News of the Week; August 14, 2019
DIGITAL
- White House proposal would have FCC and FTC police alleged social media censorship
- White House Once Again Circulating A Draft Executive Order On Social Media Bias
- Be Careful What You Wish For In Asking Silicon Valley To Police Speech Online
- Four Democratic Candidates Call on Walmart to Stop Selling Guns
- TikTok is fuelling India’s deadly hate speech epidemic: In small-town India, TikTok videos are a new hate speech minefield. Thousands of videos are being removed as users exploit the wild growth of the social network
- New Report Further Clarifies Foxconn’s Wisconsin Deal Was An Unsustainable Joke
- Fox News Commentator Calls For A ‘Backlash’ Against Big Tech… Because Wikileaks Released His Phone Number
- UK Moves To Give Regulators Power To Fine Internet Companies 5% Of Revenue If They Can’t Wave A Magic Wand And Make Bad Content Disappear
- If You Lament The State Of Politics Today, Lament The Loss Of Aereo
- Republicans suspend Twitter ad spending after boneheaded video takedown
- Twitter backs down, allows McConnell to post video of protestor threats
- What’s in a Tweet? Employer does not have to pay Settlement Funds After Grievor takes to Twitter
- Twitter’s latest test lets users subscribe to a tweet’s replies
- Has Twitter Declared You Dead?
- Giant Copyright Troll, Malibu Media, Sued By Investors
- Elsevier Says It’s Infringing To Link To Sci-Hub; Hypocrite Elsevier Links To Sci-Hub All The Time
- Elsevier Tries To Lie About University Of California’s Contract Negotiation; UC Shows Its Receipts
- Top University Of California Scientists Tell Elsevier They’ll No Longer Work On Elsevier Journals
- Amazon workers in Minnesota walk off the job over parking issues
- Schoolchildren in China work overnight to produce Amazon Alexa devices: Leaked documents show children as young as 16 recruited by Amazon supplier Foxconn work gruelling and illegal hours
- Senators demand Amazon explain how junk winds up in “Choice” listings
- Amazon says its facial recognition can now identify fear
- Amazon unveils first batch of casting for The Wheel of Timeadaptation
- ESRP Rebukes Yoga Company for Stretching the Truth About Influencers
- Russian State Watchdog Tells YouTube To Stop Sending Push Notifications About Mass Protests
- New Study Demonstrates YouTube’s Role In Far-Right Radicalization, Spread Of Conspiracies In Brazil
- ‘We can’t reach the women who need us’: the LGBT YouTubers suing the tech giant for discrimination
- YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users
- Ex-Googler Recently Held Up As A ‘Whistleblower’ And ‘Proof’ Of Anti-Conservative Bias At Google, Actually Supported Richard Spencer, Racist Skinheads
- Dennis Prager Peddles Complete Nonsense About ‘Google Censorship’ In The WSJ
- LGBTQ YouTubers Hit Google With Lawsuit For Alleged Discrimination: Eight video creators say that have been unfairly targeted and demonetized by YouTube.
- LGBTQ YouTubers are suing YouTube over alleged discrimination: Including suppressing video recommendations and demonetization
- YouTube Unequally Applies Policies, Giving Favor To Creators Who Bring In Big View Counts, Content Moderators Say
- YouTube lets biggest stars off the hook for breaking rules, moderators say
- YouTube Testing Program That Lets Certain Demonetized Channels File Immediate Appeals Via YouTube Videos
- LAPD Investigating YouTuber Brooke Houts For Hitting Her Dog On Camera
- In Wake Of Brooke Houts Incident, PETA Asks Platforms To Enact Zero-Tolerance Animal Abuse Policy
- YouTube Rolls Out ‘Super Chat’ Feature To 19 Additional Countries
- Tech firms face fines for harmful videos from regulator Ofcom
- Half Of Teens Turn To YouTube For News, Preferring Influencers Over Traditional News Organizations (Study)
- YouTube Debuts First Shoppable AR Ad With Beauty Vlogger Roxette Arisa And MAC Cosmetics
- YouTube tests letting ad bans be appealed by filming a YouTube video: Making it easier for creators to earn money
- New Jersey Attorney Ethics Opinion Blesses Competitive Keyword Advertising (…or Does It?) (Eric Goldman)
- Apple locks new iPhone batteries to prevent third-party repair, report says
- The Apple Card is launching soon – here’s how to apply for one directly from your iPhone
- Goldman Sachs, bank of the rich and powerful, is dipping into subprime lending with Apple Card
- Apple’s new credit card comes with forced arbitration—here’s how to opt out
- Apple Music For Artists Launches, Rivalling Spotify’s Analytics Tools
- Apple TV+ Gives First Glimpse At Billion-Dollar Originals Slate With ‘Morning Show’ Teaser, Starring Jennifer Aniston
- FAA Bans Recalled MacBook Pros From Flights
- FAA tells airlines MacBook Pros with defective batteries can’t fly
- Microsoft cuts Office 2019 one-time licenses through Home Use Program
- Spotify’s pitch to podcasters: valuable listener data: Spotify for Podcasters comes out of beta today
- Facebook Shielded by CDA Immunity against Federal Claims for Allowing Use of Its Platform by Terrorists
- Biometric Class Action Against Facebook Greenlit by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
- Finding Article III Standing, Ninth Circuit Declines to Do an About-Face in Illinois Biometric Privacy Class Action against Facebook
- Ninth Circuit finds Article III standing in case alleging Facebook violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act
- Ninth Circuit Allows Class Action Challenging Facebook’s Facial Recognition Technology Under Illinois BIPA
- Senate Members Ask DOJ to Take Action as Number of Website Accessibility Lawsuits Continues to Rise
- Facebook Tests Selling Subscriptions To Tastemade Plus, CollegeHumor’s Dropout, BritBox
- In strategy shift, Facebook seeks to pay millions to license news
- Facebook wants to be relevant in news again, and it’s willing to pay millions to bring back publishers: The company is building a new news effort
- Instagram Is Rolling Out The Ability To Natively Pre-Schedule Grid Posts, IGTV Videos
- Snapchat to Raise $1 Billion to Further Build Content, Gaming, and AR
- Snapchat Decides to Raise $1bn for Filters, Content, Acquisitions: The company owes its financial escalation to some of its AR lenses like the baby lens and gender-change filters which had gone viral.
- Snap announces Spectacles 3 with an updated design and a second HD camera: They’re $380 and go on sale in November
- Snap Unveils Third Generation Of $380 Spectacles, With Two Cameras To Create AR Effects
- Revealed: how Monsanto’s ‘intelligence center’ targeted journalists and activists – Internal documents show how the company worked to discredit critics and investigated singer Neil Young
- Google Maps AR Navigation comes to iPhones and Android devices
- Owners of defective 2016 Google Pixels can now claim up to $500
- Google is giving students three months of YouTube Premium for free: Or YouTube Music Premium, which is a less good deal
- Students Can Now Snag Three Free Months Of YouTube Premium And YouTube Music
- YouTube Rolls Out ‘Super Chat’ Feature To 19 Additional Countries
- Google, Cookies, and Cy-Pres-Only Settlements
- Now you can use Android phones, rather than passwords, to log in to Google*
- Vice Appoints Former Munchies Exec Cliff Gulibert To Oversee All Digital Video Production
- Liza Koshy Gets Glam As Beauty Brand C’est Moi’s Very First Ambassador
- U.K. Vlogger Marina Joyce Found Safe By Police After Going Missing For 10 Days
- U.S. Navy Taps Kevin ‘VSauce2’ Lieber, Jake Koehler, William Osman For Inaugural Influencer Campaign
- Social Good Creators: Ashley Villa Is Changing The World For Female Entrepreneurs
- Did a trainee social worker’s offensive social media postings render him unfit to practice?
- Police say there is no danger after Twitch HQ threatened
- Twitch launches beta for all-in-one streaming app Twitch Studio
- Twitch has released its own broadcasting software: This is the company’s first broadcast offering
- Netflix Signs Reported $300 Million Overall Film, TV Deal With ‘Game Of Thrones’ Creators
- Game of Thrones creators sign $200 million Netflix deal to make exclusive shows and films: They’re also still helming Star Wars films for Disney
- HBO Max Adds Millennial Comedy to Lineup of Originals
- HBO Orders Female-Led Skateboarding Comedy From Crystal Moselle, Lesley Arfin
- HBO Is About to Spend $1.5 Billion on…Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men?: Fledgling streamer casting a wide sitcom net—but will this leave it unable to secure another big hit, as Seinfeld invites a bidding war?
- Blogger says she got an injunction for a post published five days earlier
- Uber’s no-good, terrible-rotten bad Q2 loses more than $5 billion
- Uber, losing billions, freezes engineering hires
- At Defense Distributed, few glimpses of life after Cody Wilson: Court cases and social media spats continue over 3D-printed guns.
- What a future without social media ‘likes’ could mean for the industry
- The Hidden Risks Associated with Social Media Background Checks
- Companies Are Not Complying With the Safe Harbor Provision of the DMCA
- Regulation of Digital Platforms in Australia and UK
- The Endless, Invisible Persuasion Tactics of the Internet: Online shopping turns your brain against you, but you can fight back.
- UK consumers switch to online streaming en masse
- Cody Wilson pleads guilty to lesser charge, will register as sex offender
- NY Times Publishes A Second, Blatantly Incorrect, Trashing Of Section 230, A Day After Its First Incorrect Article
- Cyber restraints of trade in the new era of digital markets
- To Cajole to Threaten: How Best to Curb Online Counterfeiting
- Transferring or cancelling a domain in USA
- EU Court Determines Responsibility for Social Plug-ins on Website
- Embedded EthiCS: Integrating Ethics Across CS Education
- The guy behind the ‘Storm Area 51’ Facebook event is hosting an alien-themed festival
- Geeky license plate earns hacker $12,000 in parking tickets
A.I.
- AI researchers have a plan to pay patients for data
- Artificial Intelligence and Bias: Social Impacts of a Technical Solution
- Why AI needs more social workers, with Columbia University’s Desmond Patton
- Video: Using AI to build a better future for game art production
- All watched over by machines of loving grace: A critical look at smart contracts (Andres Guadamuz)
- Putin’s robo-nauts prepare for lift-off: Russia’s space agency releases eerie footage of human-like android Fedor as he gets ready to join the International Space Station crew next week
- A Tesla owner implanted the RFID chip from her Model 3’s keycard into her arm: Keyless entry
- Elon Musk’s Neuralink: Both an evolution and a plan for radical change
- Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
- Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence in the UK
- Breaking down the rich and complex AI of Hitman
COMMUNICATIONS
- CRTC Establishes New Internet Code For Consumers
- CRTC’s latest report shows price decline in communications services
- CBC News: High cost of internet access leaving low-income families behind, report finds
- Competition Bureau Study on the Broadband Industry Paints a “Largely Positive Picture”
- It’s Back: The Netflix Tax Debate Returns for the 2019 Election (Michael Geist)
- Postmedia Announces Refinancing Transaction
- AT&T Employees Took Bribes To Plant Malware On Company’s Network
- CBS and Viacom merger: ‘It’s not a surprise, but it is a big deal’
- Courts Again Shoot Down FCC For Ignoring The Law, Making Up Stuff
- Ajit Pai loses another court case as judges overturn 5G deregulation
- FCC Opens the 2.5 GHz Band for 5G Wireless Services
- Trump admin reportedly drafting order to counter social media “bias”: The proposal would reportedly put the onus of content regulation on the FCC.
- Texas AG Joins Lawsuit Against T-Mobile, Showing Bipartisan Opposition To Mindless M&As
- Frontier network outages get worse in NY, triggering state investigation
- Verizon: 5G speeds on low-spectrum bands will be more like “good 4G”
- Verizon demands $880 from rural library for just 0.44GB of roaming data
- Comcast Wireless Joins Verizon In Charging You More For HD Video
- Verizon selling Tumblr to WordPress.com owner, but porn ban won’t go away
- Verizon Selling Tumblr to Company That Owns WordPress
- With Tumblr Sale, Verizon Continues To Stumble In Bungled Pivot Away From Telecom
- Verizon sues city to avoid paying 5G fees, says the FCC has its back
- Utility Provider Settles Call Recording Lawsuit for $3.7 Million
- Trump Administration Issues Interim Rule Banning Agencies’ Procurement of Telecom Equipment and Services from Huawei, ZTE and Other Designated Chinese Companies
- Federal Government Further Banned from Using Huawei
- Huawei announces its first operating system, HarmonyOS
- Ofcom Consultation on the protection of TV and radio programme participants
PRIVACY
- Class Action Lawsuit Hopes To Hold GitHub Responsible For Hosting Data From Capital One Breach
- Whitney Cummings shares NSFW pic on Twitter after ‘foolish dorks’ attempt to extort her
- Airline tracks Twitter user’s real-world ID, publishes her flight number: Southwest Airlines finally relents, after first insisting flight numbers aren’t PII.
- Ring Is Teaching Cops How To Obtain Doorbell Camera Footage Without A Warrant
- California Judges Nuke Two More SFPD Warrants Used To Search A Journalist’s Home And Office
- Unsealed Warrants Show SFPD Officer Told Judges He Was Targeting A Journalist, But Judges Approved Them Anyway
- Personal Email Management Service Settles FTC Charges over Allegedly Deceptive Statements to Consumers over Its Access and Use of Subscribers’ Email Accounts
- Makers of Head Impact Sensors Avoid FTC Enforcement Headache
- Warren: FTC’s $125 cash option in Equifax settlement “misled” customers
- I Tried Hiding From Silicon Valley in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets: Avoiding digital snoops takes more than throwing money at the problem, but that part can be really fun.
- Google “Street View” Wiretap Allegations Settled for a “Modest” $13 Million
- Microsoft contractors hear phone sex and more while reviewing Cortana, Skype audio
- They Grow Up So Fast These Days: Facial Recognition Tech Edition
- Consumer Reports Finds Numerous Home Routers Lack Even Basic Security Protections
- Found: World-readable database used to secure buildings around the globe
- These companies claim to provide “fair-trade” data work. Do they?: Companies like CloudFactory, iMerit, and Samasource promise data sets provided by workers who are well paid and cared for. It’s not an easy business.
- You’ve Been Hacked: Board Cybersecurity Liability and Risk Management
- Woman accused of Capital One hack had stolen data from 30 companies, authorities say
- Hack in the box: Hacking into companies with “warshipping”
- Will technology return shame to our society?
- Enforcement under the GDPR – the new paradigm
- Indian Counseling Company Files Criminal Complaint Against Blogger Who Informed It About A Sensitive Data Leak
- Hacker site’s incriminating database published online by rival group
CREATIVITY
- A long and winding road: Canada nears the end of an ambitious project to modernize patent, trademark and industrial design laws
- Blacklock’s Tendentious and Tenacious Litany of Litigation – the Latest (Lack of) Developments (Howard Knopf)
- Judge Dismisses Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Defamation Lawsuit Against The New York Times
- Combating Hate Speech Through Counterspeech
- Universal pulls The Huntafter most recent deadly mass shootings [Updated]
- Appeals Court Says Banana Costume Is Infringing
- City of Phanatic Love: Phillies Face Lawsuit Over Beloved Mascot
- Chequered flag to Ferrari: Competitors back to the drawing boards after Ferrari copyright ruling
- Reaping What They Sowed: Recording Industry Now Quite Upset About Copyright Run Amok
- DC Opposes Trademark Application For ‘Algorithmic Justice League’ For Some Reason
- Brewery In Wales Changes Name Of 2 Beers After Fight With Hugo Boss
- North Carolina Court Says Retaliatory Arrests Over Protected Speech Are Cool And Legal
- NAAG Asks VOD Providers to Shield Kids From Tobacco Imagery
- Oops: Japan Anti-Piracy Proposals Probably Violate Its Constitution
- Keep Shining Upon Us, Our Guiding Star – Prof. (Dr.) Shamnad Basheer (1976 – 2019)
- IP rights in art in United Kingdom – England & Wales (England & Wales)
- IP Top 10 July: Copyright Infringement is a… Dark Horse
GAMES
- Ubisoft loses Rocksmith patent suit: Judge dismisses publisher’s claim against music tutorial software maker Yousician with prejudice
- Twitter Data Shows Major Increase in Gaming Engagement on Platform
- US tariffs on video game consoles imported from China delayed to December
- US delays tariff on game consoles: Trump says extra tax on some electronic products made in China won’t go into effect until December 15 to lessen impact on holiday shopping
- Game revenues rise as Tencent enjoys end of China’s approvals freeze: Chinese publisher released ten mobile games in Q2 2019, compared to just one last year
- Tencent doubling down on season passes as mobile titles drive revenue
- Trump’s video game scapegoating feels downright nostalgic | Opinion: In an era when the industry’s real problems are internal and divisive, a flashback to being united against an external foe feels deceptively good
- Walmart pulls video game ads — but not guns — after El Paso shooting
- Walmart tells staff to pull violent game ads and demos, but guns still for sale
- Walmart Reportedly Removing Violent Game Ads, Will Still Sell Guns: Despite the lack of evidence video games cause violence.
- Walmart, ESPN pull violent game marketing following shootings
- Walmart taking down violent video game demos, displays: Signs, displays containing “violent images or aggressive behavior” removed in wake of shootings; retailer still sells guns
- ESPN, ABC delay Apex Legends tournament broadcast in wake of shootings
- ESPN, ABC pull Apex Legends tournament show in wake of mass shootings: Broadcasters say decision was made “out of respect for the victims”
- You’re Not Helping: ESPN Delays ‘Apex Legends’ Broadcast After 2 Mass Shootings
- Strauss Zelnick says if violent games caused gun violence, he wouldn’t sell them – Take-Two CEO: “I wouldn’t choose to market substances that would cause people to get sick”
- G2A responds to Unknown Worlds’ accusations, calling them slander
- G2A fudges own history in response to developer complaint: Developer retracts accusations against marketplace, but remains frustrated with key reseller
- Subnautica dev demands G2A pay $300,000 to cover lost chargebacks: Studio calls for controversial marketplace to honour its offer of 10x compensation
- Twitch links to ‘porn account’, other Fortnite streamers via Ninja’s abandoned channel
- Twitch backtracks after accidentally showing porn on Ninja’s old page
- Twitch CEO apologizes after lengthy porn stream promoted on Ninja’s old page
- Twitch CEO Apologizes To Ninja After His Defunct Account Was Used To Promote A Porn Stream
- Ninja’s New Cross-Platform Video Strategy Since Leaving Twitch For Mixer
- Insights: With Ninja’s Nifty Mixer Move, Live Streaming Leaps To Its Next Era
- Newzoo: Fans watched 81.8m hours of the Fortnite World Cup across Twitch, YouTube – Official YouTube channel beat out official Twitch channel for viewership hours during finals
- $3 million Fortnite winner—and his parents—become latest swatting targets
- UTA Signs 21-Year-Old Twitch Newcomer BrookeAB
- eFootball transfers: Juve and Man U snub FIFA to sign for PES
- UMG Media to acquire esports event company, Activate Entertainment
- Statespace raises $2.5 million for esports training platform: Seed round was led by First Mark Capital, with participation from Expa, Lux Capital and WndrCo
- Industry veterans launch payment platform for esport tournament winnings: “We want to help publishers…be more efficient by removing their hands-on time expediting the payments,” says Prize Payments CEO
- Riot’s League Championship Series announces partnership with Honda
- Epic is being sued over a security issue that left Fortniteplayer data exposed
- Epic Games hit with class action suit over Fortnite security breach
- Australian ratings board working to completely ban DayZfor promoting cannabis
- DayZ refused classification in Australia after Five Star Games submission: Five Star Games has confirmed it was denied classification for DayZ’s retail release in Australia — the game is still available digitally
- Bohemia Interactive will modify all versions of DayZ to avoid Australia ban
- DayZ will be modified worldwide to lift Australian ban: Bohemia Interactive confirms it will be tweaking zombie hit to avoid isolating Australian players
- FTC Gathers Video Game Industry to Talk Loot Boxes
- Loot boxes a matter of “life or death,” says researcher: Academics discuss their studies and concerns surrounding game monetization at FTC workshop
- Epic Games commits to loot box transparency across portfolio: THQ Nordic also weighs in on ESA pledges: “We do not plan to implement casino-styled mechanics in our games”
- Animoca Brands acquires digital collectibles marketplace Quidd for $5 million
- Loots details new live streaming platform for the “TikTok generation”: Monetisation firm says its Twitch rival will open up new commercial opportunities for younger streamers
- Valve turns to hands-on moderation to solve Steam Workshop woes
- Devs are now required to contact Valve for release date changes on Steam
- Valve addresses release date exploit for Steam’s Popular Upcoming List
- Valve now requires moderator approval for some Steam Workshop submissions
- THQ Nordic confirms new Saints Row title after strong Q1: The publisher also said that development of Dead Island 2 is now being led by Dambuster Studios
- THQ Nordic acquires Darksiders dev Gunfire and racing studio Milestone
- THQ Nordic buys Milestone Interactive for €44.9m in cash: Acquisition of Italian racing studio could almost double in value based on earnouts
- THQ Nordic acquires Darksiders developer Gunfire Games: Value of the deal for Gunfire’s 63 staff and IP catalogue was not disclosed
- THQ Nordic strengthens portfolio with Goodbye Kansas Game Invest acquisition: Goodbye Kansas Game Invest has five investments in early stage games companies, deal includes royalty rights to Biomutant
- Managing the evolving state of Destiny 2: ‘the game cannot grow infinitely forever’
- Bungie: Working on Destiny 2 “starting to wear people down” – Working practices for Annual Pass will be changed in third year to break out of “unsustainable development cycle”
- Report: Riot Games workforce divided on diversity and inclusion push
- One year later, Riot leadership, employees, say things are improving: Chief diversity officer Angela Roseboro reflects on a year of change as current and recent employees confirm efforts
- Ustwo: Giving creativity the attention it deserves – Ustwo Games’ CCO and CEO discuss how to not lose creative people to business meetings
- 2K confirms sending private investigators to Borderlands streamer’s house: A rep said the company has been investigating SupMatto for nearly a year.
