legal
US Court of Appeals upholds decision that a RuneScape player’s muting did not violate free speech
The 3rd Circuit US Court of Appeals has effectively squashed any further action by one Amro Elansari, a RuneScape player who claimed that Jagex's...
MMO Business Roundup: Tencent, Ubisoft, Rockstar, energy, Creativerse, and Cold Iron Studios
Welcome back to another roundup of MMO (and MMO-adjacent) industry news!
Tencent: Just before Funcom and Tencent announced the Chinese gaming giant was angling to...
Blitzchung: No regrets for speaking up for Hong Kong despite Hearthstone suspension
Chung Ng Wai, better known as Blitzchung, took a big risk when he spoke out in support of Hong Kong on an official Hearthstone stream....
Riot Games’ $10M settlement could climb to $400M due to California state agency filings
Allow us to recount events for a moment: In 2018, a Kotaku expose blew the lid off of a deeply alarming "bro culture" work...
Lawful Neutral: Examining the ArcheAge class action lawsuit – and what it means for gamers
Gamers threaten lawsuits a lot. Most of the time they threaten lawsuits over things that aren't really something they can sue over, usually due...
CIG fires back in response to Crytek’s request to pause Squadron 42 lawsuit
Earlier this month we reported on a request from Crytek to halt its ongoing breach of contract lawsuit against Star Citizen studio Cloud Imperium...
ArcheAge players score $420,000 in ancient class action suit over consumer law violations
We've been following the saga of the ArcheAge lawsuit for what seems like ages now. Back in 2015, three gamers filed a class action lawsuit...
Crytek’s latest legal maneuvering against CIG suggests Squadron 42 won’t release this summer
The long, drawn out, snail-paced legal fight between CIG and Crytek has taken one more step, but this one seems to have some direct...
Lawful Neutral: A look back at the MMO industry’s law dramas of 2019
It's hard to believe that 2019 is almost over. Not necessarily unwelcome, but hard to believe. 2019 has been a year in more ways...
There’s another Fortnite dance legal battle brewing, this one over Dancing Pumpkin Man
Remember back when gobs of entertainers were trying to sue Epic Games for taking their dances and shoving them into Fortnite to sell them...
Riot Games will pay $10 million to settle its ‘bro culture’ gender discrimination lawsuit
Back in August, the LA Times reported that Riot Games had agreed to settle the class-action discrimination lawsuit lodged against it. The suit had...
An MMO character ‘worth’ $1.4M was sold in China for $552
So here's a fun story of people being particularly... odd. Let's go with odd. Player A, hereafter referred to as "Scrooge McDuck," spends the...
MMO Business Roundup: Amazon, gaming toxicity research, Blizzard’s court victory, and why people love Mike Morhaime
Business business business! We're back for another speedy Friday afternoon roundup of some MMO and games industry business news.
Amazon's next big thing
We're not sure...
Lawful Neutral: When Marvel sued NCsoft over City of Heroes
One of the biggest MMORPG genre stories over the last year has been the ongoing saga/drama around the bizarre but very much welcomed rebirth...
Fortnite’s Epic Games cracks down on leakers and banned streamers
It's a bundle of Fortnite-related news, and not the fun kind about updates or other things. It's a bundle of... well, of awful things,...
China is really adding that youth gaming curfew and block on sex and gore in games
Sometimes it's easy to forget that gamers over in China have it very different than we do in the west. If you need a...
US politician shades Blizzard over World of Warcraft toxicity
Last week, the gaming world was a tad busy running Halloween events and watching BlizzCon, so it passed almost without notice that a US...
Australian consumer commission compels ZeniMax and Bethsoft to grant Fallout 76 refunds
Apparently, only Australia's legal system means to hold Bethsoft accountable over Fallout 76. According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ZeniMax Media conglom...
CS:GO stops letting players sell container keys due to their use in money laundering
The otherwise innocuous activity of selling keys to open containers in CS:GO has apparently been used for far more nefarious purposes. According to a...
Lawful Neutral: What’s China really worth to the Western gaming industry?
You know what we never talk about these days? China and video games! We should do that more. For example, did you know that...
