News of the Week; April 8, 2020

DIGITAL

1. Dear Jeff Bezos, instead of firing me, protect your workers from coronavirus: I spoke up for safety at an Amazon warehouse. Unfortunately I believe it cost me my job
2. Leaked Amazon Memo Details Plan to Smear Fired Warehouse Organizer: ‘He’s Not Smart or Articulate’ –  Written notes from the meeting, attended by CEO Jeff Bezos, detail Amazon’s strategy to fight union organizing,
3. Leaked Amazon memo: Walkout leader “not smart or articulate”
4. Amazon Confronts Coronavirus and Unions: One a Real Threat, the Other Overblown: As the world’s largest online retailer was coping with a global crisis, why did it create a new one for itself?
5. Is Amazon approaching its breaking point in the Covid-19 crisis?
6. In a surprising change, Amazon now sells movies in its Prime Video iOS app
7. TikTok Users In China Temporarily Banned For Speaking Their Own Cantonese Language Instead Of Using The Official Mandarin
8. The limits of decentralization (Andres Guadamuz)
9. Lessig v. NYT: Very. Good. News. (Lawrence Lessig)
10. Social Links: Biden’s stance on CDA §230; liability for user-generated content; Twitter’s process for reviewing Trump’s tweets
11. Twitter notifies users that it’s now sharing more data with advertisers: Users in Europe are the exception
12. Twitter Updates its Policies to Allow Some Coronavirus-Related Advertising
13. Rangers, NHL condemn racial slurs in hijacked player video chat
14. The Coronavirus Reveals That the Stars Are Not Like Us: If there was ever a fourth wall dividing celebrities and the rest of us on social media, the quarantine has broken it.
15. A Must For Millions, Zoom Has A Dark Side – And An FBI Warning
16. Zoombombing is a crime, not a prank, prosecutors warn: Disrupting a Zoom meeting could lead to “law enforcement knocking at your door.”
17. Using Zoom while working from home? Here are the privacy risks to watch out for: Don’t let tattle-tale software features disrupt your remote workflow.
18. ‘Zoombombing’ Becomes a Dangerous Organized Effort: Zoom, the videoconferencing app, has become a target for harassment and abuse coordinated in private off-platform chats.
19. Zoom brings in former Facebook security head amid lawsuits, investigations
20. Zoom adds new security and privacy measures to prevent Zoombombing: Passwords and waiting rooms will be turned on by default
21. Teleconferencing Company Zoom Pitching End-To-End Encryption That Really Isn’t End-To-End
22. Senator Blumenthal Is Super Mad That Zoom Isn’t Actually Offering The End To End Encryption His Law Will Outlaw
23. Senator backing anti-crypto bill calls out Zoom’s lack of end-to-end crypto
24. A Big Zooming Mess: A Cautionary Tale
25. Judge Isn’t Impressed By Lawyer’s Purported Unfamiliarity With LinkedIn–Reyes v. Tanaka
26. Netflix will allow parents to remove movies and shows, filter by rating in new update: Making profile accounts for kids even more specific
27. Netflix’s ‘Tiger King’ Is Most Popular TV Show In U.S., Spurring YouTube Views For Joe Exotic
28. “When They See Us” Sees Dismissal of Defamation Claim
29. Google revises COVID-19 ad ban after backlash: Democrats slammed Google for preventing them from criticizing Trump’s response to the crisis. Google said it will announce new policies in the coming days.
30. YouTube says it will suppress content promoting false 5G coronavirus conspiracy: 5G masts have been set on fire in the UK
31. Jon Cusack The Latest Celebrity To Spread Nonsense About 5G
32. 5G Isn’t Interesting Enough To Warrant These Stupid Conspiracy Theories
33. YouTube moves to limit spread of false coronavirus 5G theory: Decision comes as four more phone masts are attacked
34. YouTube profits from videos promoting unproven Covid-19 treatments: New report finds company is running ads on videos pushing herbs and potentially unsafe over-the-counter treatments for virus
35. YouTube Makes Select Premium Series Free To Watch Amid Ongoing Quarantining
36. YouTube Kids App Sees More Usage Than All Major Video Platforms’—Including YouTube
37. Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber Takes The YouTube Stage, Will Stream Free Musicals Every Friday
38. Robin Williams Estate Launches YouTube Channel To Commemorate The Comedic Legend
39. All Creators In The YouTube Partner Program Can Now Monetize Content About COVID-19
40. Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 4/6/2020
41. FTC Enforces against Advertiser and Influencers for Breaching Influence Marketing Practices
42. Influencers and Targets on Social Media: Investigating the Impact of Network Homogeneity and Group Identification on Online Influence
43. With Billions of Interactions Around COVID-19, Influencers Are Harnessing Their Platforms For Good
44. How Children’s Social Video Content is Growing During Quarantines
45. Navy Deploys USS Barbra Streisand After Firing A Captain For Expressing His Coronavirus Concerns
46. Quibi, day one: This phone-focused TV service really isn’t that bad
47. Mobile video service Quibi launches to mixed reviews
48. Quibi Sees 300,000 Day 1 Downloads—Just 7.5% Of Disney+’s Debut Audience
49. Hip-Hop and R&B Hitmakers Are Setting Viewership Records Via Instagram Live Battles