- Take-Two investigating streamer over Borderlands 3 leaks: Publisher says Twitch and YouTube user SupMatto has “a history of profiting from infringing our copyright”
- Kawhi Leonard dunking on the Raptors was the only screen time they got in new NBA 2K trailer
- Sharkmob on balancing social responsibility against revenue: “It’s not only about taking social responsibility, it’s also about the team being proud of what they make,” says CEO
- Infinity Ward says Modern Warfare isn’t political, debates how it ever could be: Game’s directors stress that upcoming Call of Duty reboot focuses on “thematic things” not current politics
- Activision Blizzard’s Q2 net revenue falls year-over-year to $1.4 billion
- Activision Blizzard sees sagging sales, profit, engagement
- Key metrics dip for publisher in second quarter as it prioritizes investments it expects to pay off in back half of the year
- Activision Blizzard’s net-revenue down year-over-year in Q2 2019
- Imperator: Rome plus multiple game expansions lift Paradox’s Q2 – Swedish publisher posts record Q2 revenues as long-term investments begin to pay off
- Swedish studio Isbit Games shuts down after running out of funds
- Isbit Games shut down: Former CEO Ben Cousins confirms Zlatan Legends studio closed its doors in June after running out of money
- Fig to pay Wasteland 3, Psychonauts 2 investors lump sum following Microsoft purchase
- Xbox head: Cloud gaming is inevitable but ‘years and years’ away from mainstream
- Multi-platform games from Xbox-owned studios must ‘make sense for the franchise’
- Xbox considers multi-platform options for some first-party studios
- Microsoft: Cloud gaming is “inevitable” but “years” from mainstream
- Mojang cancels Minecraft’s big graphics overhaul after performance struggles
- Mojang ends development on Minecraft’s Super Duper Graphics Pack: Feature announced at E3 2017 “proved too technically demanding to implement as planned”
- After two years of delays, Minecraft’s visual upgrade has been canceled
- Singularity 6 secures $16.5 million to fund tech and game development
- Square Enix shutting down Star Ocean: Anamnesis in the West after little over a year
- Report: Parent company of publisher Annapurna Interactive is exploring bankruptcy
- Singularity 6 lands $16.5m investment: Former Riot devs’ social simulation studio scores Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz
- Industry veterans launch hyper casual development outfit JaffaJam: New Zealand-based studio looks to “perfect the way free-to-play games are made and monetised”
- Madden 20 just about squeezes into EMEAA Charts’ Top 10: Yes, Grand Theft Auto V is still No.1
- EA SPORTS Madden NFL 20 Scores Early With Biggest Ever Digital Launch in Its First Week on Sale
- FIFA 19 and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe are best-selling games in Europe this year: Physical sales data paints uniform picture of European consumers
- UK spent £1.6bn on video games in the first half of 2019
- NetEase revenue and profit up in Q2 following strong international performance: “We will continue exploring overseas market opportunities and growing our games business on a global scale,” says CEO
- Nexon profits tumble in Q2 despite rising revenues: FIFA Online 4 drove Korean market, but China was the publisher’s single biggest region
- Spilt Milk Studios cancels upcoming sci-fi MMO, Lazarus
- The Final Fantasy XIV team is reworking base game content to be ‘more compact’
- What Sharp’s IGZO display technology will mean for the Nintendo Switch
- Dr. Mario World continues to lag after first month: Mobile puzzler falls well-below bar set by previous Nintendo titles
- “Blast processing” in 2019: How an SNES emulator solved overclocking
- Discord is launching in-server streaming later this month with new ‘Go Live’ feature
- No More Robots: “I’m just doing D&D, but in a Discord server” – Mike Rose on the marketing tactics that drove the small publisher to $3m revenue, and why Xbox Game Pass is good for sales (for now)
- Growing the industry with evening-sized games: Former Chinese Room lead Andrew Crawshaw on his romantic metal-detecting adventure that explores how people define success
- Sean Murray calls No Man’s Sky Beyond the game’s “2.0” version—we believe it
- Virtual reality streaming company Vreal has closed its doors
- VR streaming platform Vreal shuts down and lays off staff: “We were definitely ahead of our time,” says virtual reality startup
- Video: Designing great room-scale VR interactions theVacation Simulator way
- Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell departs Facebook
- Nate Mitchell leaves Oculus: Mitchell becomes the last of the VR outfit’s original co-founders to leave Facebook
- Blow out your knee? Hope your surgeon’s got a VR headset
- UCLA Surgical Training Study Shows VR Beats Traditional Training by 130%
- British Airways testing VR headsets for first-class passengers this year
- XRDC Innovation Report reveals games remain the top focus for AR/VR/MR devs
- Unity brings Create with Code, Unity Teach programs out of beta: Educational initiatives enter classrooms to teach coding, offer sharing platform for educators
- Discoverability: A ‘hot or not?’ genre guide
- Video: A decade of improving the approachability of fighting games
- Blog: Understanding the reality of game development
- Blog: Avoiding helplessness – The worst feeling in games
- Blog: The big game branding 101
- Blog: Lessons learned from the development of Vicious Circle
- Blog: 7 must-read books for game designers
- Blog: Ancient Greek punishments as hypertexts
- Blog: How music enhances virtual presence – Part 2
- Blog: How to make a casual mobile game
- Watch Age of Wonders: Planetfall’s lead dev discuss updating the series for a new age
- Like a boss: The secrets behind great boss design
- How moving from 2D to 3D shaped the design of Risk of Rain 2
- Creature in the Well’s limiting, limitless unknown: Flight School Studios creative director Adam Volker shares how a two-person team turned constraints into creativity
- How Astroneer creates an enjoyably unsafe space – Why I Love: Student game developer Aden Webb explores the mood-building design decisions of System Era’s survival sandbox
- Don’t Miss: How data miners shed light on P.T.’s ghost story
- Don’t Miss: Training players right, so they don’t hate learning to play
- Don’t Miss: Exploring the secret depths of Bubble Bobble’s design
- After 24 years at id, Tim Willits is now Saber Interactive’s chief creative officer
- The hottest new board games from Gen Con 2019
- Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out: Experimental findings will be either boring or extremely dangerous.
- U.S. Patent No. 9,259,652: Time-shifted multiplayer game
- U.S. Patent No. 9,616,329: Adaptive learning system for video game enhancement
Jon
News of the Week; August 7, 2019
DIGITAL
- European Court Of Justice Rules On Three Big Copyright Cases
- Have You Heard? If You Spread ‘Hurtful’ Rumors In China, You’ll Be Thrown Off The Internet For Years
- The ‘cesspool of hate’ message board 8chan was taken offline after being linked to 3 mass shootings this year
- Online providers knock 8chan offline after mass shooting
- 8chan resurfaces, along with The Daily Stormer and another Nazi site
- The Lawless Way to Disable 8chan: The decision to disable an infamous message board fell to Matthew Prince, an internet executive who is deeply uncomfortable with his own power.
- Trump Calls On Social Media Companies To Become Pre-Crime Agents
- From Trump to Fox News to 8chan – the web of white supremacist rhetoric is wide: Trump is a politician perfectly fitted for an ecosystem that amplifies extreme emotion and allows the loud to drown out the calm
- ‘Free Speech Defender’ Devin Nunes Sues More Critics, Promises More Such Lawsuits Are Coming
- Microsoft catches Russian state hackers using IoT devices to breach networks
- Image, ownership and an app made in St Petersburg
- Four questions about online hate speech
- Why Is Our First Reaction To Mass Shootings To Talk About Censorship?
- Using Restorative Justice To Deal With Internet Trolls And Jackasses
- Twitter users are escaping online hate by switching profiles to Germany, where Nazism is illegal
- Twitter to Remove Third-Party Data From Ad-Buying System: The change follows a similar move by Facebook and comes as privacy concerns grow
- Judge Not Impressed With DOJ’s Attempt To Claim Presidential Tweets And Orders Don’t Mean Anything
- iOS 13 privacy feature will force total overhaul for Facebook apps
- UK Lobbyist’s Long-Running Astroturf Efforts Shows Facebook Will Never Be Able To Stop Fake News, Ban All Conservatives
- Enough With The Myth That Big Tech Is ‘Censoring’ Conservatives AND That The Law Requires Them To Be Neutral
- New legislation is putting social networks in the crosshairs: Republicans and Democrats have ideas for regulating big tech platforms – and their bills are now moving through Congress
- A new bill aims to protect US voters from the next Cambridge Analytica
- FBI says “extremists” motivated by Pizzagate, QAnon are threats
- Cloudflare has had enough, cutting off 8chan
- Dumped by Cloudflare, 8chan gets back online—then gets kicked off again
- 8chan is all the way down—“It’s DNS. It’s always DNS.”
- Competition law scrutiny on tech giants spills over to the other side of the Atlantic (and the rest of the globe?)
- Once More With Feeling: Nearly All General Interest News Paywalls Will Fail
- UK’s Online Harms Regime Must be “Proportionate”, According to the ICO and Ofcom
- North Korea took $2 billion in cyberattacks to fund weapons program: U.N. report
- What Happens When The US Government Tries To Take On The Open Source Community?
- Philippines Lawmaker Introduces ‘Fake News’ Bill That Would Allow The National Police To Literally Police Speech
- Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracy
- Apple and Google temporarily stop listening to Siri and OK Google queries
- Apple suspends Siri response grading in response to privacy concerns
- Apple’s AirDrop and password sharing features can leak iPhone numbers
- Apple hones its focus on services with new TV deals for AirPlay 2, HomeKit
- The FTC is looking into the Amazon and Apple deal that crushed small resellers: Experts say the deal raises serious antitrust concerns
- Apple’s innovative virtual credit card is now available—but only to some people
- Apple isn’t the most cash-rich company in the world anymore, but it doesn’t matter
- FedEx Ends Ground-Delivery Deal With Amazon
- FedEx leaves Amazon on the doorstep as the store becomes a competitor
- Another Day, Another Company Leaving Sensitive User Data Exposed Publicly On The Amazon Cloud
- Google has a problem with pregnant workers, employee memo alleges
- Google will charge search providers to be the Android default in Europe: The top-three bidders will join Google on the choice screen
- Google Is Testing a $4.99 App Subscription Bundle
- Google launches new shopping service in the US
- Google publishes sustainability plan for hardware, but its impact is uncertain
- Big Four Broadcasters Sue Streaming Video Provider Locast, Claim It’s ‘Aereo 2.0’
- Bumble stumbles: State policy interests override dating app’s contractual forum
- Domino’s takes its case for non-accessible design to the Supreme Court: The ADA is almost 30 years old, but the company says websites don’t count.
- Facebook penalised $US5 billion by the FTC – A digital privacy reckoning
- Facebook open-sources algorithms for detecting child exploitation and terrorism imagery: Crowdsourcing a better solution to disturbing photos and videos
- No Immunity For Cops Who Arrested A Man For Creating A Facebook Page Mocking The Police Department
- What Facebook’s New Policy Means for Alcohol, Tobacco, and E-Cigarette Content and Sales
- Facebook’s settlements with the Federal Government—Key takeaways for all companies to consider
- Facebook just fine following eye-watering privacy penalty?
- Facebook briefly removes Area 51 event ‘by accident’
- Area 51 raid event ‘to see them aliens’ removed by Facebook: The event creator is planning a real-life festival to replace the tongue-in-cheek Area 51 raid.
- Tastemade Taps Ian Hecox, Meghan Rienks, Arden Rose For Facebook Watch Slate
- Facebook Wants to Integrate Instagram Direct Messages With Messenger
- What’s FaceApp and Facebook Got to Do with Competition Compliance in Canada?
- The Tax Man Taps the Brakes on Digital Currency Expansion
- Anime gets its #MeToo moment in clash between Dallas-area voice actors
- Netflix Is Asking Android Users For Permission To Track Their Physical Movements
- Utah Tax Commission Doesn’t Want a Piece of Your Video Streaming
- The Streaming Video-on-Demand War Is Going to Get Bloody: Media behemoths want to conquer a realm now dominated by the likes of Netflix.
- The Worst May Be Yet to Come for Netflix: There’s a long road ahead for the streaming giant as new competitors, including your phone company, step up
- Disney’s new streaming bundle priced to compete with “standard” Netflix plan
- Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu will be bundled for $12.99. Netflix should be worried.: Disney is aggressively crafting the service to be an end-all, be-all for streaming subscribers.
- Insights: How Netflix Is Building Its Global Reach One Acquisition At A Time
- HBO Launches ‘Recommended by Humans’ Streaming Site in Dig at Netflix
- HBO Max secures exclusive US streaming rights for Doctor Who, other BBC series
- Malaysia Looks To Prosecute Homeowners Where Accused Streaming Piracy Occurs
- YouTube is the world’s top-grossing video app with $138M in user spending
- YouTube’s recent algorithm change explains why your feed is full of children’s videos: Including nursery rhymes and cartoons
- YouTube Tweaked Its Algorithm To Promote “Quality Family Content.” That Change Decimated Kid-Friendly Creators’ View Counts.
- Gizmodo: Why Can’t YouTube Do ‘Good’ Content Moderation? Answer: Because It’s Impossible
- YouTubers ‘The Ingham Family’ Are Selling $340 Dolls Of Their Newborn Son
- Michelle Obama To Launch College Advice Series On ‘YouTube Learning’ Hub
- Susan Wojcicki Discusses New Creator-On-Creator Harassment Policy In Sitdown With Alfie Deyes
- Claim Over Takedown Notice Triggers Anti-SLAPP Law & a Fee Shift–Complex v. X17 (Eric Goldman)
- Some Much-Needed Pushback on the Anti-Section 230 Craziness (Linkwrap) (Eric Goldman)
- Correcting the Record on Section 230’s Legislative History
- NY Times Joins Lots Of Other Media Sites In Totally And Completely Misrepresenting Section 230
- The scary trend of internet shutdowns
- Wake-up call: ways of working with influencers
- When Influencers Fail to Influence
- By Winning Motion to Dismiss, Supermodel Loses Chance to Clarify Whether She Can Lawfully Post Photos of Herself to Social Media
- Are you an influencer? Then you may well need to be a follower …
- Actor Wil Wheaton Sues Geek & Sundry For Shorting Him On Web Series Payment
- Bernie, Biden, And Warren Get Post-Democratic Debate Social Video Bump
- Snapchat Parent Company to Raise $1 Billion in Debt Financing, Citing Potential Acquisitions
- Snapchat To Raise $1 Billion In Debt Financing, In Part To Fund Acquisitions
- Snapchat Launches New, Streamlined Ad Creation Process
- Snapchat Launches Latest Batch Of ‘Creator Shows’ With The Kaplan Twins, Matt Steffanina, Teala Dunn
- Snapchat Takes Implicit Dig At Instagram In New Ad Campaign — On Instagram
- Following Platform-Wide Purge, Instagram Hires First Exec To Interface With Meme Accounts
- Tencent in Talks to Buy 10% of Universal Music Group
- Warner Posts Solid Third Quarter Results, Digital Revenue up 12.5%
- New EU and UK guidance on online terms and conditions and privacy policies
- Electronic credit contracts and signatures under Quebec Consumer Law
- Rocky Mountain States Make Headway in Blockchain-Related Legislation
- Building better legal blockchains: More law firms are testing the use of blockchain technology in their legal business, as organizations grapple with standards
- I tried to pay with bitcoin at a Mexico City bar—it didn’t go well
- Crypto Exchange and Payment Solutions Expand, New UK Guidance Issued, US Enforcement Actions Continue
- Online Platforms: “Walking” the line between legal and financial services compliance
- Paddling to surfing: the rise of Online Dispute Resolution
- Work Ruined Email: It’s not too late to fix it.
- MSDN Magazine will publish its last issue, ending a Microsoft developer era
- Now even funerals are livestreamed—and families are grateful
- Don’t Let This Get Lost In The Shuffle: The Data Transfer Project Is Expanding, And Could Help Create Real Competition Online
- Don’t worry – It’s publicly available on the internet!: Due diligence considerations with respect to licensing data and acquiring data-dependent businesses.
- From Apps On Your Phone To Satellites In The Sky, A New Program Looks Into The Ethics Of Mapping
A.I.
- California now has a new Bot disclosure law – will other states follow suit?
- Roll over, Beethoven: Decoding the maestro’s musical style with statistics
- People don’t want to see workers replaced by a robot—themselves excepted
- Everyone Hates Customer Service. This Is Why.: Technology lets companies see how badly they can treat consumers, right up until the moment they bolt
- ‘We cannot have technology and sales take over safety’: Tesla is being sued again for a deadly Autopilot crash
- Feds told Tesla to stop making “misleading statements” on Model 3 safety
- Whitney Cummings—and her sex robot—take on modern womanhood
- Robotic tails for humans are here
- The Next Frontier: A.I. and the Efficiently Resourced Legal Department
- Computer Science Could Learn A Lot From Library And Information Science
- Artificial Intelligence: What we have seen so far in 2019 and what is to come…
- We Took a Ride on NYC’s First Self-Driving Shuttle
- Are Your AI Selection Tools Validated? OFCCP Provides Guidance for Validation of AI-Based Algorithms
COMMUNICATIONS
- CRTC tells wireless companies to stop offering 3-year contracts again
- CRTC ups the CASL liability ante for directors and officers
- Cable Programming Blackouts Continue To Rise As Cord-Cutting Continues
- FCC finally orders ISPs to say exactly where they offer broadband
- ISP Frontier is failing so badly it won’t take questions from investors
- Pai’s FCC orders cities and towns to stop regulating cable broadband
- FCC Seeks to Close the Digital Divide with Its Proposed $20.4 Billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund
- Virgil Quick Come See: FCC Drives Down Local Government Regulation of Cable Operators
- FCC Adopts Rules Banning Spoofing of Texts and Foreign Calls
- FCC adopts rules to ban malicious spoofing of texts and international calls
- FCC Releases Order Removing Unbundling, Resale Requirements for Price Cap ILECs
- FCC finally gets around to denying net neutrality complaint against Verizon
- The FCC Finally Starts Taking America’s Broadband Maps More Seriously
- Verizon’s New ‘Unlimited’ Data Plans Still Have Very Real, Problematic Limits
- AT&T Scores $1 Billion Contract To Rebuild DOJ Systems
- AT&T workers took $1 million in bribes to unlock 2 million phones, DOJ says
- AT&T Hopes A Confusing Rebranding Will Help Its Muddled Video Plans Make Sense
- Comcast’s “unlimited” mobile plan now costs $20 extra for HD video
- FCC adopts rules addressing spoofed texts and international robocalls
- After Missing Cord Cutting Trend, Nielsen Falls Apart
PRIVACY
- Oversight Report Shows The NSA Did Not Delete All The Inadvertently-Collected Phone Records It Claimed It Had Deleted
- Cisco pays $8.6 million for selling surveillance system it knew was vulnerable
- Cisco Shells Out $8.6 Million For Selling The Government Easily Hackable Tech
- Amazon Has Already Roped 200 Police Departments Into Its Ring Doorbell Surveillance/Promotional Scheme
- Police can get your Ring doorbell footage without a warrant, report says
- Louisiana Governor Declares Statewide Emergency After Cyber-Attacks Against School Systems
- The FTC’s Settlement With Equifax Is Such A Joke, The FTC Is Now Begging You Not To Ask For A Cash Settlement
- Class Action Against Yahoo!: A Data Breach is Not Always Evidence of Compensable Loss
- Ransomware, “wiper” malware attacks have more than doubled, IBM team says
- Microsoft Nabs Russian Hackers Exploiting Flimsy IOT Security
- Skype, Slack, other Electron-based apps can be easily backdoored
- Hong Kong protesters are using lasers to distract and confuse
- Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
- Brace for controversy: Edward Snowden has written a memoir
- Barr says the US needs encryption backdoors to prevent “going dark.” Um, what?: “The FBI says they’re ‘going dark.’ Well yeah, because they’ve been staring at the sun.”
- WIPO Says Websites In Its Pirate Database Don’t Deserve Due Process Because ‘They Know What They’re Doing’
- New advanced malware, possibly nation sponsored, is targeting US utilities
- Google starts selling its Titan security key in Canada, Japan, the UK, and France: The rest of the world may follow
- Hush — They’re Listening to Us
- Facial Recognition Is Suddenly Everywhere. Should You Worry?
