legal
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...
Final Fantasy XIV nightclub advertises a gathering on real-world billboard oblivious to terms like ‘copyright’ and ‘trademark’
Sometimes all of us make poor choices, decisions that seemed like good ideas at the time but are later revealed to have been made...
Bungie talks up the return of Freelance Trials of Osiris to Destiny 2 as it sues a DMCA troll for $7.6M
For those who want to take on the Trials of Osiris PvP mode in Destiny 2 but don't really feel like forming a group,...
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...
Destiny 2 tentatively scores $13.5M in settlement with makers of cheat software
Bungie has seen yet another court case it leveraged against the makers of some cheat software for Destiny 2 wrap up. The studio brought...
Its legal options exhausted, Activision-Blizzard finally agrees to negotiate with union after half a year of clowning
As readers will recall, QA workers at Activision-Blizzard's Raven Software have spent the last half a year organizing to form a union following the...
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...
Wrongful death lawsuit filed by family of an Activision-Blizzard employee is dropped
One of the many legal clouds that hang over the head of Activision-Blizzard has cleared: The family of Kerri Moynihan, which alleged in a...
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...
Four Winds: Remembering TERA’s wild start and in-game politics
Well, the TERA sunset thing caught me off guard. I don't play TERA, but I was always under the impression that the game was...
Hearthstone class action lawsuit targets ‘deceitful’ marketing practices
Behind the jaunty art designs and goofy voice quips of Hearthstone lies another headache-in-the-making for Blizzard Entertainment. Polygon reports that the studio is getting...
MMO Business Roundup: China’s gaming crackdown, NetEase Connect, Wild Rift plagiarism, and Valve’s anti-trust lawsuit
Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent business and industry news.
China: The Chinese government is continuing to widen its long-running crackdown on...
Gravity is apparently cracking down on Ragnarok’s rogue server community
The Ragnarok Online rogue server community is in uproar this week as Ragnarok's Korean developer and publisher, Gravity Co., has filed at least one...
New York City just lodged a new lawsuit against Activision-Blizzard
A new lawsuit filed in Delaware by multiple New York City retirement and pension funds alleges in court something that's seemed like an open...
CWA says Activision-Blizzard management threatened workers for discussing labor rights
If a complaint filed to the National Labor Relations Board has any merit, the management of Activision-Blizzard has been working behind the scenes as...
ABK shareholders approve Microsoft buyout, World of Warcraft gets new executive producer
We've got some hefty Activision Blizzard news for you today, so buckle up and let's go for a ride.
Shareholders approve Microsoft buyout: On our...