Way back in 2016, at the height of the new-news-every-day-on-Pokemon-Go, we covered a lawsuit lodged against Nintendo and Niantic by one Jeffrey Marder of New Jersey, who accused the companies of enticing people to trespass on his property and profiting from that act. That suit was consolidated into a single class-action with several other suits, including those from Michigan and Florida.
In 2017, when the suits were joined, Niantic was maintaining that trespass laws do not cover virtual intrusions, that it is the trespassers who have broken laws, and that a decision against the company could also impact non-games like real estate apps. Legal experts, however, suggested that trespass laws vary from state to state and that neither side had a slam-dunk case.
Now it appears that the case will be settled, though unfortunately, as The BBC reports, the settlement details haven’t yet been released. According to GIbiz, the courts will hear the settlement in February, so expect more after that.
This lawsuit was far from the only one that plagued Pokemon Go and the MMOARG genre over the last few years; Niantic settled a lawsuit over its botched Chicago event for $1.5M earlier this year, and last year Milwaukee County in Wisconsin settled a lawsuit over its parks ordinance, which required video game developers like Niantic to obtain park permits before using those parks as MMOARG destinations.