- GDPR Privacy FAQs: Do cookie banners that disclose the use of analytics or behavioral advertising cookies, and state that continued use of a website is deemed acceptance of those cookies, satisfy European privacy laws?
- Privacy and Cybersecurity State Law Tracker: Maine Consumer Privacy Law
- What all the stuff in email headers means—and how to sniff out spoofing
CREATIVITY
- Jury awards Joyful Noise $2.8M in copyright infringement damages for Katy Perry’s Dark Horse
- Who Wrote ‘Stairway to Heaven’? Music Industry Braces for Copyright Suits: A $2.8 million judgment against Katy Perry has record business worried about an onslaught of infringement cases
- Bat Out of Court: Meat Loaf Settles Copyright Lawsuit Over “I’d Do Anything For Love”
- A Decision of Interest to the Entertainment Industry: Is an event organizer responsible for an artist’s late appearance? Court dismisses class action regarding Travis Scott’s late appearance at Osheaga Festival.
- IP monitor – Confusion: more than just the sum of its parts
- Canadian Copyright Mass Litigation – Reasonable Reimbursement for Norwich Order Compliance
- Sex tech companies protest for the right to advertise—online or in the subway
- A History Of Women In Quentin Tarantino Movies: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has reignited discussion about how Tarantino depicts women.
- SLAPP Suit In Virginia Tries To Silence Historian Highlighting Ancestry Of Guy Suing To Keep Confederate Statues In Charlottesville
- Yes, That Banana Costume Is Copyrightable
- Court of a-peel: nasty split over banana costume leads to legal monkey business – Judge found a full-body banana costume sold by Arizona company may be too similar to one originally sold by a New Jersey costumer
- Copyright Protection for Banana Costumes Is, Uh, Bananas–Silvertop v. Kangaroo (Eric Goldman)
- Another Competitive Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Fails–Dr. Greenberg v. Perfect Body Image (Eric Goldman)
- Scotch Jedi: American Whiskey Isn’t Going Down Smooth
- 100% Natural Case 100% Dismissed: You Can’t Have a False Advertising Case Without Advertising
- Competition law considerations for licensing agreements in Canada
- 10 most urgent press freedom cases in August: One Free Press Coalition
- Brexit and… copyright – an update
GAMES
- Parties agree to settle in Damion Perrine v. Sega of America
- TaxWatch: Activision Blizzard has dodged taxes on billions – UK think tank details how Call of Duty company’s corporate structure, IP royalty scheme minimizes money owed
- Republican politicians say videogames partly to blame for mass shootings: GOP House minority leader Kevin McCarthy says videogames ‘dehumanize individuals’.
- Another mass shooting, another wave of politicians pointing at video games
- In Wake Of Mass Shootings, Top Trade Org Refutes Trump’s Claim That Gaming Is To Blame
- ESA defends against Trump’s proposed video game crackdown: Meanwhile, publisher share prices fall in wake of US president’s address
- IGDA, IGDAF issue statement on weekend shootings in the US: Advocacy organizations defend industry following President Trump’s accusations against “gruesome and grisly video games”
- Biden says violent games are “not healthy” but not the cause of “carnage”
- DayZ has been refused classification by the Australian ratings board
- Psyonix is removing paid, randomized loot boxes fromRocket League this year
- After Epic purchase, Psyonix removes random loot boxes from Rocket League: Move follows similar removal in Epic’s Fortnite: Save the World.
- What did the FTC hear in its loot box workshop?: ESA defends virtual currency and dynamic drop rates as concerns are raised about consumer protection and similarities to gambling
- Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo team up to force loot box odds disclosures: Major publishers will also increase transparency in 2020 as FTC looks at loot boxes.
- Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony to launch platform-wide rules on loot box disclosures
- Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony to require loot box odds disclosure: Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Wizards of the Coast, and other publishers will also comply
- Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft to require loot box odds disclosure: ESA says platform holders will roll out new policy that would apply to new games and updates that add loot box features
- Consumer advocates to ESRB, FTC: Loot box odds disclosure is not enough – Consumer Reports’ Anna Laitin – “A kid is not going to make a better decision with odds disclosure”
- Blog: The glorious, profitable, inescapable art of addiction
- The flawed Kinder Egg defence: The University of Adelaide’s Dr Daniel King on what his “Unfair Play” academic study reveals about the industry’s monetisation practices
- Psyonix removes paid, randomized crates from Rocket League: Replacement system will show exact items being purchased, similar to Fortnite
- 18% of all physical ESRB-rated games have received an ‘in-game purchases’ label
- FaZe Clan Countersues Tfue, Claims He Cost The Company “Many Millions” In Lost Income
- FaZe Clan Claims ‘Fortnite’ Star Tfue Is Using Its Secrets to Launch a Competitor
- Faze Clan countersues its Fortnite pro Tfue: Team responds to claims of illegal contract by saying player violated confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses
- Super Mario Mischief
- Ion Maiden — new video game alleged to infringe heavy metal band’s trade mark
- An in-game casino gave GTA Online its biggest player surge since launch
- Fig to pay lump sum to Wasteland 3 investors as Microsoft buys publishing rights
- Wasteland 3 investors will receive lump payout following studio acquisition: Microsoft’s acquisition of inXile will get Fig investors higher-than-promised dividend rate
- Fig plans payouts for Psychonauts 2 investors after Double Fine joins Microsoft
- Microsoft’s Double Fine acquisition results in early Psychonauts 2 investor payout: Rate is higher than original promise, but eliminates chance to earn more on greater success
- E3 data breach that exposed 2,000 journalists’ private data puts ESA in legal crosshairs
- E3 accidentally leaks personal details of journalists, YouTubers and analysts: Over 2,000 names on the list
- ESA has previously leaked media’s personal details for E3: Files have now been taken down from web archive, ESA “still investigating the matter”
- ESA also leaked E3 2018’s media attendee list: Data has now been removed but was still live earlier this year, despite show organisers being alerted last September
- UK’s Video Games Tax Relief has paid out £324m in five years: Over 1,000 claims have been made by developers and publishers since incentive launched in 2014
- German games market’s headcount declines, but small companies on the rise: More than 11,000 people and 600 companies in Germany develop and distribute games
- What to do when Bolivia hates you: Lewis Manalo used his life experiences to write on Ghost Recon – Wildlands, and was met with the wrath of both the critics and the entire country of Bolivia
- Real people starring in porn games is a surreal new frontier: We talked to model and YouTuber LetyDoesStuff about starring in the sex game House Party.
- It’s A New Dawn For ‘Minecraft’ Content On YouTube. Here’s What Sparked The Renaissance.
- Ninja, one of Twitch’s top streamers, has left the platform for Mixer
- Ninja ditches Twitch for exclusive streaming deal with Mixer
- Ninja Ditches Twitch, Will Exclusively Stream On Microsoft’s Mixer
- Ninja’ed: Microsoft swipes top game-streamer from Amazon’s Twitch
- Ninja departure is “unlikely to diminish” Twitch: But it marks a “turning point” for Mixer, says analyst
- Ninja off to strong start on Mixer: Racks up one million free subscriptions since announcing deal last week
- Ninja Nabs 350,000 Mixer Followers Overnight, Catapults App To Top Of Charts
- Ninja Accumulates 1 Million Mixer Subscribers In 6 Days, Thanks In Part To Free Offer
- Mixer criticised for “breast-focused” streamer clothing guidelines: Twitch partner says rules deem female body “inherently inappropriate”, Microsoft will “evaluate if changes are needed”
- Blog: 7 questions to answer before marketing on Twitch
- Ooblets devs reveal threats of violence and racist abuse following Epic Store announcement: Despite the appalling backlash, the developers say that going with the Epic Games Store was the right call.
- Ooblets dev received thousands of “hateful, threatening messages” over Epic exclusivity: Glumberland on being the target of online hate: “I had no idea it was this bad”
- Ooblets devs break down their Epic Games Store exclusivity decision
- Regarding what’s been happening
- Ooblets dev stands by comments about toxic, entitled gamers: Wave of anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist abuse over Epic Games store exclusivity fails to convince Glumberland dev to recant statements
- Epic Games denounces “disturbing trend” of harassment toward its partners: Following Ooblets exclusivity deal, Epic professes commitment to supporting its partners
- Epic exclusivity deal covered Ooblets’ sales forecast across all stores: Glumberland offers insight into how important exclusivity can be for a smaller team
- Don’t Miss: Building an audience early with visuals-first development in Ooblets
- Steam’s Interactive Recommender landed 10,000 new games on wishlists
- Severe local 0-Day escalation exploit found in Steam Client Services
- Dapper Labs Partners With NBA To Launch Digital Collectibles Game
- Revenue and bookings up at Zynga, despite slowing active users on mobile
- After Japanese, Korean success, Zynga turns to China: COO Matt Bromberg: “We’re trying to take a measured approach”
- Russian dev My.Games and Chinese publisher iDreamSky partner for global expansion
- Creative Assembly and NetEase partner up to bring Total War to China
- Koch Media opens Polish publishing office to boost presence in Europe
- Ubisoft acquires mobile publisher Green Panda Games: 70% stake in Paris-based studio could raise to 100% over four years
- Borderlands 2 has sold 22 million units to date: Franchise overall has reached 48 million units, buoyed by lead-in to Borderlands 3 launch
- Final Fantasy and Romancing SaGa boost sales at Square Enix despite profit downturn
- Square Enix kicks off financial year with Q1 sales of $501m: Sales up 19%, income rises 86% – driven in part by Final Fantasy XIV and remasters
- UK Charts: Fire Emblem Three Houses scores second week at No.1: Madden arrives at No.5
- Modern Pick Entertainment to acquire “substantial” stake in Slightly Mad Studios: European publisher says dev “fits perfectly” with non-violent esports mission
- Obsidian “is not a crunch studio”: “We’d rather cut something than try and get people to not have a life outside the industry”
- Glu Mobile sees record quarterly bookings in Q2 2019: Mobile publisher lowers full-year guidance to “reflect the timing of new launches”
- At Schell Games, culture is the antidote to crunch and conflict: CEO Jesse Schell and four of the studio’s original executives discuss the importance of stability, team-building, and open communication
- Yuke’s splits from WWE 2K franchise: Japanese studio will continue to support the game engine, but isn’t directly involved in WWE games for the first time in two decades
- Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick ‘feels good’ about Google Stadia’s release
- Strauss Zelnick: Take-Two is “open-minded” on streaming, subscriptions – Despite caution on subscriptions, CEO says the company will “be where the consumer is”
- Digital net revenue up to $427.8 million for the quarter at Take-Two Interactive
- Take-Two Interactive ups full-year guidance following strong recurrent returns: Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold 25m units; NBA 2K19 has sold nearly 12m; Civilization VI over 5.5m
- Automaton Games enters administration: Improbable offers to match former employees with open positions at SpatialOS developer
- Studio71 Launches ‘The Binding Of Isaac’ Card Game At Target: Studio71 launches strategy card game based on indie video game.
- Blog: Preparing for the changes to Google Play’s ratings system
- Google is developing a game and app subscription service called Play Pass
- Tencent launches its cloud services on WeGame in China:
- Moonlight Blade, Chinese Parents, Blood of Steel, others can be played instantly on the service without download
- Tencent aiding with localization, online services for the Switch’s move into China
- Temporary Pokémon Center coming to London: Pop-up store opening at Westfield to coincide with Sword and Shield launch
- Nintendo and Tencent working to localize Switch games for China: No Switch software has been approved by Chinese government so far, four games shown at ChinaJoy 2019
- Blog: How I got my Nintendo Switch port to run at 60fps
- Here’s why Nintendo Switch consoles keep frying
- $13,000 NES cartridge found at the bottom of a Safeway sack
- New ‘Game Trials’ program will let Switch Online members try games for free
- Why is Electronic Arts almost completely ignoring the Switch?
- EA CEO: The Switch isn’t players’ first choice for multi-platform EA games
- EA: Our players often choose other platforms over Nintendo Switch – EA explains absence of games like The Sims 4 on Switch, points to $300m-plus bookings forecast for The Sims 4
- EA: Subscriptions combined with cloud services will “lower the barriers” to gaming – CEO Andrew Wilson suggests cloud services paired with subscriptions would cause “shift” in gaming
- Roblox has surpassed 100 million monthly active users
- Pokémon GO reaches over one billion downloads worldwide: Niantic’s location-based Pokémon catching adventure achieves milestone just over three years after launch
- Console Wars—a book about the Genesis and SNES—will become a TV show
- DuckTales: Remastered is being pulled from digital stores on August 8
- Enduring popularity of key franchises helps boost sales and profits at Capcom
- Capcom profits up 50.8% thanks to “highly profitable” digital downloads: Japanese publisher increases focus on esports as it restructures unprofitable arcade business
- “NBA Last 90” Foreshadows the Potentially Lucrative Intersection of eSports and Sports Betting
- Chinese publisher NetEase is building a $725 million esports park in Shanghai
- NetEase reveals plans for $700m esports stadium in Shanghai: Stadium to feature game development, team building, and training facilities
- EVO in trouble with Bandai Namco, Konami and Solid Snake actor David Hayter: Tekken tournament organisers used iconic character in promo video without permission from any of the above
- Nexon to acquire Swedish game developer Embark Studios
- Nexon to fully acquire stock in Embark Studios: Nexon’s Western development strategy will now be “driven” by Embark founder Patrick Söderlund
- Layoffs at Nexon America as two California-based offices are closed
- Nexon closes second US office in a month: LA-based Division Partners precedes the closure of Nexon M later this month
- Slitherine acquires Master of Magic publishing rights from Atari
- Slitherine acquires Master of Magic franchise: Strategy game developer hints at publishing sequel to 1994 MS-DOS title
- Flurry of New Apple ‘AR/VR’ Job Listings Point to New Products on the Horizon
- Iconic VR Film ‘The Matrix’ to Return to Select Theaters for 20th Anniversary
- XRDC: 59% of AR/VR developers are working on games – Oculus Rift surpassed HTC Vive this year as the top AR/VR/MR development platform
- Valve Cancels VirtualLink Adapter Accessory for Index, Cites Technical Issues & Laptop Adoption
- Valve clamping down on abuse of Steam’s Popular Upcoming list: Developers reportedly now need Valve’s approval before changing release date
- Oculus Rift surpasses HTC Vive as VR devs’ top platform in new XRDC Innovation Report!
- Here’s What Facebook Says About Camera Privacy on Quest & Rift S
- Video: Reinventing a platformer for VR the Astro Bot way
- Over 50 ‘field leaders’ laid off at GameStop due to ongoing cost-cutting
- Why the gaming world will be worse once GameStop is gone
- Video: A postmortem of indie kingdom-builder Kingdoms and Castles
- Video: Delivering data-driven dynamic gameplay effects inFor Honor
- Video: What an art-house indie learned from a year of working in F2P
- Video: How Slay the Spire achieved success through marketability
- Dangen Entertainment: What it really costs to run an indie publishing label – With the right focus and the right relationships, the Osaka-based publisher can find success with 10,000 units sold
- Genetics-themed survival game Niche is heading to schools for free
- Immortalising your grandmother in a WWII game: Bob De Schutter talks us through the inspiration and incredible true stories behind his PC title Brukel
- Don’t Miss: Building the monstrous transforming puzzle heads of GNOG
- Don’t Miss: Deconstructing the development and design ofGravity Ghost
- Don’t Miss: The Chinese Room’s Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs postmortem
- Don’t Miss: Deconstructing the art design of Journey
- This War of Mine: Five years later – Publishing director Paweł Feldman on how 11 bit Studios managed the game’s life-cycle and ensured steady sales
- Niche developer offers game to schools for free: Stray Fawn Studio encourages teachers to get in touch for free classroom codes
- How Diablo meets Left 4 Dead in co-op action RPGKillsquad
- Metal Wolf Chaos XD: A weirdly timed return to 2004’s robo-blasting innocence
- The design and iteration of tactical deck-building gameNowhere Prophet
- Giving players the ability to bump off any NPC in The Outer Worlds was ‘insanely hard’
- Making family matter in Children of Morta
- The three eras of game discoverability
- nWay introduces blockchain solution to its development platform: Power Rangers: Legacy Wars developer adds support for unified marketplace across all nWayPlay games
- Video Gaming / E-Gaming Law Update
- U.S. Patent No. 5,885,156: Video game apparatus, method of controlling the growth of play character in video game, and video game medium therefor
- Halo TV series pushed to 2021: Production on Showtime adaptation begins later this year with Natascha McElhone and Bokeem Woodbine among announced cast
Jon
News of the Week; July 31, 2019
DIGITAL
- Sites could be liable for helping Facebook secretly track your web browsing, says EU court
- Court of Justice of the European Union Press Release No 99/19 Luxembourg, 29 July 2019 Judgment in Case C-40/17 Fashion ID GmbH & Co. KG v Verbraucherzentrale NRW eV
- Russian Interference and Data Privacy: Facebook Stockholders Demand Section 220 Inspection to Investigate Wrongdoing of Board and Senior Management
- The FTC is investigating Facebook. Again
- FTC Announces Record-Breaking Facebook Settlement
- FTC unfriends Facebook
- FTC Sues Cambridge Analytica for Deceptive Practices
- Facebook Enters into Data Privacy Violation Settlement Agreement
- FTC Hits Facebook With an Unprecedented Fine for Privacy Violations and a Rigorous Order on Privacy Governance
- Business Takeaways from the FTC $5 Billion Settlement with Facebook
- What’s Next After Facebook’s Record $5 Billion Fine and Cambridge Analytica?
- Cambridge Analytica made “ethical mistakes” because it was too focused on regulation, former COO says: “…we forgot to pause and think about, ethically, what was going on.”
- The Great Hack Wasn’t A Hack And Big Tech’s Problems Aren’t Really About Big Tech
- FTC Hands Down 5 Billion Dollar Penalty To Facebook
- Facebook Just Paid a $5 Billion Fine for Privacy Breaches. Now it Wants Access to Your Brain.
- Please break up Facebook, cofounder asks regulators: They say that breaking up is hard to do, but Hughes really wants to try.
- Facebook to Settle with SEC for $100 Million
- Privacy group asks court to reconsider FTC’s $5 billion Facebook deal: The settlement does nothing to address the underlying issues, EPIC says.
- What Facebook’s next 20 years will look like: is this the future of US privacy?
- Facebook is Making Progress on Its Mind Reading Headset: Facebook really wants to get inside your head.
- Facebook is funding brain experiments to create a device that reads your mind: Big tech firms are trying to read people’s thoughts, and no one’s ready for the consequences.
- NY Times Calls Out Politicians For Lying About Section 230
- Congressman Who Was Sued For Blocking Constituents On Social Media Now Also Wants To Undermine Section 230
- Second Circuit Issues Powerful Section 230 Win to Facebook in “Material Support for Terrorists” Case–Force v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
- Facebook Defeats Pro Se Consumer Privacy Suit–Hassan v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
- Facebook reached out to Netflix, Disney on new TV device, report says: The device will reportedly use the same tech as Facebook Portal.
- Facebook Wants Disney, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and HBO’s Streaming Services On Its Upcoming Connected TV Device (Report)
- GitHub access restricted in Iran, Syria, and Crimea due to sanctions
- Disney to Integrate Hulu Scripted Originals Team Under Dana Walden
- Facebook announces Libra cryptocurrency – Congress responds
- Regulators Dislike Facebook’s Entry into Cryptocurrency Market, Calling “Libra” an AML Threat
- Facebook’s Libra Prompts Federal Draft Legislation
- Facebook And Instagram Ban User Posts Selling Alcohol And Tobacco
- Teenage Instagram Users Are Exposing Their Personal Information To Access The Platform’s Business Analytics (Report)
- Instagram Permanently Suspends Roughly 30 Meme Accounts With Millions Of Followers
- Why Conservatives Allege Big Tech Is Muzzling Them: Google and Facebook aren’t infringing on the right’s freedom of expression, but insisting otherwise is politically convenient.
- The future of the decentralized web
- International Law and Cyber Activity: Why are a set of governing norms needed?
- Full Social Media Disclosure Now Required for U.S. Visas
- CJEU rules that unauthorized (non-trasformative) sampling can infringe a phonogram producer’s rights and German free use is against EU law (Eleonora Rosati)
- Chinese vlogger who used filter to look younger caught in live-stream glitch
- Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard sues Google for ad censorship
- Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google, Using All The Same Debunked Legal Theories Others Have Tried
- People forged judges’ signatures to trick Google into changing results
- Why Is Trump Seeing Red Over France’s ‘Google Tax’?: French unilateral efforts to fix loopholes in global tax rules are adding fuel to the trans-Atlantic trade spat.
- Chrome continues to wind down Flash support with latest browser update
- Missouri Senator Proposes Bill Banning YouTube’s Autoplay, Facebook And Twitter’s Infinite Scroll
- Proposed US law would ban infinite scroll, autoplaying video: The features drive addiction by exploiting our brains, Sen. Josh Hawley says.
- Josh Hawley Wants To Appoint Himself Product Manager For The Internet
- Can YouTubers really unionize?: Yes, and no. They at least have the support of a really big one.
