law
UK government will ‘consider legislation’ unless game companies add parental controls to lootboxes
The UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) has seen enough evidence related to the harm that lootboxes have on children and...
MMO Business Roundup: Preservation, charity, modding, memes, and Microsoft’s merger
Welcome back to another quick roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news. Business business business.
Microsoft ABK: It's not just the US digging into Microsoft's...
Axie Infinity’s massive crypto theft by hackers was possible thanks to a job search phishing scam
Most of our regular readers know Axie Infinity as the game that saw a North Korean hacker gang get away with a huge stash...
Officer involved in 2017 Call of Duty swatting death is denied qualified immunity appeal
Way back in 2017, the gaming industry was shocked by the news that a gaming-related swatting incident had actually resulted in the death of...
US Senator Ted Cruz and Asmongold could have a meeting over gaming microtransaction legislation
It's said that politics makes for strange bedfellows, and there appears to be no better illustration of that axiom than the potential meeting between...
BioWare-supporting studio’s QA workers vote to form Canadian union
This past year or so, we've been observing different unionization efforts popping up in the game industry. Among these is efforts is one that's...
US advocacy groups call upon Federal Trade Commission to investigate EA over FIFA lockboxes
Hot on the heels of Norway's call for lootbox oversight, a non-profit org in the US is now trying to drum up support for...
18 European countries back a Norwegian government body’s assertion that lootboxes are ‘manipulative’
Clearly, pushback against the lootbox monetization model is not going away, a fact that is once more being brought to light thanks to a...
Belgium and Netherlands reject Diablo Immortal over lockbox gambling concerns
This week's "global launch" of Diablo Immortal already wasn't going to be that global considering that several southeast Asia countries will have to wait...
Former Guild Wars 2 cinematic animator calls out NCsoft for withholding owed back pay
Apparently, NCSoft has a policy in place that withholds owed back pay even if an employee has the courtesy to put in a notice...
Alleged stalker of a World of Warcraft streamer is arrested and faces five years of federal prison time
A two year-long hell for one streamer of World of Warcraft is hopefully coming to an end. Evan Baltierra, a former Los Angeles World...
Lawful Neutral: How is an NFT MMO even supposed to work?
Recently, MassivelyOP hit a milestone: We received our quadrabajillionth email announcing that Scammy-scammers-now-with-NFTs-and-also-metaverse-because-reasons Inc. was a proven market leader with a new scamming game...
The FBI says it was a North Korean hacker gang that crimed Axie Infinity for $620M
At the tail end of March, we reported on a massive hack of exploitative play-to-earn blockchain job/game Axie Infinity. At the time, the hackers...
Disney has quashed another Club Penguin emulator, this time with arrests in the UK
Remember way back in 2017, when Disney shut down the long-running Club Penguin MMO in order to replace it with Club Penguin Island? And...
GDC 2022: Control, revenue, scarcity, ethics, and the human challenges of the gaming ‘metaverse’
While some panels at GDC 2022 have been deeply disappointing, the panel titled "A Brave New (Virtual) World: Ethics and Governance of XR and...
Chinese regulators draft ‘youth mode’ requirement for online games and more
It appears that China's gaming industry still hasn't come close to hitting rock bottom. According to the South China Morning Post, China's Cyberspace Administration...
Dutch court says EA lockboxes didn’t violate region’s gambling law, reels back €10M fine from 2019
It's been some time since the furor over lockboxes and international gambling laws came to light, so let's review: Gambling authorities from the Netherlands...
Family of Activision-Blizzard employee allegedly harassed into suicide filed a wrongful death suit
If Activision-Blizzard was hoping that recent world events would be taking all of the pressure of the company's ongoing scandal and fallout, then such...
Union asks SEC to investigate Activision-Blizzard’s ‘inaccurate and misleading’ acquisition statements
Part of the process necessary for Microsoft to buyout Activision-Blizzard is its submission of a disclosure letter to the SEC about its current state...
Lawful Neutral: Recapping the MMO industry’s legal dramas, 2021 edition
With meatspace commitments causing no-end of stress and herculean amounts of work for me, Lawful Neutral had a bit of a slow year that...