50. How conspiracy theories about COVID-19 went viral: Why do epidemics breed conspiracy theories? And what do scientists say?
51. Coronavirus, the ‘Soros Bio-weapon’: How Far Right anti- Semitic Conspiracy Theories Are Infecting Mainstream Politics – As the virus spreads white supremacists and the far-right are repackaging old anti-Semitic tropes
52. Why pandemics are the perfect environment for conspiracy theories to flourish
53. Why Wikipedia is winning against the coronavirus ‘infodemic’: Against all odds, Wikipedia’s eccentric volunteer editors are holding back the tide of coronavirus misinformation
54. What Role Should Newsrooms Play in Debunking COVID-19 Misinformation?: When conspiracies pass a tipping point, newsrooms collectively pushing out strong debunks can slow the spread of myths and misinformation
55. Why Wikipedia Is Immune to Coronavirus: As the pandemic has been accompanied by an ‘infodemic’ of bad information, Wikipedia has stepped in to provide relief. It has become the go-to source for COVID-19 information.
56. Media deal with Facebook and Google more urgent with coronavirus taking jobs, says regulator: Australian Competition Commission pushing for code of conduct to ensure news businesses are treated fairly
57. Content Moderation Is Impossible: Facebook’s Attempts To Block Mask Gouging Took Down DIY Face Mask Instructions
58. Facebook to Hire 10,000 Workers This Year, Sets Plans for Doling Out $100M in Aid to Small Businesses
59. Citing Virus Misinformation, South Africa Tests Speech Limits: Suppressing false Covid-19 information may have benefits, but as South Africa shows, combatting fake news isn’t simple.
60. New Penalties for Posting Fake News on Social Networks
61. Coronavirus: Uber and Lyft trying to evade driver unemployment costs, critics say: Ride-hailing companies pushed for direct aid to drivers
62. Coronavirus slowed Uber and Lyft – but not their big-money efforts to undo AB 5: The gig economy companies added $267,000 to a California campaign that seeks to rewrite the rules for contract workers.
63. Learning From Home Is Hard Enough. Try Doing It Where Wifi Is Illegal.: In the “valley of the telescopes,” remote education is a disaster.
64. Can Airbnb Survive Coronavirus?: The short-term rental market is reeling from the coronavirus-driven tourism collapse. Can the industry’s dominant player stage a comeback after lockdowns lift?
65. How the Covid-19 crisis locked Airbnb out of its own homes: The short-let platform’s business model has been exposed. Bookings have fallen off a cliff but Airbnb simply can’t change tack
66. Airbnb may become obsolete depending on recovery of tourism after Covid-19 crisis: Bookings on Airbnb slumped from 96% to 41% this year due travel restrictions imposed by many countries in view of the pandemic.
67. Airbnb has been rocked by COVID-19. Do we really want to see it recover?: It’s time to consider alternatives to the profit-driven models of platform capitalists.
68. Airbnb is reeling from the coronavirus fallout
69. Delivery apps have transformed urban life in China: They have also created a new kind of worker
70. China Tech Looks Unready for What’s Coming Next: They survived the coronavirus lockdown, but even the biggest companies aren’t safe from the global recession.
71. Lockdown was supposed to be an introvert’s paradise. It’s not.: Calendars cleared by coronavirus are filling up with virtual happy hours & some are starting to feel exhausted.
72. Working, Working Together, And Networking During the Web-Hype of the ‘Corona Crisis’
73. Snapchat Taps Will Smith For Quarantined Celebrity Talk Show, Set In His Garage
74. Trial by video conference? Not yet, but coronavirus forces Bay Area courts to embrace more virtual proceedings
75. Apple will battle COVID-19 by designing and making millions of medical face shields
76. Apple doubles donation to China’s COVID-19 relief efforts: iPhone maker has now contributed $7 million to fighting the pandemic
77. Spotify now works with Siri on the Apple Watch: Apple started allowing third-party Siri music support last year
78. Spotify Expands Self-Serve Ad Studio to 18 Markets Around the World: Company has seen a 68% increase in monthly active advertisers in a year
79. SoundCloud now lets artists add a direct donation button to their page: To help musicians affected by the pandemic
80. Courts are moving to video during coronavirus, but research shows it’s hard to get a fair trial remotely
81. ‘Beginning of a new era’: how culture went virtual in the face of crisis
82. Livestreams Are Moving to Hard Tickets to Replace Lost Touring Revenue
83. The coronavirus crisis could fundamentally alter the internet: The covid-19 pandemic has many of us stuck at home. The result could completely reshape how we use the internet
84. Already Popular, the E-Signature Is Forever Part of Commercial Life
85. The problem of innovation in technoscientific capitalism: data rentiership and the policy implications of turning personal digital data into a private asset
86. Unblurring videoconferencing legal risks
87. Vertical Restraints in a Digital World (David Evans)
88. Intel’s 10th-generation H-series laptop CPUs break 5GHz