- Popular Stream-Ripping Site Declines To Play Whac-A-Mole With YouTube
- YouTube videos with kids get three times as many views as videos without kids: A new study has found
- YouTube Videos Featuring Young Children Get Triple The Views Of Videos That Don’t (Study)
- A Week in the Life of Popular YouTube Channels: Analysis of videos posted finds that children’s content – as well as content featuring children – received more views than other videos
- YouTube video takedowns of harmful content haven’t hurt revenue: Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat says the company’s doing just fine.
- YouTube’s New Feature Requires Creators To Self-Rate How Ad-Appropriate Their Videos Are
- YouTube Stays Uncharacteristically Silent On New 24-Hour Music Video Viewership Record
- YouTube Creator Group Teams With Europe’s Largest Trade Union To Launch ‘FairTube’ Initiative
- All Def Digital Has Reportedly Filed For An ‘ABC’ — An Alternative Procedure To Bankruptcy
- Bustle Digital Shelves Gawker Relaunch, Lays Off Site’s Staff
- Apparently, More Than 64,000 People Paid $50 To Watch Jake Paul And Tana Mongeau Get Married
- Consumers Can’t Understand the Online Contracts They “Agree” To. Now What?
- After SEC Approval, YouNow Integrates ‘Props’ Crypto Tokens Into Livestreaming Ecosystem
- Iran’s Government Gives the Official Nod to Crypto Mining
- Cryptocurrencies: practical considerations in insolvencies
- NBCUniversal Streaming Service To Launch In April 2020, Will Feature ‘The Office’ And Original Content From Sky Studios
- NBC Pacts With Twitter For Exclusive 2020 Tokyo Olympics Live Programming
- Lilly Singh’s NBC Talk Show To Bow Sept. 16, Names Comedy Vet John Irwin Showrunner
- Vice Media In Talks To Acquire Refinery29
- NBA Renews China Digital Deal With Tencent
- Music crowdfunding website PledgeMusic goes offline amidst bankruptcy proceedings: The company shut down operations earlier this year after not delivering funds to
- Why A ‘Clever Hack’ Against Nazis Shows How Upload Filters Have Made Copyright Law Even More Broken
- Everything Cops Say About Amazon’s Ring Is Scripted or Approved by Ring
- Amazon writes scripts for cops to sling Ring home cameras, report says
- Amazon’s Free Doorbell Cameras Only Cost Law Enforcement Agencies Their Dignity And Autonomy
- New Campaign Demands End to Amazon’s Partnerships with Police: People can sign a petition urging their local government to forbid police partnerships with surveillance companies like Amazon’s Ring.
- Could Oberdorf Open the Door to Infringement Liability for Amazon
- Wisconsin Court Holds Amazon Can Be Strictly Liable for Marketplace Items–State Farm v. Amazon (Eric Goldman)
- The L.A. Times’ disappointing digital numbers show the game’s not just about drawing in subscribers – it’s about keeping them
- HBO, The Walking Dead, And Star Trek Grab Comic-Con Spotlight On Social Video
- Virtually every Apple business grew in every region this quarter—except the iPhone
- Apple acquires Intel’s 5G smartphone modem business for $1 billion
- Apple acquires the bulk of Intel’s smartphone modem business for $1 billion
- Insights: Netflix Tumbles But Who Can Take Advantage?
- Netflix is not a tech company
- Netflix Is Asking Android Users For Permission To Track Their Physical Movements
- WarnerMedia greenlights a retelling of The Odyssey for HBO Max: Based on Madeline Miller’s take on the original epic poem
- Snapchat launches ‘instant’ tool for creating vertical ads
- The ugly side of Snapchat and Instagram filters
- PinkNews has tripled revenue over the last year, driven by Snapchat
- Duolingo partnered with Twitch to help you learn languages better: Now you have no excuse to avoid the owl
- Casey Neistat’s 368 Hits Stride With Brand Collabs, Including Ongoing Pact With Adobe
- Nerdy Craigslist founder wants to change the world — starting with your news: Craig Newmark is a self-proclaimed nerd and reformed jerk. Now he’s putting money behind his politics.
- Bytedance Confirms It’s Developing A Smartphone, But Says That’s Not Because Of TikTok
- Sony Music Revenue Up 11%, Streaming Soars 27% in First Quarter
- Spotify’s Q2 2019: 108m subscribers, €1.67bn revenues, and a €76m net loss
- Thinking about our digital afterlives
- The Death Of Ownership: Educational Publishing Giant Pearson To Do Away With Print Textbooks (That Can Be Resold)
- Trump threatens retaliation against France over digital service tax
- The Superiority of the Digital Service Tax over Significant Digital Presence Proposals (Wei Cui)
- Redbox Automated Retail, LLC v. Disney Enterprises, Inc.
- Cyber laundering: What are some key challenges in detection and regulation?
- Now Even Funerals Are Livestreamed—And Families Are Grateful
- Chinese vertical dramas made for phone viewing show the future of mobile video
A.I.
- No authors at all, or too many to count? – AI and IP
- DeepMind AI predicts acute loss of kidney function two days in advance, study shows
- AI’s current hype and hysteria could set the technology back by decades
- 6 ways AI is making an impact on video games: AI has changed the way video games work, and it’s slated to change that even more. NPCs beware.
- Video: A dev’s guide to testing game AI
- One chip to rule them all: It natively runs all types of AI software
- It’s Sentient: Meet the classified artificial brain being developed by US intelligence programs
COMMUNICATIONS
- Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2019-269: The Internet Code
- CRTC’s new Internet Code of Conduct falls short of expectations
- Soon you’ll be able to watch PBS on YouTube
- DOJ Approves T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Based on Third-Party Divestiture Agreement Involving Dish Network
- DOJ Prepares To Sign Off On An Elaborate T-Mobile Merger Plan That Isn’t Likely To Work
- It’s official: US government approves T-Mobile/Sprint merger
- The DOJ’s Plan To ‘Fix’ The T-Mobile Merger Isn’t Going To Work
- AT&T loses nearly 1 million TV customers after raising DirecTV prices
- AT&T Loses 1 Million Video Users After Spending Billions On Mergers To Dominate Video
- AT&T kills DirecTV Now brand name as TV subscribers leave in droves
- TV networks sue nonprofit to kill free TV service: Locast, an AT&T-funded nonprofit, retransmits local TV over the Internet.
- Court Will Decide If AT&T Is Liable For Cryptocurrency Theft Caused By Shoddy Security
- Inside CEO John Stankey’s ‘Action-Oriented’ Approach to Reposition WarnerMedia
- To protect its satellites, France outlines ambitious space-weapons program
- Looking at Equal Opportunities – When Does the Appearance of a Political Candidate on a Broadcast Program Trigger Equal Time Obligations?
- Advertising is a cancer on society
- Proposed Broadcast Industry Equal Employment Opportunity Reforms Receive Significant Media Attention
- Cord Cutting Is Setting Records In 2019
PRIVACY
- FaceApp, the Methuselahn faced Cloud of privacy concerns
- Terms of Use: Disarming Ourselves, Arming Russia and China
- Hackers Seize Control Of Bulgarian Tax Agency, Sprinkler System
- Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex (and contractors hear it)
- Apple contractors ‘regularly hear confidential details’ on Siri recordings: Workers hear drug deals, medical details and people having sex, says whistleblower
- Privacy Tip #200 – Iranian Backed Hacking Group Using LinkedIn To Deliver Malicious Documents
- Hacker ID’d as former Amazon employee steals data of 106 million people from Capital One
- Capital One Gets In On The Data Breach Action, Coughs Up Info On 100 Million Customers To A Single Hacker
- San Mateo Dumps Red Light Camera Program After A Decade Of Continuous Failure
- ICO Issues First Intentions to Fine Under the GDPR
- UK – New ICO guidance on the use of cookies and similar technologies
- An Increasing Regulatory Focus on Cookies: Time to Review Your Compliance?
- Capital One Data Breach Compromises Data of Over 100 Million
- Post GDPR world – cross-border data privacy best line of defence
- Cookie consent: update one year post-GDPR
- William Barr Turns Up The Heat On The DOJ’s Anti-Encryption Rhetoric
- Unsealed Warrant Shows SFPD Officer Misled Court About Journalist’s Occupation
- You can go claim at least $125 from the Equifax settlement right now
- You’re probably not going to get your $125 from the Equifax settlement: Equifax has somehow found a way to make the settlement even more disappointing.
- City Of Orlando Kicks Amazon’s Facial Recognition Tech To The Curb
- NYPD Screws Up Again; Hands Out Even More ‘Secret’ Facial Recognition Docs To Researchers
- Louisiana declares state of emergency in response to ransomware attack
- The Newest Growth Market For License Plate Readers Is Those A——s Running The Local Homeowners Association
- Once More With Feeling: ‘Anonymized’ Data Is Not Really Anonymous
- Privacy Perils: Bluetooth Blues
- Who have you been giving your name and number to? A cautionary tale
- WannaCry slayer, malware author Marcus Hutchins sentenced to time served
- 200 million devices—some mission-critical—vulnerable to remote takeover
- Cybersecurity officials warn state and local agencies (again) to fend off ransomware
- FTC Seeks Comments on COPPA
- FTC Announces COPPA Rule Review
- FTC Seeks Comments on Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule
- Preparing for the inevitable hack: Experts in cybersecurity say businesses that handle personal information need to know that protecting themselves from liability is not a matter of if a data breach occurs but when.
- Op-Ed: How data privacy laws could make the criminal justice system even more unfair
- The CPSC Releases Framework of Safety for the Internet of Things
- Interaction Between Privacy and Competition Law in a Digital Economy
- Intellectual Property and Technology News (North America), Q2 2019: The government in your cloud
- Data Protection update – July 2019
CREATIVITY
- Watch Hong Kong demonstrators pack airport, sing protest song from ‘Les Misérables’: The tune has become a universal anthem of protesters, “Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men?”
- Attacks on the media in Hong Kong threaten democracy
- Covington teen’s $250M suit against the Washington Post dismissed
- As Expected: Covington HS Teen’s Lawsuit Against The Washington Post Is Dismissed
- Covington student’s defamation case against Washington Post is dismissed
- Judge dismisses suit against Washington Post filed by teen who faced-off with Native American activist in DC
- Defamation Lawsuit Against The Washington Post Has Been Dismissed: Teen claimed he was misrepresented, but a judge ruled that was not supported “by the plain language in the article.”
- $250 Million Lawsuit Against The Washington Post Dismissed: Federal judge dismissed suit of student Nick Sandmann after the Post wrote about his confrontation with a Native American activist earlier this year.
- Court Dismisses Democrats’ Nutty Lawsuit Against Russia, Wikileaks And Trump Associates
- CJEU rules that freedom of information and of the press cannot justify a derogation from the rights of copyright holders beyond allowed exceptions and limitations (Eleonora Rosati)
- CJEU rules that use of a protected work for the purpose of reporting current events does not, in principle, require authorization (Eleonora Rosati)
- Aussie court finds media outlets liable: Winkler
- Iron Man’s Iron Defense
- Katy Perry loses ‘Dark Horse’ Trial:…Jury Says It’s A Rip-Off
- Katy Perry Flame’d: Dark Horse infringes Joyful Noise Copyright
- Andy Warhol Foundation Wins Copyright Lawsuit Over Prince Portrait & More Art World Headlines
- Horizon Comics Productions, Inc. v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC.
- Copyright Troll Richard Liebowitz May Have Cost His Client A Ton Of Money, And Set An Expensive Precedent For Copyright Trolls
- Rock Stars Form Lobbying Group to Counter Tech Giants’ Power
- Liverpool FC Also Apparently Attempted To Trademark Widely Used Chant By Football Fans
- Fans, Indie Soccer Clubs Slam Liverpool FC For Trying To Trademark ‘Liverpool’
- The World’s Most Ridiculous Trademark Dispute Is Now Over: Yosemite Gets Its Names Back
- Canadian Competition Bureau updates Intellectual Property Enforcement Guidelines
- Kawhi Leonard v. Nike, Inc.: Copy, derivative work or distinct work?
- Copyright Infringement Claims Against Just Fresh Restaurant Prove Stale
- Intellectual Property Protection for Recipes
- K-Pop’s Big China Problem: Chinese stars are spinning off in their own orbit as politics gets in the way of profit.
- UFC Broadcast Partner Goes Pay-Per-View And Pushes Fans To Piracy
- Sweden vs. ASAP Rocky: The rapper has unwittingly stumbled into a bitter debate over race, crime, immigration, and the future of the country’s famed welfare state.
- IP rights in art in USA – New York (New York)
- Intellectual Property and Technology News (North America), Q2 2019: Supreme Court Corner Cases we are following
- Woman dies in Alaska trying to reach famed bus from book
GAMES
- British Gambling Commission: Industry should be “proactively dealing” with skin betting – Loot boxes still aren’t gambling but concerns raised over similarities and companies that fail to police secondary markets
- Addicted to Loot: Recent developments in gaming addiction and gambling concerns in the UK
- SEC Issues No-Action Letter for Gaming Tokens
- GTA dev Rockstar Games under fire from UK tax watchdog
- Rockstar hasn’t paid UK corporation tax in ten years, claims investigative think tank: Grand Theft Auto V developer also issued claims worth over £42 million in Video Game Tax Relief
- No Shellebration for Turtle Rock Studios
- Heroes Charge into Copyright Battle
- “It ain’t over till the Old Lady sings” – Konami, Juventus and the licensing of IP for use in sports video game content
- CD Projekt Red promises “no disrespect” in religious-themed Cyberpunk 2077 quests: Polish studio “doesn’t want to avoid religion as a topic” but acknowledges player choices could cause controversy
- Doomed: Bethesda’s Classic Doom Re-Releases Are Fixed, But Demonstrate Again That We Don’t Own What We Buy
- Classic Doom games vanish, reappear on Xbox One with features missing
- Bethesda removing mandatory login from Doom re-releases after fan backlash
- Bethesda says online requirement for Doom re-releases was a mistake
- Joke game removed from Steam after offering bribes to customers: Cyerprank 2069 offers collectors edition of Cyberpunk 2077 for “funniest review”
- A bug has tanked Team Fortress 2’s Steam Marketplace economy
- Creators Going Pro: YouTube Gets Viewers Into The Mind Of Gamer Rez And His ‘Fortnite’-Loving Family
- PUBG Corp says it has buried the hatchet with Fortnite dev Epic Games
- PUBG. Corp says Epic is “one of our best partners” despite previous lawsuit attempt: Studio director Brian Corrigan dismisses notion of animosity between two companies
- The Epic Games Store has started rolling out cloud saves
- Epic Game store adds cloud saves: Feature active for a handful of titles, storefront says more work needed before it can be adopted on a larger scale
- Understanding the success of Fortnite: A UX and psychology perspective
- On YouTube’s Biggest Channels, Videos With Keywords Like ‘Fortnite,’ ‘ASMR’ and ‘Insane’ Get Higher Views
- Immortals Gaming Club reportedly selling Houston Outlaws for $40m: Deal expected to close in August to keep Immortals from owning two Overwatch League teams at once
- Strafe raises $3m for esports hub app: Seed round led by Bitkraft Esports Ventures
- Bulkhead Interactive announced $650,000 investment into esports: Battalion 1944 dev expands esports offering and suggests more future investment
- Winner of the Fortnite World Cup took home $3m: Kyle Giersdorf, 16, won the solo competition, winners of the duos tournament received 1.5m each
- The Fortnite World Cup | A Record-Setting Tournament
- The ‘Fortnite’ World Cup Finals Drew More Than 2 Million Concurrent Viewers
- FaZe Clan Brings In First Female Member, 13-Year-Old Deaf ‘Fortnite’ Pro Ewok
- Ninja is writing a book that will teach you to become an ‘unstoppable’ gamer: He’s also co-writing a graphic novel that will showcase his ‘unmatched wits and skill.’
- Rocket League gets license approval in China: Tencent partnership leads to free-to-play release of Psyonix’s car soccer hit
- Qualcomm and Tencent team up for future mobile game devices and content
- Whoever wins the console wars of tomorrow, Microsoft will profit | Opinion: Satya Nadella sees a future where every game “platform” will ultimately run on Azure’s infrastructure
- Microsoft CEO: Partnership with Sony was driven by the PlayStation maker
- Microsoft: Cloud partnership “all driven by Sony”: The deal means Microsoft is “dependent” on Sony’s success, according to CEO Satya Nadella
- The PlayStation 4 has shipped 100 million units faster than any other console
- Putting the PS4’s 100 million sales in context: 67 months to hit 9 figures is the fastest-ever pace for a home console.
- PlayStation 4 software revenue dips as hardware shipments hit major milestone
- US tariffs on Chinese goods could raise PlayStation console prices, warns Sony
- Facebook migrating Instant Games away from Messenger
- Facebook Instant Games moves off Messenger: New game reviews re-opening after three-month hiatus
- Zynga sees best mobile bookings and revenue in company history for Q2: Mobile publisher raises year-long guidance following record performances from Empires & Puzzles, Merge Dragons! and mobile Words With Friends
- Pokemon Go surpasses 1 billion downloads worldwide
- Slitherine enters contract with Dstl to develop games for UK military: Wargaming developer to create dedicated versions of Command Modern Air/Naval Operations, Flashpoint Campaigns
- Tilting Point invests $30 million in Mino as Cat Gamelaunches worldwide
- Tilting Point invests $30m into Mino Games’ Cat Game: This marks the publisher’s largest user acquisition investment so far
- Mail.Ru’s My.Games grows revenues to $116.9 million in Q2: But suffers $10 million impairment charge as Obsidian co-developed MMO Skyforge falters
- Focus Home Interactive’s Q1 revenue up 49% YOY: World War Z accounted for nearly half of the publisher’s sales last quarter
- Star Trek Fleet Command surpasses $100m in lifetime revenue: Mobile game is publisher Scopely’s fastest-growing mobile title
- No More Robots reaches $3m in lifetime revenue: Manchester-based publisher reaches milestone one week after launch of Nowhere Prophet
- Bigben Interactive acquires French development studio Spiders
- Automation enters administration and cancels Mavericks: Proving Grounds
- Kickstarter veterans on how to run a successful crowdfunding campaign: YoYo Games’ Ross Manthorp explains seven key crowdfunding lessons from GameMaker Studio 2 developers
- EA expects The Sims 4 to deliver net bookings on par withApex Legends
- Live services brought EA $2.5 billion in net bookings in the last 12 months
- Nearly half of EA’s unit sales are now digital: Publisher’s quiet first quarter headlined by growing digital dominance
- Switch driving sales at Nintendo as ‘foreign exchange losses’ cut profits
- Nintendo recasts Fire Emblem: Three Houses voice actor after abuse confessions
- Fire Emblem beats Wolfenstein to the top of the UK charts: Nintendo published four of the top ten games in the UK last week
- Nintendo’s 3DS plans remain unchanged as unit and software sales slow
- Both digital and packaged game sales on the rise at Sega Sammy
- Wolfenstein: Youngblood Review: A co-op spin-off does Wolfenstein better and worse than ever.
- Fire Emblem Three Houses: Critical Consensus: Critics heap near unanimous praise for the strategy RPG’s return to console
- Grand Theft Auto V leads a static top three in the EMEAA charts: Team Ninja’s Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 was the only new entry in the combined physical and digital chart
- Dragalia Lost becomes second highest-grossing Nintendo mobile game: Game still sits well behind Fire Emblem Heroes, but continues trend of high spend per install
- Amazon is ending Prime Video support on the Wii U
- Amazon reportedly ends Prime Video on Wii U, launches it for VR: Company offering a $25 credit toward Fire TV services for Wii U Prime users
- Bandai Namco opening Barcelona mobile studio: Bandai Namco Mobile will focus on creating and marketing games outside the Asian market
- The irony of Oddworld: Lorne Lanning on crunching to make games about the exploitation of workers
- There is no typical Curve game: Publishing director Simon Byron explains how the indie publisher tries to keep surprising and introduces new signing Autonauts
- Creating terrifying, memorable 2D monsters
- Video: A game programmer’s guide to the dark secrets of RNG
- Watch two of Elsinore’s devs discuss the tragic Shakespeare simulator
- Don’t Miss: Balancing the old with the new in Monster Prom’s fandom-friendly DLC
- Unity valuation hits $6 billion following latest investment deal
- Latest Unity investment values company at $6 billion: Tender offer of $525 million more than doubles valuation for game dev engine outfit
- Video: Niantic founder examines the state & future of AR games
- Schell Games receives $900,000 for HistoryMaker VR from government grant
- US Department of Education awards $900k to Schell Games for VR education: Grant from Small Business Innovation Research program will assist with development of HistoryMakerVR
- HP Reverb Still ‘Sold Out’ as Reports of Display Issues Continue
- Zuckerberg to Shareholders: ‘Quest is selling as fast as we can make them’
- Cloudhead Games’ VR sleight of hand: Designer Antony Stevens and senior programmer Cameron Oltman talk Aperture Hand Labs, and where hand tech is headed now
- Devcom set to thrive in close alliance with Gamescom: Nico Balletta on what being backed by the organiser of Gamescom means for the future of Devcom
- Creating a vegetation system that reacts to the environment
- Learn, reset, repeat: The intricacy of time loop games
- Improving the depiction of mental illness in Vampire: The Masquerade
- Don’t Miss: How devs deal with making enemies that feel ‘okay’ to kill
- Don’t Miss: The Blue Shell and its discontents (Ian Bogost)
- Making the bizarre, hilarious world of Trover Saves the Universe
- Q&A: Behind the new open-ended design of Wolfenstein: Youngblood
- Video: How 20XX survived and thrived in Early Access
- Making the most interesting licensed games through self-sabotage: John Wick Hex director and writer Mike Bithell shares his strategy for finding good partners to make interesting licensed projects
- EarthNight’s quest for epic yet accessible: Cleaversoft’s Rich Siegel on why he made it less punishing for novices late in the process
- Blog: Considerations when writing music for games
- Couples that play Mario Kart together stay together: A survey finds playing Mario Kart keeps the romance alive. And Call of Duty and Skyrim aren’t bad for love either.
