legal
Lawful Neutral: Reverse engineering World of Warcraft’s subscriber numbers
Do you know what time it is? It's almost quarterly financial report time! We probably won't see a full quarterly report from Activision-Blizzard as...
Former Ubisoft execs and employees were detained by French police over sexual misconduct allegations
It looks as if the French authorities are moving against Ubisoft employees who were among those accused in the studio's wide-reaching sexual misconduct exposé....
MMO Business Roundup: BioWare lawsuit, Nintendo multiplayer sunset, Twitch layoffs
Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news. Numbers numbers numbers.
BioWare
Remember the hefty BioWare layoffs back in the summer? A group...
MMO Business Roundup: MY.GAMES’ CEO, Valve’s antitrust fine, and research on China’s gaming regulations
Welcome back to another quick roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent business news. Numbers numbers numbers. In fact, this edition has the whole trifecta: business,...
Fortnite’s $245M FTC settlement over COPPA violations means you might be entitled to a refund
All right, people, hold your horses. The FTC is indeed giving out money from its settlement with Fortnite developer Epic Games, but it's specifically...
Marvel Heroes rogue servers are finally possible thanks to newly released emulator files
Many of our readers and writers deeply miss Marvel Heroes, the MMOARPG that managed to capture something special - and was unceremoniously closed thanks...
Unity promises ‘changes’ to its deeply unpopular install fee policy after a week of backlash
The intense backlash over Unity's decision to assign staggering new per-install fees to game studios last week probably made last night's admission inevitable: At...
Chronicles of Elyria studio tosses ‘quick release’ strategy after inking a licensing deal
Some train wrecks never know when to stop smoldering. You'll recall that at the top of 2023, Soulbound Studio's Jeromy Walsh vowed that the...
Unity begins backtracking on new runtime fees, but it hasn’t addressed indies
Yesterday, we covered Unity's surprise announcement that it was instituting a "runtime fee" that would charge developers as much as 20 cents per download...
Stick and Rudder: Chronicling CIG’s naked hostility toward Star Citizen’s long-time backers
Earlier this week, Cloud Imperium creative content lead Jared Huckaby stopped the focus of a Star Citizen Live showcase to very grumpily look through...
Roblox conference cut short after police arrested an allegedly armed community developer
A seemingly benign Roblox developer conference abruptly turned frightening last weekend when an unruly developer in the crowd was arrested.
Games Industry reports that a...
Rumor: RuneScape studio Jagex might be up for sale again, the fourth time in less than a decade
The uproar over RuneScape's new monetization mess has a new angle today as apparently the future of UK-based Jagex is up in the air.
According...
SEC filings reveal the multi-million-dollar debt ARK Survival Evolved’s publisher owes Nitrado
In the middle of August, ARK: Survival Ascended called attention to a partnership with Nitrado that would guarantee the option for players to rent...
Dark and Darker is getting a mobile version thanks to a licensing partnership with Krafton
The PvPvE dungeon crawler Dark and Darker continues to write surprising headlines even as developer Ironmace faces a copyright fight with Nexon - and...
Roblox faces class action lawsuit that accuses the game of turning a blind eye to third-party gambling rings
Roblox is once more back in the headlines for all of the wrong reasons, as the company that runs the player-generated games platform is...
The MOP Up: EVE Online’s Fanfest has officially sold out
Well, that's it: EVE Online's Fanfest is officially sold out this year, so if you were hoping to snag a ticket at this late...
The Daily Grind: Which deeply held MMO belief have you totally changed your mind about?
Let's normalize changing our minds in the face of better evidence and data, eh?
I grew up in MMOs when it was fine and sometimes...
Dark and Darker launches into paid early access in spite of ongoing legal battle with Nexon
It has been quite a while since we heard from the PvPvE dungeon crawler Dark and Darker, but readers might remember that all through...
Destiny 2 deep-dives Season 22 as Bungie pursues cheat seller ring in court
With the current Season of the Deep now having roughly three weeks left to it, Destiny 2 is looking to the season ahead to...
Dungeon Fighter Online grants compensation after catching former dev criming with an RMT ring
It's not often that Dungeon Fighter Online makes it to our headlines but that's mostly because the game just keeps on keepin' on with...