A.I.

1. Robots help China manage the coronavirus pandemic
2. The Far-Right Helped Create The World’s Most Powerful Facial Recognition Technology: Clearview AI, which has alarmed privacy experts, hired several far-right employees, a HuffPost investigation found.
3. AI Startups Cut Staff as Coronavirus Slams Economy: Job and spending forecasts had been relatively optimistic for the sector
4. ‘Show me your ID’: Tunisia deploys ‘robocop’ to enforce coronavirus lockdown – A police robot is patrolling the streets of the capital calling out suspected violators of the lockdown
5. Robot Vehicles Make Contactless Deliveries Amid Coronavirus Quarantine
6. Robots May Become Heroes In War On Coronavirus
7. Even the Pandemic Doesn’t Stop Europe’s Push to Regulate AI
8. How to Design AI for Social Good: Seven Essential Factors
9. Capitalism’s mirror stage: artificial intelligence and the quantified worker
10. Machine Learning Patentability in 2019: 5 Cases Analyzed and Lessons Learned Part 5
11. When Computers Invent: How the Use of Artificial Intelligence to Treat COVID-19 Highlights Novel Inventorship Issues

COMMUNICATIONS

1.  SLAPP Suit Filed Against Fox News Over Awful & Dangerous COVID-19 Coverage
2. TV stations don’t have to correct Trump’s COVID-19 statements, FCC says
3. Ex-FCC Staffer Says FCC Authority Given Up In Net Neutrality Repeal Sure Would Prove Handy In A Crisis
4. How the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory tore through the internet: From an interview with a Belgian doctor to  arson attacks, the conspiracy theory that 5G is linked to the coronavirus pandemic has spread unlike any other
5. Why 5G is not causing the coronavirus pandemic, despite the conspiracy theory about towers, Wuhan and radiation: All scientific evidence points to 5G in its current form being non-harmful to humans
6. Radio station sanctioned for misleading coronavirus interview
7. White House Establishes Committee on Foreign Participation in U.S. Telecommunications
8. Pandemic hasn’t crushed broadband networks—even rural areas are doing OK
9. Fearing the Invisible: The long history behind the 5G COVID-19 conspiracy theory.
10. CMF to Invest C$353M in Canadian TV, Digital Media Production
11. T-Mobile, Sprint took a risk by finishing merger without Calif. approval
12. The T-Mobile Merger Closes, Highlighting Vast U.S. Media, Legal, And Policy Failures
13. FCC: TracFone made up “fictitious” customers to defraud low-income program
14. Verizon refuses to give DSL users its low-income deals during pandemic
15. Verizon canceling FiOS installs and telling customers to wait a few months

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

1. Canada legislates the use of inventions during the pandemic
2. Amendments to the Patent Act in response to COVID-19
3. “Lightly Sketched” Characters Not Copyrightable
4. The Batmobile is Copyrightable… Your Cute and Fuzzy Characters May Not Be
5. Copyright Protection for the Selection and Arrangement of Uncopyrightable Elements: Gray v. Perry
6. Court schools overzealous copyright licensor, holding that high school choir arrangement was fair use and awarding choir defendants their attorney’s fees
7. That Coronavirus Image Is Public Domain, But That Won’t Stop Getty From Trying To Sell You A $500 License To Use It
8. Lightbulb Moment: It’s Possible to Grant an Implied Copyright Sublicense
9. Johannsongs-Publishing, Ltd. v. Rolf Lovland: Court grants summary judgment for “You Raise Me Up” finding it not similar to Icelandic song “Soknudur” excluding musicologist’s reports as unreliable and unhelpful.
10. Waite v. Universal Music Group: In class action involving termination of grants of copyrighted under U.S. Copyright Act, court finds recordings were not works made for hire that would be ineligible for termination.