- U.S. Patent No. 9,061,205: Music video game with user directed sound generation
Jon
News of the Week; July 24, 2019
DIGITAL
- FTC fines Facebook $5 billion, imposes new privacy oversight
- Facebook Agrees to New FTC Privacy Oversight, Will Pay $5 Billion Fine Under 20-Year Settlement
- FTC’s Privacy Settlement With Facebook Gets Pretty Much Everything Backwards; Probably Helps Facebook
- Facebook Knows More About You Than The CIA
- Facebook: Hypothetical Risk Factors are Insufficient Disclosure When the Risk has Occurred
- Still available via Google Analytics: Data slurped from 4 million browsers
- Google Finally Settles Lawsuit Over Decade-Old WiFi Snooping Accusations
- Justice Department launches antitrust probe into big tech
- Antitrust as a Tool to Regulate the FANG Companies: Differing Approaches in the United States and in Europe
- It’s Time to Reboot the Startup Economy: The new laws and antitrust actions that would resurrect American innovation (Tim Wu)
- As Russian “FaceApp” gobbles up user photos, Schumer asks FBI to investigate
- Advanced mobile surveillanceware, made in Russia, found in the wild
- Section 230 Works: Russian Trolls Don’t Get To Sue Facebook For Being Kicked Off Facebook
- Russia F’d With American Democracy, But It Can’t F— With Section 230 – Federal Agency of News v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
- “We’re not ready” for foreign election interference in 2020, says Rep. Adam Schiff: Democrat has warned Facebook, Twitter, and Google to be on notice for deepfakes and other dirty tricks.
- Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Says $5 Billion FTC Settlement Terms “Go Beyond Anything Required Under U.S. Law”
- Breaking: US to ban Facebook Cryptocurrency
- Crypto and Blockchain Markets Signal Growth Amid Regulator Skepticism, Hacks and Sanctions Warnings
- Judge allows suit against AT&T after $24 million cryptocurrency theft
- Google’s Project Dragonfly ‘terminated’ in China: Google’s controversial plan to launch a censored search engine in China has been “terminated”, a company executive has said.
- Google pays $11 million to settle 227 age discrimination claims
- For All Of Trump’s Complaints About Social Media ‘Censorship’, The White House Itself Moderates Content Similarly To Social Media Sites
- Trump’s Tweets: A Warning That Public Officials’ Personal Social Media Posts Might Actually Be The Government’s
- Police Union Responds To Outing Of Officers’ Bigoted Social Media Posts By Offering To Erase Officers’ Online Presences
- The Man Who Built The Retweet: “We Handed A Loaded Weapon To 4-Year-Olds” – The button that ruined the internet – and how to fix it.
- Leave.EU may keep name after no-deal Brexit if ownership handed to EU citizen: UK-based owners of .eu domains could use transfer loophole to keep name
- Brexit funder Arron Banks threatens Netflix over Great Hack documentary: Legal threat comes as campaigners warn UK government that courts are being used to intimidate journalists
- Netflix Hit With Class Action Shareholder Lawsuit Following Dismal Q2 Earnings
- Copyright Infringement Confirmed, but No Damages for “Cordoba” Photographer
- Court Holds that Arbitration Clause in “Hybridwrap” Terms Is Unenforceable
- Lessons from Bumble’s Choice of Law Clause–King v. Bumble
- Instagram Hides Likes And Video Views In More Countries To Cut Down On “Pressure” Users Face, While TikTok Tests Adding Another Public Metric
- Why hiding likes won’t make Instagram a happier place to be: Mark Zuckerberg’s app is making likes invisible in a new trial. The aim is to “reduce pressure” on users, but it’s not clear how (or if) this will work
- Judge Tosses Crazy Copyright Lawsuit Over Gigi Hadid Photo
- Dear AHL: Get Your App S— Together Because You’re Freaking Us Out
- Another Blocked Facebook User Loses in Court–Dipp-Paz v. Facebook
- The Fall Of Mic Was A Warning: “I don’t need a pair of Nikes. I need a 401(k)” — and other lessons from the death of a venture-backed, Facebook-dependent, millennial-focused news site.
- Web Search Data Indicates Soaring Interest for Facebook Libra in China
- Facebook is backpedaling from its ambitious vision for Libra
- Facebook Watch Scares Up 5-Series Content Slate From Horror Hub Crypt TV
- Facebook is both killing and funding local journalism
- Snap Stock Skyrockets as Company Adds 13 Million Daily Active Users in Q2
- Netflix Takes Aim at Facebook With ‘The Great Hack’: A new documentary out July 24, explores Facebook’s role in helping get Trump elected and pushing Brexit – among other things.
- Netflix Sees First Subscriber Losses Ever
- Netflix lost US subscribers in Q2 over price hikes; how can it win them back?
- Netflix’s Original Content Strategy Is Failing
- Netflix Hit With Class Action Shareholder Lawsuit Following Dismal Q2 Earnings
- Adware Is The Malware You Should Actually Worry About
- Which Sports Brands Have Been Viewed The Most In 2019 So Far?
- Social Media Platforms Under Attack in the Senate
- Influencer and Content Marketing: IP, Privacy and Compliance Issues
- KLM and Its Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day on Social Media
- 51% Of Gen Z, Millennials Daydream About Life Without Social Media, Fullscreen Study Finds
- FTC Seeks Public Comments to Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule
- HQ Trivia Turns Down New Funding Amid Layoffs, Internal Petition To Oust CEO
- Andy Signore Acknowledges “Appalling” Behavior, But Fiercely Refutes Allegations Of Sexual Assault
- Stream-Ripping Sites And YouTube Now Engaged In Whac-A-Mole
- YouTube, FTC reach settlement over child privacy
- FTC’s YouTube Privacy Settlement Pisses Everyone Off; Perhaps We’re Doing Privacy Wrong
- YouTube shifts the burden: requires manual copyright claimants to timestamp the allegedly infringing material; simplifies the rectification process
- YouTube’s Autocomplete Feature Has a Huge Spoiler Problem: If you type “Iron Man” into YouTube, the top suggestion is a major “Avengers: Endgame” spoiler. And that’s just the tip of the spoilerberg.
- Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody video hits 1 billion views on YouTube: It’s the first pre-1990s video to reach that milestone.
- Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” Becomes Oldest Music Video In YouTube History To Hit 1 Billion Views
- Creators Going Pro: Married YouTubers ‘Rose & Rosie’ Have Made A Career Of Candid, Clever Content About Their Life Together
- YouTube Will Exclusively Livestream Fuji Rock, Japan’s Largest Outdoor Music Festival
- MLB to livestream 13 games exclusively on YouTube in Canada
- Odell Beckham Jr. Launching Production Company, YouTube Channel With Wheelhouse
- Odell Beckham Jr. Forms Content Company To Launch His Own YouTube Channel
- Logan Paul Reveals Income Woes, Hypes His Upcoming YouTuber vs. YouTuber Event ‘The Challenger Games’
- Zefr Sells YouTube Management Businesses RightsID And ChannelID To Vobile Group For $90 Million
- Zefr Sells Its Copyright-Flagging and YouTube Channel-Management Businesses to Vobile for $90 Million
- YouTube Music Now Lets Users Switch Seamlessly Between A Song And Its Music Video
- Apple Music Launches ‘Rap Life’ Playlist: The rebrand replaces “A-List: Hip-Hop.”
- Apple closes in on $1 billion deal to buy Intel’s modem business: report
- Dropbox irks Mac users with annoying Dock icon, offers clueless support
- Very Confused Judge Allows Bizarre Copyright Lawsuit Against Cloudflare To Continue
- The CASE Act: The Road To Copyright Trolling Is Paved With Good Intentions
- The Amazon dilemma: how a tech powerhouse that fulfills our every consumer need still lets us down – Despite criticism, Amazon refuses to acknowledge unintended consequences of its rise
- Amazon warns customers: Those supplements might be fake
- Hulu’s Longtime CFO Elaine Paul Joins Amazon Studios In Same Role
- Hulu Launches Collection Of Space-Themed Content From NASA, Including 24-Hour NASA TV Feed
- Microsoft closes fiscal 2019 with revenue spikes driven by cloud services
- Microsoft has a wild hologram that translates HoloLens keynotes into Japanese: Azure and HoloLens combine for a hint at the future
- Can Disney’s Circle really deliver a porn-free Internet?
- BuzzFeed To Host ‘Internet Live’ Variety Show With Lil Nas X, JoJo Siwa, Jason Nash
- Fanjoy To Host Creator Pop-Up Series At Los Angeles Mall This Summer, Starting With Sam And Colby
- Creators For Social Good: Jackie Aina Is Pushing The Beauty World To Be Better For People Of Color, One Video At A Time
- Dude Perfect’s 2016 Collab With Serena Williams Sees Viral Resurgence After Polarizing Survey
- Shane Dawson’s Surprise Eugenia Cooney Doc Nabs 21 Million Views In 3 Days
- WarnerMedia’s HBO Max Unveils Content Team
- Vice Media, Mailchimp Partner on Original Docuseries ‘Second Act’
- iHeartMedia Stock Drops in NASDAQ Debut
- Why The Appearance Of A One Terabyte microSD Card Means The War On Unauthorized Music Downloads Is (Almost) Over
- Love letter to my iPod Classic
- Open Source Is Becoming a ‘Best Practice’
- Why Carl Malamud’s Latest Brilliant Project, To Mine The World’s Research Papers, Is Based In India
- Texas Rule on “Gig Workers” Takes Effect
- Second Circuit Upholds Ban on In-Uber Advertising
- How Humans Will Bring the Internet to Space: In the future, orbiters, rovers, deep space probes, and even human space habitats will be nodes on the internet of things.
- John McAfee believed to have been detained, campaign manager says: Data secreted across the world will be released if McAfee stays missing, his Twitter account says.
- After outcry, DoorDash promises workers will get 100% of tips
- Tech Tax – Times Are A Changing?
A.I.
- Ticketmaster Reaches Settlement with Ticket Broker over Unauthorized Use of Automated Bots
- China’s deepfake celebrity porn culture stirs debate about artificial intelligence use
- Jazz Generated By A Neural Network Is Absolutely Terrifying
- Microsoft invests $1 billion in OpenAI
- Microsoft invests $1 billion in OpenAI: Group commits to using Azure as exclusive cloud provider in its pursuit of artificial general intelligence
- Elon Musk Details ‘Neuralink’ Brain Interface Tech, Oculus CTO Calls It “very bold work”
- Pedestrian collision puts Vienna’s driverless bus trial on hold: The city has paused Navya’s trail pending a full investigation
- The Algorithmic Colonization of Africa: Startups are importing and imposing AI systems founded on individualistic and capitalist drives
- AI and IoT Legislative Update: Second Quarter 2019
- The Human Brain Project Hasn’t Lived Up to Its Promise: Ten years ago, a neuroscientist said that within a decade he could simulate a human brain. Spoiler – It didn’t happen.
- An introduction to Artificial Intelligence for in-house lawyers in the Retail and Consumer sector
- Mayer Brown’s Tech Talks: Smart Licensing of AI
- Shall we play a game? Reinforcement learning and the AI training data challenge
COMMUNICATIONS
- DOJ to approve T-Mobile/Sprint merger despite 13 states trying to block it
- Telecom Union Got Hoodwinked Into Supporting AT&T’s Shitty Merger
- Verizon wants you to pay $650 plus $85 a month for a 5G hotspot
- Claims Of 5G Health Risks Are Frequently Based On A Single, 20 Year Old Flawed Graph
- Who is leading the 5G patent race? July 2019 update
- Early 5G Plans Show Cell Carriers Haven’t Learned Much About Misleading ‘Unlimited’ Plans
- TV blackouts hit record high as customers get screwed by industry squabbles
- FCC Aims to Make Broadband Deployment Data More Precise
- FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, Better Broadband Mapping – Two More Reverse Auctions
- Latest Huawei ‘Smoking Gun’ Still Doesn’t Prove Global Blackball Effort’s Primary Justification
PRIVACY
- Steve Bannon The Latest To Abuse Consumer Location Data
- Instead Of Parents Spying On Their Kids Online, Why Not Teach Them How To Be Good Digital Citizens
- Judge Unseals, Tosses Warrant Used By The San Francisco PD To Obtain A Journalist’s Phone Records
- I found your data. It’s for sale.: As many as 4 million people have Web browser extensions that sell their every click. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
- My browser, the spy: How extensions slurped up browsing histories from 4M users
- Dropbox silently installs new file manager app on users’ systems [Updated]
- More on DataSpii: How extensions hide their data grabs—and how they’re discovered
- How private is your browser’s Private mode? Research into porn suggests “not very”
- DNA Information of Thousands of Individuals Exposed Online for Years
- Tech firms “can and must” put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says
- Oversight Report: World’s Most Powerful Spy Agency Is An Insecure Mess That Can’t Keep Tabs On Its Own Employees
- Inadequate Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Due Diligence Alleged in Starwood Deal as UK ICO Fines Marriott $125M for GDPR Violations
- Chances of destructive BlueKeep exploit rise with new explainer posted online
- U.S. Supreme Court Broadens FOIA Exemption 4 for ‘Confidential’ Materials
- How to make your creative business GDPR compliant
- GDPR Privacy FAQs: What are the different types of cookie banners?
- GDPR Privacy FAQs: Do European privacy laws require a cookie banner when a company uses first-party session cookies?
- FTC reportedly approves $5 billion privacy settlement with social media company
- FTC Requests Public Comments on COPPA Rule
- FTC Asks if COPPA Rule Amendments Warrant Further Changes
- Equifax to pay $575M for data breach, promises to protect data next time
- What You Should Know About the Equifax Data Breach Settlement
- Public Records Request Nets User’s Manual For Palantir’s Souped-Up Surveillance Software
- Privacy Tip #199 – Guard Your Cryptowallet: Cryptoheist in Japan Drains $32 million from Exchange
- London Metropolitan Police’s Facial Recognition System Is Now Only Misidentifying People 81% Of The Time
- FBI, ICE Are Running Facial Recognition Searches Against State Drivers’ Databases
- Oakland, California On Its Way To Becoming The Third US City To Ban Facial Recognition Tech
- Facial recognition banned in another city: Oakland, California, has followed San Francisco as the second Bay Area city to vote down the use of the technology.
- UK Parliamentary Committee Calls For The End Of Facial Recognition Tech By The UK Government
- CCTV cameras don’t deter crime, so why does Ottawa want them?
- Chrome 76 prevents NYT and other news sites from detecting Incognito Mode
- Nigerian scammers slide into DMs, so Ars trolls them: Romance scams persist, somehow, by preying on the gullible; Twitter is fertile ground.
- Phishing for victims: Cybercriminals can use complex technology but rely on old-fashioned human error to succeed
- An Old Hack Comes Back to Haunt (Newly-Public) Slack
- Recent FinCEN Advisory Details Dramatic Increase in Frequency and Severity of Business Email Compromise Fraud Schemes
- One of These Things Is Not Like The Other: Emails Are Not Subject To The TCPA, Even If You Get Them On Your Smartphone.
- 8th Circuit affirms reduction in TCPA statutory damages from $1.6 billion to $32 million
- GandCrab Ransomware Backers Working on New Ransomware REvil
- Researchers Build App That Kills To Highlight Insulin Pump Exploit
- CCPA Creates Possible Dilemmas for Companies Sending Text Messages. Is Your Business Ready?
- Global Data & Privacy Update – June 2019
- 1H 2019 Quick Links, Part 6 (Privacy, E-Commerce, & More) (Eric Goldman)
CREATIVITY
- New York Court Finds Warhol Series to be Fair Use of Prince Photograph
- Sony Music brings recordings and publishing under one roof
- Dean Guitar Counter-Sues Against Gibson Guitars, Attempts To Invalidate Several Trademarks
- Gibson Guitar Formalizes Its Hands-Off IP Enforcement Approach With Authorized Partnership Program
- The U.S. Trademark Office Adopts New Rule Requiring Appointment of U.S. Counsel to Represent a Non-US Domiciliary in Trademark Matters
- Filipina Girl From New Zealand Takes Her Slime Show International After Fending Off Nickelodeon Lawsuit
- Logical? Logos do not necessarily enjoy copyright protection
- Harmful Gender Stereotypes Banned in UK Advertising: An Update
- Nike Strikes Back Against Kawhi Leonard Over Logo Lawsuit
- Unlicensed “health coach” claims health advice is free speech—court disagrees
- Olympics Games organisers issue strict guidelines for Tokyo 2020
- Court Determines That This Duck Doesn’t Look Enough Like Another Duck To Be Infringing
- You can’t copyright a cocktail, so what’s a creative bartender to do?
- The art of Hong Kong protests
- Tales of the ‘Basterds’: The story of Quentin Tarantino’s World War II revenge fantasy ‘Inglourious Basterds’ as seen through the eyes of the ragtag crew he created to take down the Nazis
GAMES
- Court Tosses Lawsuit Claiming Muting A Runescape Character Violates The First Amendment
- Nintendo facing class action suit over drifting Switch controllers
- Nintendo faces class action lawsuit over Joy-Con drifting defect: US law firm calls on Switch owners to join suit as plaintiff Ryan Davis seeks monetary relief
- Nintendo is reportedly offering free repairs for Joy-Con controllers: An internal memo advises support staff that no proof of purchase or confirmation of warranty is required
- Report: Nintendo offering free Joy-Con repairs after drifting controversy
- Report: Nintendo quietly owns up to “Joy-Con drift,” will repair for free
- Miyamoto remembers the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in new book
- Is Playing a Video Game on YouTube a Public Performance?
