in League of Legends. It also strongly resembles the kit, hairstyle, and…
Korea’s FTC to investigate Blizzard’s StarCraft: Remastered hourly fees - The Korean StarCraft community is up in arms this week over Blizzard's rerelease of the game -- more specifically, its plan to effectively double-dip into the…
FTC settles CS:GO Lotto influencer corruption complaint - It's not enough for the CS:GO community to bleed players to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds; nope, this week it's taking another blow in the form of legal action…
Asheron’s Call emulator lead explains what went down with the cease-and-desist - What are lawyers good for? Pouring lemon juice on the open wounds of an MMO community desperately trying to hold on to the remnant of their…
Fortnite patches battle royale, adds BattlEye anti-cheat measures, and sues cheaters - Are you one of the 10M people who've dipped into Fortnite's battle royal mode? Or perhaps one of the 500K who played concurrently this past weekend?…
CNN alleges that Russia used Pokemon Go to try to spread dissent in the USA - It always gets a bit bumpy when politics, international intrigue, and video games collide, so hold on for this one. According to CNN, Russia's Internet Research…
Blizzard sues alleged Overwatch clone, bans World of Warcraft cheaters - Gone are the days when Chinese companies could get away with ripping off games left and right: Blizzard is going after another one of these alleged…
Survival sandbox ROKH got bogged down in a ‘legal dispute,’ but it’s been resolved - It's been a few weeks since ROKH's last developer update, but there's a reason for that: a legal dispute. "Two teams were investigating the source code…
The US government is considering DMCA exceptions for archived online games after all - Back in 2015, an exception was made to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow for archival of aging video games that were otherwise inaccessible. This…
EA has put the kibosh on a player-run Battlefield emulator – are MMOs next? - We don't cover the Battlefield games much on Massively OP, but this particular story caught my attention anyway because of the company and subject involved. According…
Black Desert’s Reddit community erupts over Pearl Abyss’ datamining suppression - [AL:BDO]So how do you feel about dataminers? One player apparently datamined a significant chunk of info about Black Desert's so-called hidden stats, posting everything to the…
Black Desert devs responds to datamining dust-up with stat transparency and apologies - [AL:BDO]Remember a week ago when Black Desert dataminers dug up dirt on the game's so-called hidden stats, only to be booted off the subreddit by mods…
Bossland gives up on WoW’s Honorbuddy cheat following Blizzard’s 2017 court victories - If you weren't convinced that Blizzard defeated Bossland in its string of lawsuits already, you will be today. As The Nosy Gamer noticed, Bossland announced today…
The Netherlands joins Belgium in investigating lockboxes as games of chance - Earlier this week, we reported on a move by the Belgian Gaming Commission to investigate lockboxes/lootboxes in games like Star Wars Battlefront 2 to determine whether…
UK Gambling Commission hints it may fight lootboxes with age ratings - While you were eating turkey and buying loot this past weekend, the lockbox saga was trundling onward. The UK Gambling Commission has formally stated that it…
Mother of Fortnite cheater claims that her 14-year-old son is being used as a scapegoat - Last month, Fortnite developer Epic sued two alleged associates of a cheating software site as part of the studio's hard-line approach to cheaters. Makes sense; cheating…
Milwaukee settles lawsuit over Pokemon Go-inspired park ordinance - The Milwaukee lawsuit sparked by Pokemon Go is finally over. Back in February, Milwaukee County in Wisconsin issued an ordinance requiring video game developers like Niantic…
Fortnite settles one of its anti-cheater lawsuits out of court - If you'd forgotten, Fortnite wound up bringing a lawsuit against two people for cheating software being used in the game. One such suit hit a wrinkle…
Hawaii state rep Chris Lee urges gamers to contact their local governments about lockboxes - Say you were a legislator concerned about the lootbox/lockbox gambling issues in gaming. How would you actually go about drafting a law that targets predatory monetization…
New Zealand declares lootboxes not gambling under the law - Are lootboxes gambling? It seems like such a simple question, but it really isn't simple from a legal or ethical standpoint, and the answer has a…
Crytek sues Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium, alleging copyright infringement - Update: We've updated with CIG's official statement to us below. Crytek is suing Cloud Imperium Games and Roberts Space Industries, the companies behind the sprawling and…
Call of Duty swatting incident leads to man’s death in Kansas - A case of gamer "swatting" in the U.S. has led to the death of an innocent father of two in Kansas earlier this week. According to…
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