11. Copyright Termination. Special Report: Two SDNY Decisions on the Same Day!
12. World’s Worst Copyright Trolling Lawyer, Richard Liebowitz, Files Lawsuit Against Ellen Barkin For Posting Photo Of Herself
13. SCOTUS Sinks the CRCA, Confirms States are Immune from Copyright Suits
14. US Supreme Court Holds Unanimously That States Cannot Be Sued for Damages in Copyright Infringement Suits
15. States Can Be Pirates: Managing Business Copyright Protections
16. Response Clothing Limited v The Edinburgh Woollen Mill Limited: The Edinburgh Woollen Mill finds itself in a stitch following infringement of copyright in wave design fabric
17. Ninth Circuit Rallies in Defense of a Parody Dog Toy–Bad Spaniels v. Jack Daniel’s
18. Southern District of New York Revisits Tiffany v. eBay in Chanel’s Lawsuit Against The RealReal
19. Court Approves Settlement Between BMI and Radio Music Licensing Committee, Though Terms Are Not Yet Public – Many Other Music Licensing Issues Still Facing the Radio Industry
20. Anti-Piracy Copyright Lawyer Decides To Abuse Trademarks To Shut Down Pirates
21. Protecting against digital trademark infringement
22. Federal Circuit Says Logos Must Be Taken Seriously in Evaluating Infringement of Design Patents
23. Bad Faith Finding Still Required to Ban Patent Infringement Accusations
24. University libraries offer online “lending” of scanned in-copyright books
25. Patents in Crisis: Is there a Solution in Sight?
26. Predictive Text Patent Troll Tries To Shake Down Wikipedia
27. Bad Idea Is Bad: Senator Sasse Wants To Give Whoever Patents COVID-19 Treatments 10 Extra Years Of Patent Protection
28. How intellectual property rights can protect automotive designs
29. Dr. Drew apologizes for being a COVID-19 denier after copyright silliness: Dr. Drew coronavirus supercut restored to YouTube after copyright takedown.
30. Dr. Drew Pinsky Played Down COVID-19, Then Tries To DMCA Away The Evidence
31. Should Your Company Grant a Free License to Your Company’s Intellectual Property in Response to the COVID-19 Emergency?
32. COVID-19 and the future of open access
33. 3D printing and IP in a pandemic
34. Corona Beer vs coronavirus: effects on the company’s brand and its response
35. Those Ex-Theranos Patents Look Really Bad; Contest Opened To Find Prior Art To Get Them Invalidated
36. No Need to Wonder Anymore: Ninth Circuit Holds Stairway to Heaven Does Not Infringe Taurus
37. The Final Revenge of Queen Anne’s Revenge: State’s Use of Photographs Is Not Piracy
38. Role of IP in the Growth of Disney
39. Sky v SkyKick: was the CJEU swayed by Sky’s well-known brand?
40. Religious Institutions v. COVID-19: Why Religious Institutions Should Think Twice Before Live Streaming
41. Supreme Court rules on balancing of copyright and fundamental rights (Sweeden)
42. CJEU: hiring out cars with radio receivers not communication to the public
43. “Don’t change the station! I like this song” – the CJEU clarifies ‘communication to the public’ (again)
44. EU Says That, No, Rental Car Companies Don’t Need To Pay A License To Rent Cars With Radios That Might Play Music
45. CJEU finds Amazon not liable for direct infringement by unwittingly stocking infringing goods being sold through its website
46. European Court of Justice Holds Amazon Not Liable for Storing Third-Party Sellers’ Infringing Products, Another Reason Why Brands Must Take Greater Control In The European Market
47. Amazon: no infringing use but online platforms still in hot water?
48. Companies are Not only Sharing IP, They are Enabling Others to Copy Their Product
49. Protecting Intellectual Property and Data if Employee Separation is Anticipated
50. The issue of confidentiality in Intellectual Property litigation