- FIFA’s loot boxes don’t count as gambling, says UK Gambling Commission
- FIFA packs and loot boxes ‘not gambling’ in UK
- Grand Theft Auto Online’s new casino is limited by gambling laws in some countries
- Grand Theft Auto V update adds a casino that can be played with real money: Real money can be spent on chips, though it cannot be cashed back out into actual money
- UKIE’s Jo Twist is right: the words we use matter | Opinion – If we casually use terms like “addictive” it robs us of the ability to have a proper discussion when games do cross a line
- Supercell discontinues games in Vietnam due to ‘regulatory issues’
- Supercell pulls games out of Vietnam, citing “regulatory issues”: 142 other mobile games removed by government agency in legal crackdown
- A look at The Sims 1 design docs, and a dev’s argument for including same-sex romance
- Girls’ Game Lab launches to host game development workshops for young girls
- “If she can do it, I can too”: The message behind Girls’ Game Lab – New not-for-profit team setting up coding workshops for young girls, first one to be held at Playground next month
- “Employee health, employee happiness, and then the game — in that order”: Michael Paixao on winning a legal battle against former employer ZeniMax Media to create a better work culture with Bad Yolk
- Ex-MachineGames devs target healthy work-life balance with new studio: Bad Yolk already has a team of ten AAA veterans, with experience on Gears of War, The Darkness and The Division
- GOG reverses decision to reject Heaven’s Vault: Inkle’s adventure game will be added to the storefront despite GOG’s initial refusal
- Harry Potter: Wizards Unite’s first month revenue lags far behind Pokémon Go – Sensor Tower data shows Niantic’s new game firmly in Pokémon Go’s shadow
- After 28 years, cofounder Frank Pearce is leaving Blizzard
- Blizzard’s bad-news year continues with another co-founder’s departure
- Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce ends 28-year career at company: “The time has come for me to step away from Blizzard and pass the torch to the next generation of leaders,” says Pearce
- Gearbox commits to cross-play for Borderlands 3: The feature will not be available immediately, but Randy Pitchford promises support “as soon as practicable after launch”
- Don’t Miss: Crafting the oppressive soundscape ofWolfenstein II: The New Colossus
- Don’t Miss: The challenges and rewards of designing local multiplayer games
- Don’t Miss: The art of the tutorial
- Deep Dive: Burdening players with the power of the system in Legal Dungeon
- Disney and Glu aim to target nostalgia without exploiting it: Both companies address the scrutiny around free-to-play ahead of the launch of Disney Sorcerer’s Arena
- Tencent and The Pokemon Company are making games together
- The Pokémon Company teams up with Tencent to create more Pokémon games: Tencent’s TiMi Studio Group will lead development on multiple unknown new titles
- Tencent makes ‘substantial investment’ in retro streaming service Antstream
- DouYu goes public with $775m Nasdaq IPO: Tencent-backed Chinese streaming platform is valued at more than $3.7 billion
- Nintendo, Tencent set a date to discuss Switch launch in China
- Tencent and Nintendo to host Switch press conference in China on August 2: Shanghai event is the first official update since Tencent was cleared to distribute the console in China
- NPD: Super Mario Maker 2 warps to the top of June US sales – Nintendo Switch continues its reign as best-selling hardware platform for 2019
- Bandai Namco combines physical toys and mobile games with Tori: New platform will be an “ecosystem” of toys and software, designed with input from “experts in children’s learning and development”
- Sega ends publishing partnership with narrative studio Interior Night
- Sega drops publishing deal with Interior Night: But studio says parting was amicable and a new partnership will be announced soon
- Microsoft sees dip in quarterly Xbox revenue as hardware sales slow
- Microsoft hardware revenue dips 48% YOY for fourth quarter: Xbox Live reaches 65 million MAUs as subscriptions offset hardware and software declines
- Microsoft is ‘well positioned’ to succeed in larger game market, claims CEO
- Satya Nadella: Microsoft is “well positioned” to expand beyond traditional gaming: CEO says investments in cloud technology will benefit Xbox as well as company’s other divisions
- The Mirage of Cloud Gaming (And How to Reach the Oasis)
- Google tries to reassure gamers it’s behind Stadia for the long haul
- Stadia director of product: “Eventually all games will be in the cloud and we’ll feel great” – Andrey Doronichev responds to concerns about service discontinuation, ISPs, features in Reddit AMA
- Tools to manage Stadia’s data usage are in the works, says Google
- Ubisoft says porting games to Stadia hasn’t been a costly affair
- Ubisoft pledges support to open source 3D creation tool Blender
- Doppio raises $1.1 million from Google and Amazon for voice-controlled games
- Google, Amazon invests in voice-controlled games studio Doppio: Portuguese developer secures €1m in seed funding
- PC overtakes PlayStation 4 as Ubisoft’s most lucrative platform this quarter
- Zynga is growing its presence in India with a studio expansion
- Grand Theft Auto V returns to top spot in EMEAA charts: Super Mario Maker 2 is best-selling physical game for the week
- SuperData: Crash Team Racing sold over 550k units digitally in June – Overwatch surpasses $1b in in-game spending, Rainbow Six Siege revenue up to $36.8m last month
- UK Charts: Crash Team Racing returns to No.1 as Amazon Prime Day boosts market – Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 debuts at No.2
- Tekken 7 has crossed 4 million sales worldwide
- id Software studio director Tim Willits is stepping down after 24 years
- Kongregate acquires mobile and browser game Bit Heroes
- Kongregate acquires Bit Heroes from Juppiomenz: Publisher plans to turn mobile, web-based RPG into larger franchise
- Bigben acquires Spiders: French studio is the latest in a series of acquisitions bolstering Bigben Interactive’s internal development prospects
- NetEase opens R&D studio in Montreal
- NetEase launches Montreal studio: Creation of new R&D-focused development location follows last week’s R&D-minded investment in Montreal’s Behaviour Interactive
- Rooster Teeth To Drop First Original IP Game In August, Unveils ‘Shark Week’ Collab
- Techland: “It’s still not a corporate studio. We still get crazy sometimes” – The Dying Light 2 developer on the rise of the Polish industry, and growing from 200 staff to 300 in just a few years
- Indies on Steam are betting on discoverability: After a year of missteps by Valve, indie devs are cautious about Steam Labs and their future visibility on Steam
- From platform holder to indie investor: Former PlayStation boss Jack Tretton talks about backing indies like Blue Isle’s Citadel: Forged With Fire
- 5 tips for surviving and thriving in game design
- Inside Steam Diving Bell, a tool for ‘Wikipedia binging’ Steam games
- Game Seer Venture Partners launches with €10m fund: Company will invest up to €1.5 million in PC and console games, doesn’t require long-term plans
- Don’t Miss: Making Insomniac’s Spider-Man do what a spider can
- Don’t Miss: Deconstructing the success of The Witcher 3’s open world
- Drawkanoid: Launching an indie game in a market where “everything changes”: Nordic Game Discovery Contest winner discusses game launches and monetisation in an ever-changing ecosystem
- Australian studio Defiant Development is ceasing development of new titles
- Defiant Development to close after nine years: Pioneering Australian studio was “not able to change quickly enough” to adapt to the changing industry
- “If you’re trying to make the game of the film, you’re onto a loser”: Outright Games’ Nick Button-Brown explains how the publisher is trying to break the stigma around licensed kids games
- Blog: Turning my grandmother’s childhood memories into a game
- Blog: A NASA historian considers Kerbal Space Program
- Blog: Designing sounds and music for a casual mobile game
- Blog: The one metric you SHOULD care about when launching your game
- Video: Letting Go – The Florence postmortem
- Video: An actor’s advice on getting great mocap performances in games
- Video: Tips for programmers in the game industry
- Video: What makes for successful, memorable game trailers
- Watch a design breakdown of digital card game adventureNowhere Prophet
- Kind Words: A game of lo-fi beats, letters to strangers, and feeling less alone – Popcannibal’s Ziba Scott on designing and moderating a game exclusively about being kind to other people
- Brendan Greene: “It’s crazy, the hate I receive. I just have to ignore it”: At Gamelab 2019, Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail talked to PUBG’s creator about the darker side of making a global phenomenon
- ‘Fortnite’ Partners With YouTube To Give Players Exclusive Loot When They Watch Live Streams
- The free-to-Play cookbook: Secrets to player engagement – deltaDNA reveals the top tips on monetizing your mobile game
- NSE and Intel partner for second season of the British University Esports Championship: Long-term strategic partnership committed to investing in grassroots esports
- Gaming and esports revenues on the rise for MTG: InnoGames’ Forge of Empires was at the heart of the Swedish firm’s growth in the second quarter
- Echo Fox proposes sale of slot in League of Legends Championship Series: Riot must still review the sale, rumoured to a $30.25 million sale to Kroenke Sports & Entertainment
- Tencent to stream NBA 2K League in China: Selected playoff matches and every game of the finals to be made available through Tencent Sports, Tencent Video, and Tencent News
- Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson dies at 33: Esports broadcaster, streamer, former StarCraft II pro suffered a sudden illness
- Fight for money and fame in Fortnite and Apex Legends this weekend
- Football Manager 19 surpasses 2m copies sold across all platforms: It’s the first annual Football Manager game to reach this milestone
- How Satisfactory’s network optimizations keep multiplayer factories humming along
- Oculus Go emulation coming to the Quest later this year
- Oculus Quest teardown shows how the standalone VR headset was built
- Digital Catapult launches AR and VR accelerator programme for UK startups: Early-stage companies to receive mentorship and access to investors
- I Spent a Full Day Working in the Magic Leap One & Discovered the AR Office of the Future
- Blockchain Gaming: Buzzwords, bulls and bears
- Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’ Looks Absolutely Fantastic – ‘Game Of Thrones’ Fans Take Note
Jon
News of the Week; July 17, 2019
DIGITAL
- Facebook Embeds ‘Hidden Codes’ To Track Who Sees And Shares Your Photos
- Facebook To Face Record $5 Billion FTC Settlement Related To Cambridge Analytica Scandal
- Facebook’s FTC fine will be $5 billion—or one month’s worth of revenue: Fine will settle privacy investigation triggered by Cambridge Analytica scandal.
- FTC Approves Record $5 Billion Settlement with Facebook
- FTC Approves $5 Billion Fine Against Facebook for Privacy Violations
- The FTC And Facebook: Why The $5 Billion Fine Is Both Too Little And Too Much
- Facebook denies allegations that you make friends on Facebook: Facebook responds with blanket denials to DC’s Cambridge Analytica suit.
- Here’s What Facebook Says About Camera Privacy on Quest & Rift S
- Germany Cashes Out, Hits Facebook With Fines For Failing To Comply With Its Ultra-Vague ‘Hate Speech’ Law
- Laura Loomer Files Defamation Suit Against Facebook For Calling Her ‘Dangerous’ When Booting Her From The Platform
- There’s a big problem with Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency
- House Representatives Ask Facebook to Halt Moving Forward with its Cryptocurrency
- Donald Trump blasts Facebook’s Libra, demands strict regulation
- Donald Trump: Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies aren’t money – The US president said he’s not a fan of Facebook’s Libra, and demands digital coin companies seek a banking charter
- Anti-money laundering rules for cryptocurrency dealers finalized by Canadian government
- A Global Review of the Regulatory Considerations Relating to Crypto-Asset Trading Platforms
- By Clicking Continue…
- Affirmed: President Trump Cannot Block Critics on Twitter
- Second Circuit Affirms Judge Buchwald in Trump Twitter Case
- Second Circuit Holds That Blocking Users’ Access To Presidential Twitter Account Violates First Amendment
- Trump can’t block his critics from the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account, says the Second Circuit (and the First Amendment)
- Right-wingers say Twitter’s “bias” against them should be illegal
- Following Trump Ruling Against Twitter Blockade, AOC Sued For Her Blocks On Twitter
- Comments on the Hikind v. Ocasio-Cortez Lawsuit Over AOC’s Twitter Blocks (Eric Goldman)
- America’s Road to Reputational Ruin: The decline in U.S. soft power didn’t start with Trump, but he accelerated it this week with his racist tweets.
- Twitter launches the ‘Hide Replies’ feature, in hopes of civilizing conversations
- Twitter is changing Twitter.com to be more like mobile app
- Microsoft warns 10,000 customers they’re targeted by nation-sponsored hackers: Hacking remains a tool of choice for influencing elections, company warns.
- Ninth Circuit Upholds Arbitration Provision in Online Consumer Contract
- Can an employer be vicariously liable for an employee’s racist Facebook post?
- Censored Chinese search project is “terminated,” Google rep testifies
- GOP Puts Google Search On Trial In DC
- Why Is The Washington Post Publishing Blatantly False Propaganda About Section 230?
- Former Content Moderator Explains How Josh Hawley’s Bill Would Grant Government Control Over Online Speech
- 1H 2019 Quick Links, Part 4 (Section 230, Content Moderation) (Eric Goldman)
- IBM’s Ridiculous Opportunism: Sells Out Section 230 To Sell More Filters
- The Third Circuit Joins The Ninth In Excluding E-Commerce Platforms From Section 230’s Protection
- Section 230 Is Not Exceptional, It Is Not Unique, It Is Not A Gift: It’s The Codification Of Common Law Liability Principles
- Gab, Mastodon And The Challenges Of Content Moderation On A More Distributed Social Network
- The Sixth Circuit Also Makes A Mess Of Section 230 And Good Internet Policy
- Three Years Later: 1st Amendment Challenge Over DMCA’s Anti-Circumvention Provisions Can Move Forward
- Large and Diverse Coalition Issues a Statement of Principles to Help Evaluate UGC Liability Reform Proposals (Eric Goldman)
- ICO’s McDougall Warns Adtech Sector that Change Is Needed
- Senator Graham Spreads A Bunch Of Nonsense About ‘Protecting Digital Innocence’ Online
- Netflix Removes Controversial Suicide Scene From ’13 Reasons Why,’ Citing Medical Experts
- Netflix U.S. Subs Drop in Q2 After Price Hikes, Company Blames Global Forecast Miss on Content Slate
- The Toxic Potential Of YouTube’s Feedback Loop
- American kids would much rather be YouTubers than astronauts
- YouTube stars wish YouTube had more competition from other platforms
- Creators Say Competition Would Force YouTube To Be Better — But Right Now, There Are No Competitors
- YouTube Megastar KondZilla, With 50 Million Subscribers, Drops Trailer For New Netflix Series
- YouTuber Ray Diaz Arrested For Allegedly Assaulting His Underage Girlfriend
- YouTube Finally Demands Specificity From Copyright Claimants
- YouTube Begins Blocking Stream-Ripping Sites
- At VidCon, YouTube Announces Addition Of Channel Membership Levels, ‘Super Stickers,’ More Merch Shelf Vendors
- TikTok took over VidCon, and YouTube is next: YouTube offers what TikTok can’t – stability
- YouTube is adding more ways for creators to make money: New merch, membership, and chat features
- YouTube is launching educational playlists that won’t include algorithmic recommendations
- The Dodo Launches Children’s-Focused YouTube Channel With 3 Original Series
- Glad Challenges YouTube Vet Grace Helbig To Create An Instagram-Worthy Dish While Offroading
- Creators Going Pro: For Musicmaking Duo NEFFEX, YouTube Opened All The Doors To A Full-Time Career
- Kian And JC To Launch $25,000 ‘Big Brother’-Style Series With 13 YouTuber Contestants
- Cracking The YouTube Algorithm In 2020
- American kids would much rather be YouTubers than astronauts: Becoming an astronaut ranked last among five professions.
- StyleHaul’s Former VP Of Accounting And Finance Indicted For Embezzling $22 Million
- RTL Group Consolidates 3 European MCNs Under The Divimove Banner
- BroadbandTV Corp. Partners with Snapchat to bring new Creator Shows to Life
- These Brands Dominated Social Video Through The First Half of 2019 (Study)
- James Charles, Emma Chamberlain Among 25 Most Influential People On The Internet, Per ‘Time’
- Ryan Toys Review Scrubs Up With Colgate For Children’s Oral Care Collection
- Joey Graceffa’s ‘Escape The Night’ Spawns Actual Escape Room In L.A. This August
- You could be a celebrity without knowing it if you have 30,000 followers on social media
- New Study Points Out What A Boon Sports Streaming Piracy Could Be To Leagues
- Netflix Hires BBC Studios’ Jackie Lee-Joe as Chief Marketing Officer
- EFF Posts New White Paper On Stingray Device Capabilities
- Doing the right thing: accessibility and OTT broadcasters
- Hulu To Get A Little More Delicious With 24 Shows From Tastemade
- Disney Shutters FX Networks’ Nascent Streaming Service FX+ After Acquiring It In March
- VidCon To Host Inaugural Asian Summit In Singapore, Will Return To London In February
- FBE Launches Interactive Content Lab, Will Produce 12 TV Pilots Alongside Eko
- Quibi Acquires Projects From ‘Glee’ Alum Darren Criss, WWE
- NBC News to Produce Two Daily Shows for Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi
- Quibi Acquires First News Program In Reported 8-Figure Deal With NBC
- Patreon Announces $60 Million Funding Round, With Participation From Creators Hannibal Buress, Serj Tankian
- Microsoft Teams is now officially bigger than Slack
- Microsoft opens first flagship store in Europe: Announcement of location on Oxford Circus comes alongside £1m grant to train young community members in digital skills
- Gartner, IDC agree that PC sales are up—but they don’t agree what a PC is
- EU Looking To Regulate Everything Online, And To Make Sites Proactively Remove Material
- Amazon Teams With Colorado Police, US Postal Service On Sting That Catches Zero Package Thieves
- 27 Top Twitch Streamers Host Amazon Prime Shopping Stream ‘Twitch Sells Out’
- Amazon Music Unlimited is growing faster than Apple Music or Spotify, report says
- Spotify Pacts With Disney to Launch Hub With Music From Movies, TV Shows
- Spotify And Disney Partner To Bring Mouse House Magic With New ‘Disney Hub’ Playlists
- International family law: is WhatsApp the future for serving court papers?
- OurPact returns to App Store, reviving debates about Apple’s impartiality
- Apple reportedly planning to fund creation of exclusive original podcasts
- Apple is planning to buy up original podcasts with exclusivity in mind
- Patchwork of digital taxes intensifies
- US Trade Representative Initiates Section 301 Investigation of France’s Digital Services Tax
- Lawmaking for the Internet of Things
- The Failure Of Courts/Regulators To Understand The Difference Between Infrastructure Providers And Edge Providers Is Going To Be A Problem
- WIPO Now Gets Into The Extrajudicial, Zero Due Process, Censorship Act Over Sites It Declares ‘Infringing’
- Insights: As Our Cultural Lives Go Fully Digital, How Will We Signal What We Care About?
- Tech journalism’s ‘on background’ scourge
- Browse the Bookshelf of U.S. Case Law: Announcing the CAP Case Browser
- Justice John Paul Stevens, dead at 99, promoted the Internet revolution
A.I.
- Steam embraces machine learning with interactive recommendation tool
- Steam launches Steam Labs to house feature experiments: First three test projects all involve new ways to discover games, including a machine learning recommendation feature
- Steam uses machine learning for its new game recommendation engine
- Devs express optimism, caution over Steam interactive recommender
- Australian researchers just released the world’s first AI-developed vaccine and it could prevent another horror flu season
- California’s BOT Disclosure Law, SB 1001, Now In Effect
- ‘Robot’ umpire calls first professional baseball game with one hitch and no controversy
- Neuralink: Elon Musk’s Elusive Brain-Computer Firm Just Made a Big Reveal
- Elon Musk’s Neuralink Takes Baby Steps to Wiring Brains to the Internet
- Musk’s newest startup is venturing into a series of hard problems
- Elon Musk announces another price hike for “full self-driving” package
- Facebook and CMU’s ‘superhuman’ poker AI beats human pros: ‘It can bluff better than any human.’
- Facebook AI Pluribus defeats top poker professionals in 6-player Texas Hold ’em
- Ford-VW alliance means more EVs for Europe, joint Argo AI investment
- Artificial intelligence (AI) designs metamaterials used in the invisibility cloak: The research team led by professor Rho of POSTECH developed a simultaneous inverse design of metamaterials via deep learning
- MIT whiz kids got a robot to take on the viral #BottleCapChallenge
- Atlantic League coach ejected for arguing over automated strike zone just one inning into robot umpire era
- How GoldenEye 007 set a new standard for video game AI
- How AI companies can avoid ethics washing
- Blizzard unleashes Google’s DeepMind AI against European Starcraft II players: Experimental AlphaStar agent will play anonymously, but only against gamers who opt into test matches
- Brains scale better than CPUs. So Intel is building brains
COMMUNICATIONS
- EFF Hits AT&T With Lawsuit Over Sale Of User Location Data
- AT&T Breaks Another Merger Promise In Making ‘Friends’ Exclusive
- AT&T Will Now Filter Robocall Spam, If You Pay Them Extra
- ‘Smoking gun’: Huawei staff employment records link them to Chinese military agencies
- The Drama Around Huawei: Can U.S. Companies Do Business with the Chinese Chipmaker?
- Cheap as chips? Controversial judgment could have significant implications for the global wireless communications industry
- HBO Communications Chief Quentin Schaffer to Exit After 39 Years
- Google Joins Talks In Bid To Salvage T-Mobile Merger
- Charter gets final approval to stay in NY despite breaking merger promise
- 5G’s Latest Problem: Summer Temps Are Causing 5G Phones To Overheat
- The latest barrier to 5G speeds? The summer: Hands-on report says “persistent overheating” issues plague 5G hardware.
- Last Woman Standing: Belittled by Viacom and CBS executives and insulted by her own father, Shari Redstone now sits atop a $30 billion media empire.
- Fortune favours the bold broadcaster?
- The Impact of PDR Network LLC v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic
- Ajit Pai’s new gift to cable companies would kill local fees and rules
- FCC Makes $100 Million Available for Telehealth Experiments
- FCC Proposes a Three-Year Pilot Program to Fund “Connected Care” Telehealth Applications
- FCC Set to Commercialize Educational Broadband Service Portion of 2.5 GHz Band to Enable 5G
- FCC Considers Restrictions on Arrangements Between Building Owners and Broadband Providers
- FCC gives ISPs another $563 million to build rural-broadband networks
- West Virginia’s Biggest Telco Says Broadband Business ‘Unsustainable’
- FCC Seeks Comment on Actions to Promote Broadband Deployment and Competition in Apartment and Office Buildings
- FCC Revises Broadcast Signal Carriage Election Notices for Cable, Satellite, and Other Multichannel Video Providers
- FCC Makes Significant Changes to Its Children’s Television (KidVid) Rules
- Actions Taken at July Meeting – FCC Adopts Changes to Children’s Television Rules and to TV MVPD Carriage Election Notices Procedures
- FTC Announces Robocall Crackdown
- FCC Chairman proposes rules addressing spoofed texts and international robocalls
- All Bark and No Bite? FCC Proposes Rule To Ban Spoofing of Text Messages and Foreign Robocalls
- FCC Holds Summit on Implementation of SHAKEN/STIR Call
- 2.5 GHz EBS Spectrum to Be Commercialized, Opened to TribalNations
PRIVACY
- British Airways and Marriott Face Record-Breaking GDPR Fines
- British Airways faces record-breaking GDPR fine after data breach: The ICO wants to fine the airline £183 million
- GDPR Shows its Teeth – UK Pursuing Record Fines for Data Breaches, Emphasizes Accountability
- A Fine Mess: the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office’s proposed GDPR fines
- Russian Spy Discovers The Hard Way How Much His Smartphone’s Metadata Reveals About His Activities
- How U.S. Tech Giants Are Helping To Build China’s Surveillance State
- DEA tracked every opioid pill sold in the US. The data is out – and it’s horrific: Just three drug makers and six distributors were behind the flood.
- Office 365 declared illegal in German schools due to privacy risks
- German state bans Office 365 in schools, citing privacy concerns: Schools in Hesse will have to rely on non-cloud software
- Revealed: This Is Palantir’s Top-Secret User Manual for Cops – Palantir user manual gives unprecedented insight into how the company logs and tracks individuals.
- Former Content Moderator Explains How Josh Hawley’s Bill Would Grant Government Control Over Online Speech
- Google workers listen to your “OK Google” queries—one of them leaked recordings
- Can I buy a phone that doesn’t use anything from Google or Apple?: Steve does not like firms slurping up his data, so wants a device that respects his privacy
- Eavesdropping flaw prompts Apple to suspend Walkie-Talkie app
- Wiretap Report Says Courts Are Seeing Fewer Wiretap Requests, Fewer Convictions Linked To Wiretaps
- Collecting employee data: Privacy and data protection concerns are gaining increasing prominence in the workplace
- NAD Recommends Baby Monitor Improve Disclosure of Information Gathering
- New UK ICO guidance on cookies and similar technologies
- Here’s How To Harness Facebook’s New Privacy Updates To (Sort Of) Control Who Has Your Personal Data
- CCPA Privacy FAQs: If I post a “do not sell my personal information” link on my website, and opt those consumers that select it from receiving behavioral advertising cookies, have I complied with the CCPA?
- Reducing the risk of ransomware attacks
- Privacy concerns over viral photo apps are totally valid. But they’re also often overblown.: The panic about FaceApp’s old-person filter isn’t wrong, exactly. It’s just tinged with xenophobia and devoid of context.
- A Recap of the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Amending the California Consumer Privacy Act
- No Shirt, No Shoes, No Facescan, No Service: Welcome To 21st Century Convenience Store Shopping
CREATIVITY
- In Canada and elsewhere, freedom of speech is on the endangered list
- Cameras should be welcomed in Canadian courtrooms: Forstner
- Canada’s election advertising rules have changed – here’s what you need to know
- Judge Castel: Plaintiffs Fail to State Claim Against Ja Rule for Fyre Festival
- Claims of False Advertising and Unfair Competition Are Not Disparagement or Defamation
- Danish court orders car dealer to compensate Chinese artist Ai Weiwei
- Rights in sports data
- NY AG settlement resolves deceptive practices action with ticket resale companies
- SPLC Asks Court To Toss Proud Boy Founder’s Defamation Lawsuit By Asking ‘Where’s The Lie?’
- Congress Moving Forward With Copyright-For-Censorship ‘Small Claims’ Act
- WIPO copyright treaty to be adopted in Uzbekistan
- Branding and marketing clearance is the new punk rock
- Alitalia Pulls Commercial Featuring Actor in Blackface
- TD Bank N.A. v. Hill
- Tackling the registration of copycat company names and domain names
- California Student-Athletes Would Like to Remind You, “It’s My Name, Don’t You Forget!”
- The helicopter team that films the Tour de France is one of a kind
- Sound, Noise, Distinguish? The relationship between sound and intellectual property law (Shane Burke)
- 1H 2019 Quick Links, Part 5 (Censorship, Defamation) (Eric Goldman)
GAMES
- Former College Basketball Players Sue Fortnite Creators for Use of “Running Man” Dance
- ESA Steps In With Amicus Brief In Support Of Activision Versus Humvee
- Would freedom of speech beat loot box legislation? | Opinion: A look back at the Supreme Court’s 2011 ruling on video game violence suggests the First Amendment defense may not play out the same way a second time
- German researchers propose treatment for gaming addiction: Clinical trial of 143 finds promising remission rate using cognitive behavioral therapy
- Losing yourself in virtual worlds can have good as well as negative effects: Psychologist Pete Etchells chats with Ars about his first book, Lost in a Good Game.
- Yogscast CEO Mark Turpin resigns following sexual harassment allegations: Turpin apologises for “error of judgement” as second sexual harassment case hits Yogscast in as many weeks
- Ion Maiden becomes Ion Fury following Iron Maiden trademark lawsuit
- Battlegrounds has been banned in Jordan due to negative impact on players
- Gears 5 to drop depictions of smoking after urging from Truth Initiative
- The Coalition partners with Truth Initiative, cuts smoking from Gears 5: Rod Fergusson – “I’ve been against smoking from the beginning”
- Why is there no smoking in Gears 5? It depends on who you ask: Either way, you won’t see cigars dangling from COG mouths any time soon.
- Red Candle won’t be re-releasing Devotion (yet) following China controversy
- Red Candle Games will not re-release Devotion “in the near term”: Developer apologizes again for artwork mocking Chinese president, but hopes to “rebuild trust”
- Respawn will deal with Apex Legends cheaters by making them fight each other
- Respawn working on matchmaking Apex Legends cheaters with other cheaters: Studio upping anti-cheat resources, working on spam and cheat detection using machine learning
- Overwatch’s new cheat detection will end matches when cheats are used
- Blizzard testing automatic shutdown for Overwatch matches where players are cheating: But game’s director Jeff Kaplan promises rule-abiding players will not be punished in any way
- Ubisoft criticised for sourcing Watch Dogs Legion music through Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s HitRecord: Developers and composers decry use of audience compositions as ‘exploitative spec work’
- Ubisoft Once Again Crowdsourcing Content For Video Game, Once Again Gets Unwarranted Backlash
- Ubisoft defends Watch Dogs HitRecord partnership amid spec work criticism
- Ubisoft puts kibosh on Assassin’s Creed XP-farming exploit
- Ubisoft bans XP farming quests in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s story creator: Coincidently, publisher continues to sell permanent XP boosts as in-game purchases
- Ubisoft: “Nobody has dared do anything with a granny before” – EMEA Director Alain Corre on Watch Dogs, Tom Clancy, and the dream of creating a game with one billion players
- Odyssey and Siege push Ubisoft to a better-than-expected quarter
- Ubisoft sees PC, digital sales share increase in Q1: Publisher continues anticipating quieter first half as it preps for big releases, UPlay+ later this year
- Ubisoft’s Uplay+ subscription library launches this fall with 100+ games
- How to spot an exploitative mobile game publishing deal — from a former publishing CEO
- Blog: Charting the record $9.6B games investment over the past 18 months
- ‘Reality-focused’ game dev Surrogate secures $2 million in funding
- UK publisher Merge Games creates $4 million indie game fund
- Kickstarter suspends funding campaign for online gameRAW over honesty concerns
- Ratio of successful Kickstarter projects at highest since Double Fine Adventure: ICO Partners breaks down ongoing maturation of crowdfunding projects with H1 2019 update
- Kickstarter suspends over ambitious MMO inspired by GTA Online: “We require projects to be honest and clearly presented, and this project failed to meet that standard,” says Kickstarter
- Blog: Crowdfunding and video games – A 2019 mid-year update
- Blog: Crowdfunding and tabletop games – A 2019 mid-year update
- Minecraft Earth’s closed beta: This augmented reality needs more augmenting
- Want to be more creative? Playing Minecraft can help, new study finds
- Video Games can Increase Creativity, but with Caveats (Jorge Blanco-Herrera, Douglas Gentile & Jeffrey Rokkum)
- Jo Twist: Games industry needs to “step up” to fight cultural bias – UKIE CEO warns critics and publishers to be careful with their language, says games are “an easy target because we’re new”
- Under fire from game devs, G2A proposes new ‘Key Blocker’ tool
- G2A proposes key-blocking tool: But controversial marketplace wants at least 100 developers to register interest before it begins development
- How does the games industry get rid of G2A? Eliminate game keys altogether: The only way to stop key resellers is to stop selling keys, but will the industry take such a radical step?
- Wube Software takes up G2A on offer to pay back ten times its chargeback fees: Studio has racked up $6,600 in chargebacks for Factorio, also encourages players to pirate rather than buy via G2A
- GOG puts Heaven’s Vault up for sale after declining to sell the game at launch
- Jason Kingsley: Epic is “paying through the nose” to build its store – Rebellion founders discuss change of heart on Epic Store exclusivity
- Epic awards Blender Foundation $1.2m grant: Epic MegaGrants-fueled support to help bolster Blender creation suite
- RetroArch will be Steam’s biggest emulation launch yet, coming July 30
- Steam Labs is Valve’s new home for experimental Steam features
- Controversial freelance firm Fiverr opens game services store
- Fiverr adds dedicated gaming store: Freelancer hiring platform includes sections for development and streaming services
- Stadia’s dev partners program has received more than 4,000 applications
- Google’s Dead Wrong If It Thinks Broadband Caps Won’t Hurt Game Streaming
- PlayStation’s former portfolio strategy head is now tackling game licensing at Disney
- Disney hires former PlayStation portfolio boss to head up games licensing: John Drake says it’s an “amazing time” to bring the worlds of Star Wars, Marvel and Fox to video games
- Video: The importance of finding your platform champions
- RuneScape dev Jagex says sale is possible, but not set in stone
- Jagex denies reports it has been sold: Suggested sale by owner Fukong “remains one of various possible outcomes”
- Smartphone maker Rokit launches $50 million game development fund
- Smartphone maker ROKiT announces $50m indie dev fund: Selection committee of industry veterans established, up to $500,000 per project on offer
- Tencent launches app for streaming PC games to smartphones: League of Legends only game currently available, but more expected soon
- Twitch growth dips as Fortnite viewership continues to decline: Riot Games surpasses Epic Games as most-watched publisher in Q2 2019
- Fortnite streaming hours drop for fourth straight quarter: Biggest battle royale games all show declines but Epic’s hit remains most watched title on streaming platforms
- Epic awards $1.2 million to Blender Foundation through Epic MegaGrants program
- Don’t Miss: 20 difficult games worth revisiting and learning from
- League of Legends dominates South Korean PC cafés: Riot Games’ hit accounted for almost 40% of hours played last month as Path of Exile made a strong first impression
- Riot extends deadline for removal of Echo Fox shareholder following racist remarks: Esports organisation was instructed to oust shareholder two months ago or face “formal action” from LCS
- Esports Upstart 100 Thieves Names Retail Vet Doug Barber VP Of Brand And Apparel
- Don’t Miss: Memoirs of a video producer who put Madden in Madden
- Nearly three-fourths of gamers prefer Netflix-style subscription for cloud games: Broadband Genie: 86% say they expect cloud purchases of games to be cheaper than digital or physical copies
- Nintendo deletes popular Mario Maker 2 level for unexplained reasons
- Dr Mario World is the lowest grossing Nintendo mobile launch so far: But Sensor Tower says puzzle game is on par with latest Candy Crush release
- Nintendo reaffirms its toy-maker identity | Opinion: Ventures into mobile games and streaming might have clouded Nintendo’s self-image — but the company is still first and foremost a toy-maker
- Switch owners say Joy-Con controllers are prone to drifting after just months
- Evidence points to another Switch hardware revision on the horizon
- Nintendo releasing new Switch with longer battery life: Tweaked model of flagship console will last up to nine hours – two more than Switch Lite
- The Switch may be getting a new processor and flash storage
- New standard Switch model will improve battery life 40 to 80 percent
- Nintendo is boosting Switch battery life through a slight hardware refresh
- The industry is still “developing games in a bubble”: FlavourWorks’ Jack Attridge says Conan O’Brien’s Clueless Gamer videos are proof of how inaccessible games have become
- “In the past, YouTubers were very problematic… Suddenly they became our allies”: How streaming can benefit storytellers, and the “serious problem with people not even finishing our games”
- CAA Signs Comedic Gaming Collective ‘Neebs Gaming’ (Exclusive)
- Control, alt, degree: Trinity Western to launch game development program this fall
- Big PC sales continue to rock EMEAA charts: GTA V back in the lead alongside resurgence of Borderlands games
- UK digital charts: Sales and anticipation lift Borderlands 2, Pre-sequel once more – Crash Team Racing holds on for one more week, before being dethroned by GTA V
- Gearbox wants crossplay in Borderlands 3, but it won’t launch with it
- UK Charts: Super Mario Maker 2 scores third consecutive No.1 – But Crash is snapping at Nintendo’s heels
- German consumers spent €4.4bn on video games in 2018: Mobile and consoles have overtaken PC as nation’s most popular games platforms
- MTG has invested $11m in games companies this year: H1 deals include Dorian, Tonk Tonk Games and Sviper
- Merge Games announces $4m indie publishing and marketing fund: UK publisher looking for multi-platform titles to support as it celebrates 10th anniversary
- Indie publisher Private Division splits from Swedish dev The Outsiders
- Video: Living the freelancing dream while avoiding the nightmare
- NetEase acquires minority stake in Behaviour Interactive: Partnership to help enhance Chinese game giant’s research and development efforts
- LuckyHammers shuts down: 70 employees affected by closure of Montreal-based studio
- Private Division has parted ways with Darkborn developer, The Outsiders: Publisher confirms split at end of last year, but financially supported dev for “several months” afterwards
- NetEase nabs minority stake in Dead by Daylight dev Behaviour Interactive
- Terraforming Mars dev LuckyHammers has closed down
- Outsourcing studio Pole to Win expands with Montreal office
- Surrogate raises $2m in seed round: Funding will go toward development of “Surrogate Reality” portfolio of games
- Sports Direct now owns 84% of GAME: Shares in UK games retailer will be removed from London Stock Exchange by August 12
- GameStop taps design firm R/GA to help keep its stores relevant
- GameStop plans to renovate stores, pilot new store concepts: Troubled retailer hopes to draw customers back in with local esports competitions and retro-only branches
- Pixion Games raises $2m toward mobile esports development: Seed funding to focus on core PvP experiences, expansion of “lunchtime esports”
- Spiritfarer wants to talk to you about death: Thunder Lotus CEO William Dubé and creative director Nicolas Guérin on the game’s conception and the personal stories that built it
- Lego Star Wars: Rise of TT Games: Game director James McLoughlin talks us through the evolution of the Lego games as the studio comes full circle with The Skywalker Saga
- Boom-shaka-laka: Call of Duty’s new “Gunfight” mode is like NBA Jam with guns
- The aggressive resource management of Doom Eternal
- Blog: The secrets of dynamic difficulty adjustment
- Blog: Finding the fun in monetizing Archero – Part 3
- ‘Things will go wrong’: The challenge of Dauntless’ day-one crossplay
- Don’t Miss: Designing Baba is You’s delightfully innovative rule-writing system
- Designing experimental game Cultist Simulator for commercial success
- Rumor: Apple Reportedly Suspends Work on Consumer AR Headset
- Overcooked 2 named Game of the Year at Develop:Star Awards: Sumo Digital, Playground Games take home multiple prizes in inaugural event
- Pokemon Detective Pikachu is the second highest grossing video game movie ever
- Blog: How music enhances virtual presence – Part 1
- Detective Pikachu becomes the highest-grossing video game movie: Film has brought in over $436m worldwide as five remaining territories push it over record set by Warcraft
- The Man in the High Castle creator to produce TV series based on Warhammer 40,000: Games Workshop, Big Light Productions partner for live action series, entitled Eisenhorn
- Atari 2600 rarity Extra Terrestrials goes on sale for $90,000
- U.S. Patent No. 5,805,784: Computer story generation system and method using network of re-usable substories
- Fashion in games: Why it matters
- Pakistani Minister Congratulates Pilot For Miraculous Save In Retweet Of GTA V Video
Jon
News of the Week; July 10, 2019
DIGITAL
- Once Again, Russian Internet Propaganda Efforts Shown To Be Much Bigger Than Originally Believed
- Report: Russian intel started the Seth Rich rumor to cover for DNC hack – Yahoo News’ Michael Isikoff claims SVR was the source of story in “ConspiracyLand” podcast.
- Appeals Court Affirms: Trump Can’t Block Followers On Social Media
- Pres. Trump Violates the Constitution By Blocking @RealDonaldTrump Followers–Knight First Amendment v. Trump
- Trump’s Twitter blocks violate First Amendment rights, appeals court affirms
- Prenda Law porn-troll saga ends with prison for founder
- Prenda’s John Steele Gets 5 Years In Prison; Insists He’s Really, Really, Really Sorry
- CBP Agents Flocked To Closed Facebook Groups To Post Bigoted Memes And Insult Detainees
- If You Want To Kill Google And Facebook, Leaving Section 230 Alone Is Your Best Hope
- France wants to fine Facebook over hate speech: The measure would force companies to remove content within 24 hours, and was approved by the lower house of the French Parliament Thursday
- Governor Cuomo Calls For Investigation Into Facebook’s Advertising Practices
- Wellness startup’s generic Viagra ads flout Facebook rules
- Facebook Unveils New Monetization Tools, Including More Creator Control Over ‘Ad Breaks’
- Facebook says it will launch experimental apps under NPE Team name: Facebook experiments… what could go wrong?
- Facebook Announces Libra Cryptocurrency and Calibra Wallet
- Why Libra Needs A Humanitarian Fig Leaf
- SEC Sues Social Media Co. Over $100 Million ICO
- Computer from NASA’s Apollo program reprogrammed to mine bitcoin
- Web Scraping Decisions Consider Contract Cause of Action
- Comments on Sen. Hawley’s “[Ending] Support for Internet Censorship Act” (Eric Goldman)
- Politicians Queue Up To Make France’s Proposed Law Against ‘Hateful Content’ Far, Far Worse
- Could ‘fake text’ be the next global political threat?: An AI fake text generator that can write paragraphs in a style based on just a sentence has raised concerns about its potential to spread false information
- Amazon Workers Plan Prime Day Strike at Minnesota Warehouse
- Court rules Amazon can be held responsible for defective third-party goods
- Amazon May Be Liable for Marketplace Items–Oberdorf v. Amazon (Eric Golman)
- “Close to 10%” of Autopilot software team reportedly departs after shakeup
- ‘Deep Fake’ Legislation Is On The Way, Threatening Free Speech Protections
- The UK’s Entire Approach To ‘Online Harms’ Is Backwards… And No One Cares
- UK ISPs Vilify Mozilla For Trying To Secure The Internet
- FTC Reportedly Considering Asking YouTubers To Turn Off Ads In The Name Of Child Privacy
- YouTube’s Cleanup Efforts Are Driving Business Opportunities for Creators, Says Product Chief Neal Mohan
- YouTube Updates Video Editing Tools, Allowing Creators To Automatically Release Manual Copyright Claims
- YouTube is making it much easier for creators to deal with copyright claims
- Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: The Case Of YouTube And ‘Hacking’ Videos
- Studio71 Signs Jacksepticeye, Joey Graceffa and Other YouTubers to Multichannel Network Roster
- Having 30,000 followers makes you a celebrity, UK advertising watchdog rules: The one time it might be ok to obsess over your follower count
- What Actually Counts As Good Engagement For Influencer Marketing?
- RTL Consolidates Digital Operations, Sets Ambitious Revenue Target
- Report: Struggling HQ Trivia developer cuts workforce by 20 percent
- Layoffs at HQ Trivia as downloads continue to fall: Troubled mobile company streamlines as it shifts towards subscriptions
- Report: TikTok was installed 344m times in first half of 2019
- TikTok Is A Mostly Untapped Space For Western Ecommerce — But Chinese Companies Are Using It To Make Millions
- Russell Simmons-Founded All Def Digital Lays Off Staff in Reorg; CEO Claims Company Isn’t Shutting Down
- Mobile Content Vs. Short-Form – It’s Not the Same Thing
- Beauty Brand Il Makiage Re-Launches Website With Micro Influencers To Solve Makeup’s Ecommerce Conundrum
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Serena Williams to Create Shows for Snapchat
- Snapchat snaps up shows from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maddie Ziegler
- Snapchat Launches ‘Creator Shows’ From Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kevin Hart, Serena Williams and Others – With Ad-Revenue Sharing Deals
- Snapchat Introduces New ‘Creator Shows’ Format With Emma Chamberlain, Rickey Thompson, FaZe Banks
- Snapchat is launching Creator Shows featuring stars and influencers: They’ll be five-minute shorts with around 10 episodes
- BuzzFeed Debuts First Snapchat Original, Weekday Trendy News Roundup ‘BTW’
- BBC Studios Invests in Short-Form Platform Quibi
- BBC Studios Invests In Quibi, Will Produce Original Nature Series ‘Fierce Queens’
- Why Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi Is Luring A-List Talent
- AT&T takes some Time Warner shows off Netflix, makes them exclusive to HBO Max
- Sony Pictures Buys Nurulize, a Virtual Production Software Startup
- IBM Patents a Watch That Unfolds Into a Full Tablet
- The computer conundrum: New technologies force the profession to deal with new ethical debates
- Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
- Behold, the most (intentionally) poorly designed website ever created
- Penetration testing takes on new meaning when cyber meets Harlequin
- The DMCA bell did not toll for a beloved musician—thus, I could grieve him
- Third parties confirm AMD’s outstanding Ryzen 3000 numbers: AMD has pulled ahead of Intel for the first time in 20 years.
- Microsoft releases Windows 1.11 throwback app as a Stranger Things tie-in
A.I.
- Lennon or McCartney? Machine learning tries to crack disputed Beatles authorship: Researchers at Harvard analysed 8 songs to find out which Beatle wrote them
- AI made from a sheet of glass can recognise numbers just by looking
- Training a single AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars in their lifetimes: Deep learning has a terrible carbon footprint.