PRIVACY

1. Saudi Arabia Exploiting Wireless SS7 Flaw to Track Targets In The United States
2. Website cookies in Canada: is consent required?
3. Bugs that let sites hijack Mac and iPhone cameras fetch $75k bounty
4. Attackers can bypass fingerprint authentication with an ~80% success rate
5. Pixel 4 face unlock finally gains an alertness check
6. Another Coronavirus Side Effect: In-Home Surveillance By Remote Workers’ Employers
7. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and Online Learning
8. The publication of COVID-19 quarantine lists violates the right to privacy
9. Google is releasing your anonymized location data to help health officials with coronavirus containment
10. Your Phone May Be Contributing to Google’s Coronavirus Reports: Location data is a new, somewhat controversial tool in the fight against Covid-19
11. Google knows if everyone in your county is actually staying home or not
12. Tech firms, others gain waiver to share patient data, raising​ privacy fears: The waiver from DHHS, seeks to make it easier for public health authorities to utilize patient data in the fight against COVID-19.
13. Coronavirus and the Future of Surveillance: Democracies Must Offer an Alternative to Authoritarian Solutions
14. NASA sees an “exponential” jump in malware attacks as personnel work from home
15. FTC Sends Warning Letters to VoIP Service Providers
16. Civil society groups call for protection of human rights in digital surveillance amid COVID-19: The measures adopted should be lawful, necessary and proportionate, wrote the signatories
17. Tracking coronavirus: big data and the challenge to privacy
18. Using tech to fight the virus: How much privacy are South Koreans relinquishing in the battle against COVID-19?
19. Covid-19: the race to create privacy-focused contact tracing tools
20. The Right and Wrong Ways to Use Location Data in the Pandemic: Using smartphone information from to track coronavirus may be a good idea. But using it to track the movements of specific individuals is not.
21. Pand-Veillance: The Catalyst Effect of Covid-19 on Surveillance Practices (Arthur Laudrain)
22. COVID-19 and Applicable Law to Transnational Personal Data: Trends and Dynamics (Jie Huang)
23. COVID-19 Will Someday Fade Away. The Wireless Location Data Practices Being Embraced To Track It Probably Won’t.
24. Governments turn to tech in coronavirus fight – but at what cost?: Critics warn privacy, civil liberties may be at risk as govt’s turn to tech volunteers, companies in COVID-19 responses.
25. COVID’s borders: between peer-to-peer surveillance and the “common good”
26. Coronavirus: location-tracking apps could stop the disease – here’s how
27. Data protection in times of COVID-19: the risks of surveillance in Brazil
28. Privacy Experts Say Responsible Coronavirus Surveillance Is Possible
29. Coronavirus is testing the limits of Russia’s surveillance state
30. Make Europe capital of data sovereignty
31. Enlisting tech to fight coronavirus sparks surveillance fears
32. We Mapped How the Coronavirus Is Driving New Surveillance Programs Around the World: At least 28 countries are ramping up surveillance to combat the coronavirus
33. Complex ecologies of trust in data practices and data-driven systems
34. Plastic surveillance: Payment cards and the history of transactional data, 1888 to present (Josh Lauer)

CREATIVITY   

1. Journalism hit hard by corona crisis
2. COVID-19 Entertainment Update: Silver Linings Playbook for Entertainment Companies
3. Art matters more than ever during the COVID-19 crisis
4. The Pandemic’s Effects on Museums and Art Schools
5. HR ‘Don’ts’ Inspired by Netflix’s Tiger King
6. Ten Years Later—Lessons Learned from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston Kokoschka Case

GAMES

1. Activision scores First Amendment victory in Humvee trademark lawsuit
2. Activision has a First Amendment right to use Humvees in Call of Duty
3. Humvee Can’t Stop Depictions of Its Vehicles in the ‘Call of Duty’ Videogame–AM General v. Activision Blizzard (Eric Goldman)
4. Activision Permabans 50,000 Players Amid Rampant ‘Call Of Duty: Warzone’ Cheating
5. Xbox architect sues Atari over unpaid work on crowdfunded console
6. Atari VCS system architect Rob Wyatt is suing Atari over missed payments
7. Tin Giant sues Atari for unpaid work on VCS console: Xbox architect Rob Wyatt accuses Atari of breach of contract and defamation
8. Tencent sues tech company for putting its games on rival cloud service without permission: League of Legends, CrossFire, and Dungeon Fighter Online allegedly made available without Tencent’s permission
9. Who owns your video game?: An issue between the NFTS and its students has raised questions about IP ownership — Sheridans’ Tim Davies is here to help
10. Pac-Man Owners Caught in Retro Game IP Maze
11. Bears Versus Yetis the Triple Town Copyright Infringement Case
12. Solid Oak Sketches, LLC v. 2K Games, Inc.
13. Copyright Defenses When a Copyright Infringement Claim Gets Under Your Skin
14. Watch as Charles Leclerc takes debut F1 Esports win in Virtual Grand Prix
15. Bubba Wallace loses sponsorship after rage-quitting during NASCAR iRacing event
16. Bubba Wallace rage-quit a NASCAR esports race, then lost his sponsor
17. Maybe It’s The Quarantine Talking, But NASCAR’s Esports Takeover Is Hilarious Fun
18. Racing turns hard into esports while the real world is on hold
19. How are traditional sports and esports converging as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?
20. Esports Gain Prominence As Major Leagues Go Dark
21. A pandemic proved that esports is more vital than ever for entertainment | Opinion: As the last sport left standing, esports is in a position to rally fans, new users, and curious onlookers
22. Gaming hours, spend, digital purchases up as COVID-19 keeps players inside – Nielsen: 29% of gamers in the US say they’re playing online with friends more often
23. Mobile games spending expected to see minimal impact from COVID-19 – Sensor Tower: Spending expected to reach $72b in 2020, near $100b by 2024
24. The party goes on in massive online worlds
25. Strange Times: During The COVID-19 Outbreak, Evictions Get A Pause…In Final Fantasy 14
26. N3TWORK aims to help devs tackle UA and growth with $50 million fund
27. N3twork announces $50m fund to scale published mobile games: Growth fund to support 100 games over the next year, alongside $1m pilot fund
28. Over 1m boxed games sold in the UK in three weeks: But Resident Evil 3 disappoints in latest charts
29. Bonuses: Gaming’s second favorite surprise mechanic | Opinion – Developers can push themselves to extremes in the hopes of a big payday, but there’s no guarantee success will be rewarded
30. UK Government enlists game developers to push ‘Stay Home, Save Lives’ messaging
31. UK developers work with government to fight COVID-19: King, Rebellion, and Codemasters to include “Stay At Home, Stay Safe” messaging in their games
32. Getting the hate out of games: ADL’s Daniel Kelley says the industry can learn from social media to make communities welcoming to more players
33. SMG Studio: Platform holders need to drive accessibility
34. Report: Game X Change keeps stores open, gives staff bogus advice for facing COVID-19
35. Game X Change remains open despite COVID-19, sends workers debunked health advice: Employees report store has also failed to provide stores with cleaning and safety supplies
36. Phil Spencer talks how Xbox teams are weathering remote work in the lead-up to Series X
37. Microsoft: Staggered launch would “hurt” Xbox Series X – Phil Spencer wants to keep global rollout for new console in the face of COVID-19 pressures
38. Phil Spencer: Launch price will be ‘critical’ to the success of Xbox Series X
39. Xbox cautiously rolling out Project xCloud preview in Western Europe: Registrations now open, streaming service will arrive when internet infrastructure is not overwhelmed due to coronavirus
40. Over 1,100 Steam games earned at least $10k within two weeks of launch in 2019: That’s up 18% from last year, while new game release totals were up 11%
41. Ars analysis: ~80% of Steam games earn under $5K in first two weeks
42. Valve’s breakdown of Steam launch earnings says ‘success’ is on the rise4
43. Embracer Group raises $164 million to acquire more studios and publishers 
44. Embracer Group raises $164m for acquisition and expansion: THQ Nordic parent company also issues COVID-19 business impact assessment
45. Demiurge co-founder buys the studio back from Sega: Original CEO Albert Reed wants the Marvel Puzzle Quest developer to return to supporting work on AAA titles
46. Stadia launches free tier including two-month trial of Stadia Pro
47. Stadia’s wider launch begins with a two-month free Stadia Pro trial
48. Google offers Stadia Pro for free for two months: But it’s still not the official launch of Stadia Base
49. Stadia will lower default settings to reduce internet strain during COVID-19
50. Amazon Makes Grab For Gaming With Development Of Stadia Competitor, PC Titles ‘Crucible’ And ‘New World’
51. Report: COVID-19 could delay Amazon’s cloud-based gaming platform into 2021
52. Coronavirus reportedly delays Amazon’s game streaming service Project Tempo into 2021: But internet giant will release first original IP Crucible next month, interactive casual games for Twitch in the summer
53. Twitch breaks 3b total hours watched in a single quarter for the first time: Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook Gaming all see lifts in hours watched, though Mixer continues downward trend
54. Twitch Expands Nudity Guidelines To Allow Cleavage, Swimwear, Breastfeeding
55. Valorant’s closed beta debut lands Riot Games a new Twitch viewership record
56. Quarantine questions for the streaming future | Opinion: The games industry has pinned its future to fast broadband infrastructure — but as the world self-isolates, the risks of those choices become clear
57. The Last of Us Part II and Iron Man VR delayed as COVID-19 complicates release plans
58. The Last of Us Part 2, Iron Man VR delayed “indefinitely”: PlayStation issues automatic refunds for digital pre-orders of both games
59. ‘Iron Man VR’ for PSVR Delayed Indefinitely Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
60. The Last of Us Part II is “nearly done.” So why is it being delayed?
61. The next PlayStation controller is called DualSense, looks like a cool robot
62. The PS5 DualSense gamepad doubles down on dream of next-gen immersion
63. Don’t Miss: Mark Cerny’s 2013 ‘no holds barred’ PlayStation 4 hardware deep dive
64. People Are Playing the Piano in ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ and It’s Magnificent
65. How height, audio cues, and trust sculpted VR locomotion in Half-Life: Alyx
66. The best practices and design principles of VR development
67. “People are returning, and buying new stuff — that never happened before in VR”: Last year brought the next generation of VR hardware, says Ndreams’ and 2020 will see the same revolution in VR software
68. Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Litigation Update: Responding to Patent Litigation Threats from AR/VR Non-Practicing Entities
69. GameStop ordered to close Boston store after violating lockdown: Retailer issued a nuisance order, staff had been serving shoppers through the door with hands wrapped in plastic bags
70. Nintendo says “more systems on the way” as Switch sells out worldwide: Major retailer says that some customers are picking up PS4 or Xbox One instead
71. Searching for the ultimate Super Mario Bros. player among the masses
72. Report: Animal Crossing has sold over 2.6 million retail copies in Japan alone
73. Animal Crossing: New Horizons sales top 2.6m in Japan: Nintendo’s latest drives Switch sales, towers over the competition in latest Japanese sales charts
74. Parenting in a pandemic: Chaos, control, and an Animal Crossing meltdown
75. Cooking Mama dev shuts down rumours of Switch version mining cryptocurrency: Studio says blockchain was never a feature, is “frustrated” by distribution problems
76. Sony forms $100 million global relief fund to help those affected by COVID-19
77. Sony sets up $100m COVID-19 Relief Fund: Company will fund support for frontline medical workers, educators, and the entertainment industry
78. Electronic Arts pledges at least $2m in match-funded support for COVID-19 relief: Staff around the world lead grassroots efforts to support local frontline workers and relief organisations
79. British government starts pushing social distancing via in-game ads
80. Irish studio Vela Games raises $3.1 million to create ‘player first’ co-op titles
81. You can help medical science just by playing a new Borderlands mini-game
82. Gearbox to help scientists map the human gut with Borderlands Science: New puzzle game within Borderlands 3 will enlist players to make up for computer shortfalls
83. After the lockdown: China studios on returning to work – Chinese developers share lessons learned from remote working and their efforts to prevent a second wave of COVID-19
84. Facebook Gaming launches Tournaments: Starting today, Facebook Gaming users can create brackets for their friends
85. SteelSeries acquires Nahimic: Accessories firm will use new subsidiary’s expertise to improve its proprietary audio engine
86. Resident Evil 3: Critical Consensus – Capcom’s third remake finds the classic series at a turning point — and there are dissenting voices amid the critical praise
87. Final Fantasy VII Remake spoiler-free review: Our kind of Cloud gaming
88. Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Critical Consensus – Critics praise this impressive but bloated reimagining of the iconic RPG
89. After over 300 weeks of releases, Ubisoft is ending work on new Rocksmith DLC
90. Retro console Amico receives 10,000 pre-sales in one week: Upcoming console from Intellivision Entertainment also sells over 100,000 to major retailers ahead of October launch
91. Designing around panic in The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
92. War Stories: How Homeworld brought the third dimension to real-time strategy
93. Blog: Historians discuss Through the Darkest of Times
94. Blog: The difference between random and randomized progression
95. Blog: Getting the most out of player reviews
96. Blog: What does games culturalization involve?
97. Blog: Designing the art of Damaged In Transit
98. Blog: Best virtual development practices for a COVID-19 world
99. Blog: The impact of product managers on game design
100. Blog: A postmortem of my rope-swinging action title Hang Line
101. Don’t Miss: How Rogue Legacy handles tutorials without being boring
102. Video: Learning from 2 case studies of LGBTQ+ representation in games
103. Video: Overcoming creative block on Super Crush KO
104. Video: Lessons learned about matchmaking for engagement in Halo 5
105. Outer Wilds and Disco Elysium win big at BAFTA Games Awards
106. Outer Wilds wins best game, original IP, and design at 2020 BAFTA Game Awards: Disco Elysium also takes home three honors for best narrative, music, and debut
107. U.S. Patent no. 10,286,327: Multiplayer video game matchmaking system and methods

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