- Tiny robot leaps around carrying its own battery, electronics
COMMUNICATIONS
- What we Heard – The Report of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review (BTLR) Panel
- Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review: What We Heard Report
- ‘Smoking gun’: Huawei staff employment records link them to Chinese military agencies
- “This is crazy”: FCC kills part of San Francisco’s broadband-competition law
- Killing Net Neutrality Rules Did Far More Harm Than You Probably Realize
- Amazon plans nationwide broadband—with both home and mobile service
- Amazon Jumps Into The Satellite Broadband Game
- AT&T’s robocall-blocking expansion won’t block spam calls unless you pay extra
- Coop Leader Testifies Regarding Inaccurate FCC Broadband Data
- T-Mobile says it can’t be sued by users because of forced-arbitration clause
- Last Woman Standing: Belittled by Viacom and CBS executives and insulted by her own father, Shari Redstone now sits atop a $30 billion media empire.
PRIVACY
- Court: It’s Cool If The (Federal) Government Searches A Phone The (Local) Government Seized Illegally
- Breaching the GDPR won’t fly with the ICO
- British airways to be fined a record £183m for data breach
- British Airways faces record-breaking GDPR fine after data breach: The ICO wants to fine the airline £183 million
- New UK ICO guidance on cookies and similar technologies
- GDPR: One Year On
- Can I buy a phone that doesn’t use anything from Google or Apple?: Steve does not like firms slurping up his data, so wants a device that respects his privacy
- Zoom for Mac made it too easy for hackers to access webcams. Here’s what to do [Updated]
- Silent Mac update nukes dangerous webserver installed by Zoom
- D-Link Settles With FTC, Agrees To Fix Its Shoddy Router Security
- Whitehats use DoS attack to score key victory against ransomware crooks
- Starter for five on Legislating the Internet of Things
- Months After The Law’s Enactment, California Law Enforcement Agencies Are Still Blowing Off Public Records Requests
- Voting Machine Makers Claim The Names Of The Entities That Own Them Are Trade Secrets
- Thinking Of Privacy As A Property Right Will End Badly
CREATIVITY
- In Canada and elsewhere, freedom of speech is on the endangered list
- Cameras should be welcomed in Canadian courtrooms: Forstner
- Health Canada’s new draft Guidance on Advertising versus Other Activities is now available
- New rules banning harmful gender stereotyping in advertising
- Indonesian Court Convicts Woman Of Criminal Defamation For Recording Her Boss Trying To Harass Her Into An Affair With Him
- Big Fair Use Win Concerning Andy Warhol’s Paintings Of Prince
- Whose Game is on? Carrie Underwood and NBC sued over SNF song
- Pirates of the Caribbean Copyright Suit Must Walk The Plank
- Copyright Infringement Claims Precluded by Plaintiff’s Own Patent Lawsuit
- Supreme Court to consider Abrogation of Sovereign Immunity under Copyright Law
- Supreme Court to address Whether Copyright Protection available for Annotated State Code
- Breach of confidence, copyright and database rights: live sports data
- International trademarks: Is the Madrid System right for you?
- Vegan Food Manufacturers Sue State Over Unconstitutional Law Banning Them From Using Meat Words
- Sound, Noise, Distinguish? The relationship between sound and intellectual property law (Shane Burke)
- 1H 2019 Quick Links, Part 2 (Keyword Advertising) (Eric Goldman)
- 1H 2019 Quick Links, Part 3 (Trademarks) (Eric Goldman)
GAMES
- Sensor Tower: Gaming accounted for 75% of total mobile revenue so far in 2019 – Game spending reaches nearly $30 billion this year
- Developers and G2A clash over the impact of grey market keys on indies
- No More Robots petition demands G2A drop all indie games: Mike Rose claims retailer is “lying” about his lack of contact, and low sales of Descenders via its marketplace “isn’t the fucking point”
- G2A: “We want to finally stop the accusations” – Divisive marketplace addresses developer complaints after indies called for players to pirate games rather than purchase from G2A
- G2A: “It’s a good thing that people can re-sell keys” – Marketplace says it aims to present a solution to current controversy later this week
- G2A image rehabilitation effort backfires: Platform says employee approached 10 sites to run undisclosed sponsored post, says it was unauthorized, “absolutely unacceptable”
- Indie Publishers Tell Gamers To Pirate Instead Of Buying Keys Through Reseller G2A
- GameStop: “As new subscription services evolve, we’ll evolve along with them” – US retail giant talks about surviving the digital transition by turning stores into experiences
- Take This rounds up data on crunch and mental health in the game industry
- For Warframe, live support means seeing development as a marathon, not a sprint
- New executive directors named for both the IGDA and the IGDA Foundation
- China’s biggest game devs join forces to create new age rating system
- Microsoft and Sony reportedly scaling back console production in China: President Trump’s trade war causing further disruption in tech sector manufacturing
- Report: Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo consider moving manufacturing out of China
- Nintendo will move parts of Switch production from China to Vietnam
- Nintendo moves some Switch production to Vietnam: Japanese publisher confirms the move is to diversify its manufacturing locations, and is unrelated to proposed tariffs
- “Xbox Game Pass is the first time subscription is fair for developers”: At Gamelab 2019, a panel of developers debated the breakthrough Microsoft has made with its subscription service
- Research lessons from the making (and near-breaking) ofHalo 2
- French government launches ‘Join the Game’ campaign to recruit game devs
- French government launches campaign to attract UK talent post-Brexit: UKIE CEO responds to Join the Game, which boasts tax breaks and funding for studios that relocate
- UK trade association asks government to counter France’s seduction of game devs
- TIGA calls for Video Game Investment Fund for UK devs to prevent post-Brexit exodus: “Governments in other jurisdictions will continue to seek to attract our successful studios and talented development staff”
- Yogscast cuts ties with Matthew ‘Caff’ Meredith after sexual harassment allegations: Meredith’s entire mod team abandons him as eight victims come forward in three days
- Obsidian has been “very careful” not to “lecture” players with politics in Outer Worlds: “I don’t want people to think this is a really hard, politically-charged game,” says co-director Leonard Boyarsky
- Google speaks to fuzzy game-ownership question in new Stadia FAQ
- tinyBuild CEO clears confusion on DRM stance after one rep says it’s “not smart business”: Alex Nichiporchik claims comments were result of not properly training community managers on the issue
- Hello Games: Positive No Man’s Sky stories “don’t do as well — and that’s a problem” – Sean Murray discussed his decision to stop talking to the press after the launch of No Man’s Sky
- League of Legends leads Fortnite as Twitch’s most viewed game of 2019
- League of Legends reclaims top spot on Twitch: Riot’s MOBA on track to exceed one billion hours viewed in 2019, as Fortnite begins to flag
- Former Riot and EA devs form new multiplayer studio, Vela Games
- Konami PES rebrand will help the series in Europe: “Talking about Pro Evolution Soccer — in Europe, it was always a tricky one”
- Former Paradox CEO defends studio’s continuous DLC model as ‘fair and balanced’
- Paradox’s Fredrik Wester defends company’s DLC policy:
- Former CEO says business model isn’t flawless but funds ongoing development and allows for experimentation
- The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: Why people see EA as the “bad guys”
- Tencent, Chinese gaming companies push new age rating system: Proposed system would have four categories, spearheaded by publishers and developers
- Official StarCraft mod makes the game look like a Saturday morning cartoon
- Don’t Miss: Devs measure the enduring influence ofStarCraft
- When will Disney get back into video games? | Opinion: Suggesting Disney should buy Activision Blizzard is half correct; its gaming strategy needs re-evaluation, but that’s the wrong acquisition
- Artifact designer says game is salvageable, but isn’t interested in damage control: “Valve is a smart company with lots of smart people working there, I think that it’s possible they can do that,” says Richard Garfield
- Layoffs at Endless Entertainment: Mobile studios behind Series Your Story Universe dismisses seven staff due to slowdown in development cycle
- RuneScape dev Jagex sold by parent company for $530 million
- Glass Bottom Games on taking “the biggest possible swing” with Skatebird
- How Zachtronics makes its games so GIFable: Studio founder Zach Barth discusses why screenshots are more important for indies than trailers
- Zachtronics offers free educational licenses for all of its games: SpaceChem and Opus Magnum dev advises educators to “understand” the games before showing them to students
- Blog: Why Academia: School Simulator hasn’t done as well as similar games
- Nintendo is ‘investigating’ 5G and streaming tech, but refuses to ‘chase trends’
- Shigeru Miyamoto: Games will still be fun without streaming: Legendary Nintendo designer says “it may look like we’re falling behind” but platform holder is still keeping up with new tech like VR
- Nintendo Switch Online now has over 10 million subscribers
- Bethesda: “We are bringing some people to Nintendo Switch” – Pete Hines discusses building new IP, the potential of streaming, and its recent love for Nintendo
- Super Mario Maker 2 holds UK No.1 in strong week for Nintendo Switch: Handheld game sales rise as summer months roll on
- The compact Switch Lite is Nintendo’s newest dedicated handheld
- Nintendo confirms portable-only, $200 “Switch Lite” for September [Updated]
- Nintendo: The 3DS isn’t about to be replaced by the Switch Lite
- Crash Team Racing nitro-boosts to stay at the top of EMEAA charts
- Beat Saber dev Beat Games shuffles leadership as CEO steps down
- Report: Facebook Signs Deal for ‘Assassin’s Creed’ & ‘Splinter Cell’ VR Games
- Grab the new XRDC Healthcare Report and see how AR/VR is changing medicine!
- Play as Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Silverhand in Metal Gear Solid 5
- Gaming Luminary DanTDM Concludes Arena-Only U.K. Tour Dubbed ‘The Contest’
- DrLupo, Who Raised $920,000 In 4 Hours For St. Jude, Honored As Hospital’s First ‘Creator Of The Year’
- Cuphead has sold 4 million copies and has a Netflix adaptation on the way
- Cuphead the game is becoming Cuphead the animated Netflix series
- Cuphead getting Netflix series: Syndication company behind Betty Boop and Popeye helping adapt vintage cartoon-styled game that has now sold more than 4 million
- U.S. Patent No. 8,858,328: Storage medium having game program stored therein, hand-held game apparatus, game system, and game method
- Shovel Knight has surpassed 2.5 million sales
- Mobile dev Million Victories raises $1.4 million
- Smite and Paladins developer Hi-Rez has opened its first UK studio
- Former Panic Button development director opens new studio Enduring Games
- My Friend Pedro’s journey from Flash cult hit to indie success
- Fall Guys developer Mediatonic cuts the ribbon on new Madrid studio
- Don’t Miss: How to design for coziness
- Don’t Miss: 50 common game camera mistakes — and how to fix them
- Don’t Miss: Monsters from the id: The making of the original Doom
- Blog: Generating world maps for Unexplored 2
- Watch Children of Morta’s lead dev explain its family-focused game design
- Video: Game design tools beyond spreadsheets and flowcharts
- Exploring special game modes in a roguelike context
- Keywords Studios opens recording studio for game localization in Brazil
- Behind the 12-year-old Wii Sports hoax that briefly fooled the Internet
- Fixing the past: The art of collecting pinball machines
Jon
News of the Week; July 3, 2019
DIGITAL
- Twitter Will Now Hide, Suppress Spread Of Government Officials’ Tweets That Violate Its Guidelines
- Twitter clarifies special rules for tweets by world leaders like Trump
- Boris Johnson, UK’s Answer To Trump, Offers A Masterclass In How To Use The Dead Cat Strategy Combined With A Google Bomb
- Chinese Border Agents Now Installing Malware On Foreigners’ Cellphones
- Deceptive marketing in the spotlight: Ticketmaster to pay Competition Bureau penalty of $4.5 million
- Retailers all but beg FTC to take action against Google, Amazon
- D-Link agrees to new security monitoring to settle FTC charges
- Amazon confirms it keeps your Alexa recordings basically forever
- Amazon can be held liable for defective third-party products on its platform, court rules: A potentially damaging precedent for the company
- Amazon Might Be Liable for Defective Marketplace Items (But Only When It Tries to Warn Consumers)–Fox v. Amazon (Eric Goldman)
- Taylor Swift To Headline Amazon’s Prime Day Concert Livestream
- It’s not that we’ve failed to rein in Facebook and Google. We’ve not even tried: The tech giants use our data not only to predict our behaviour but to change it. But we can resist this attack on democracy (Shoshana Zuboff)
- Researchers crack open Facebook campaign that pushed malware for years: Facebook removes pages following discovery of a campaign that hid in plain sight.
- Facebook Defeats Alabama Injunction for Lack of Jurisdiction–Facebook v. KGS (Eric Goldman)
- Ninth Circuit Rejects Facial Recognition Claim Against Facebook
- Facebook To Start Handing User Info To French Government So It Can Start Punishing People For Being Stupid
- Facebook’s new terms of service explains how ads get targeted: There are also new details on user rights to uploaded content and when you can appeal a ban
- As Facebook cracks down on hate speech, it’s also re-evaluating another policy: Nipples
- Libra: A centralised wolf in decentralised sheep’s clothes
- Facebook gets more official pushback on Libra
- BuzzFeed’s ‘Good Advice Cupcake Show’ To Be Facebook Watch’s First Animated Series
- Senator Lindsey Graham To Host Special ‘But Think Of The Children Online!’ Moral Panic Hearing
- We Should Probably Stop Blaming Technology For The Failings Of Human Beings
- Google announces new subsea cable ‘Equiano’, connecting Africa and Europe
- Gmail’s API lockdown will kill some third-party app access, starting July 15
- The End Of The Open Internet: Cory Doctorow’s Op-Ed From The Future
- CNIL Publishes Action Plan Regarding Online Targeted Advertising
- Bringing competition to the digital age: Commissioner Matthew Boswell intends that the Competition Bureau be a leading enforcement agency in the digital economy
- Is ‘This Time Different’ Concerning Big Internet Dominance?
- State Judge Prefers Prior Restraint To The First Amendment, Orders Blogger To Delete Supposedly Defamatory Posts
- Crazy Copyright Suit Over Gigi Hadid Posting A Photo Of Herself To Instagram Shows Absurdity Inherent In Photo Copyrights
- Gigi Hadid “Obliterates” copyrights with fair-use bazooka
- “But It’s on the Internet!” You Still Need a License to Use that Photo!
- Are GIFs Subject to Copyright?
- Trump Thinks That The Government Can And Should Sue Internet Companies Because He Doesn’t Like The People Who Work There
- Inside Story On The War On Backpage Raises All Sorts Of Legal Questions
- California’s Bot Transparency Law Goes into Effect on July 1, 2019
- Will California’s New Bot Law Strengthen Democracy?
- California Court Finds Section 230 Protects Decision to Suspend and Ban Twitter Account
- Section 230 Protects Snapchat from Liability for Cyberbullying–Grossman v. Rockaway Township (Eric Goldman)
- WSJ Op Ed Warns: Killing Section 230, Kills The Internet
- Yes, The EU Copyright Directive Does Have A Few Good Ideas — But They Need To Be Implemented Properly
- Latest Linkwrap on FOSTA’s Aftermath (Eric Goldman)
- Reddit ‘Quarantines’ Pro-Trump Subreddit Over Anti-Police Threats: Users allegedly threatened law enforcement ordered to find Republican senators
- The Trump Campaign Spent Hundreds Of Thousands To Take Over YouTube’s Masthead
- YouTube promises users more control over recommendations
- YouTube Vet Philip DeFranco Hits Play On ‘Rogue Rocket’ Channel With New Correspondents, Deeper Dives
- 30,000 followers makes you an Internet “celebrity,” says UK ad regulator
- The Internet broke today: Facebook, Verizon, and more see major outages
- FTC, FDA Caution E-Cig Companies About Influencer Marketing
- FTC Continues Enforcement of Unfair and Deceptive Online Activities
- FTC Announces First Actions Enforcing The Consumer Review Fairness Act
- Netflix Pledges to Cut Back Smoking Depictions in Original Productions After Group Blasts ‘Stranger Things’
- Gabby Douglas, Dashawn Jordan, Giannis Antetokounmpo To Attend VidCon As Part Of First Nike Sponsorship
- Jony Ive will depart Apple to start his own company
- Apple Design Guru Jony Ive to Depart to Form Independent Firm
- iPhone and iPad designer Jony Ive is leaving Apple after 27 years
- Report describing Jony Ive’s Apple exit gains a sharp response from Tim Cook
- Apple Music Tops 60 Million Subscribers, Including Users on Free Trials
- Samsung CEO calls Galaxy Fold launch failure “embarrassing”
- Russell Simmons’ All Def Digital Is Shutting Down, According To Sources
- Spotify Shuts Down Ability for Independent Artists to Upload Music Directly
- Spotify Signs Deal To Get Footloose With Kevin Bacon In Upcoming Comedy Podcast
- Tidal Launches Enhanced Credits Feature
- Instagram Will Integrate Ads Into ‘Explore’ Tab Over Coming Months
- The Streaming TV Sector Still Doesn’t Realize Exclusives Will Drive Users Back To Piracy
- Quibi Snags ‘Hunger Games’ Alum Liam Hemsworth For Thriller Amid $1 Billion Content Push
- Patenting Trends in Blockchain Innovations
- You too could now 3D print a Lamborghini Aventador at home: If you had some impressive STEAM physics, engineering and manufacturing skills, that is
- ICANN eliminates .org domain price caps despite lopsided opposition
- eSignature and ePayment News and Trends
- Tech competence should be required
- Batten Down the Hatches: Digital Tax Nor’easter Coming This Fall
- Microsoft is teasing Windows 1.0 and other 1980s software
- You Don’t Own What You’ve Bought: Microsoft’s Books ‘Will Stop Working’
A.I.
- When it comes to AI regulation, Canada can do better: Countries are considering the guiding philosophies
- Are You Talking To A Bot? – New CA Law Makes Disclosure the Best Option
- Is There Anybody Behind That Bot?
- Schools Are Using ‘Aggression Detecting’ Mics That Are Set Off By Coughing, Slamming Locker Doors To Head Off The Next School Shooting
- The first AI capable of simulating the universe works so well it’s scary
- FaceTime feature in iOS 13 feigns eye contact during video calls
- Mini neural networks mimic the human cerebrum
- I Welcomed Our New Robot Overlords At Amazon’s First AI Conference
- Signs from above: Drone with projector successfully trolls car AI
- AI Isn’t Making The Criminal Justice System Any Smarter
- Endless AI-generated spam risks clogging up Google’s search results: A ‘tsunami’ of cheap AI content could cause problems for search engines
- The future of AI research is in Africa: In the last few years, the machine-learning community has blossomed, applying the technology to challenges like food security and health care.
- The hidden labor supporting algorithms: “Ghost Work” reveals labor structures masked by technology
- Blog: Creating the the AI of Sea of Thieves – Part 4
COMMUNICATIONS
- What is the Point of the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review if the Government Has Already Decided What It Intends To Do? (Michael Geist)
- Canadian CEO Penalized for His Company’s CASL Breaches
- Sinclair Faces Expanded Probe For Shady Behavior During Tribune Merger
- Supreme Court Declines to Decide whether FCC Orders Bind District Courts
- House votes to block Ajit Pai’s plan to kill San Francisco broadband law
- Former Head Of Ajit Pai’s Broadband Advisory Council Is Headed To Prison For Fraud
- Pai’s FCC Crushes Rules That Brought More Broadband Competition To San Francisco
- T-Mobile enemy Dish could help save the T-Mobile/Sprint merger: Dish could resell T-Mobile/Sprint network access in deal to save merger.
- Frontier customer bought his own router—but has to pay $10 rental fee anyway
- NASA, NOAA, and the Navy Tell The FCC Its 5G Plan Will Harm Weather Forecasting
- The Press Needs An Intervention When It Comes To Over-Hyping 5G
PRIVACY
- Now TikTok is facing a UK investigation over children’s data
- SCHREMS 2.0 – the demise of Standard Contractual Clauses and Privacy Shield?
- Superhuman says it will disable email read receipts by default after privacy controversy: Pixel tracking is still an option, but it’ll be limited
- Taser maker says it won’t use facial recognition in bodycams
- Axon Ethics Board Pulls Plug On Facial Recognition Tech Being Added To Its Body Cameras
- Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia
- Deepfakes and Other Disinformation Pose Growing Business Threats, Say WilmerHale Lawyers
- Author pulls software that used deep learning to virtually undress women
- Somerville, Massachusetts Becomes The Second US City To Ban Facial Recognition Tech
- These are a few of our favorite IoT: NIST finalizes Internet of Things cyber guidance
- Watching Me, Watching You – IoT Camera Hacks Surge
- Another Report Shows The GDPR Benefited Google And Facebook, And Hurt Everyone Else
- New York Data Privacy Law
- New York Senate Considers Sweeping New Privacy Bill That Would Create a Fiduciary Duty to Consumers
- Maine Enacts Broadband Privacy Law
- Hackers Have Been Stealing User Data From Global Cell Networks Since 2012
- Benefit of the but-for bargain: Assessing economic tools for data privacy litigation
- Ryuk, Ryuk, Ryuk: Georgia’s courts hit by ransomware
- Georgia courts (mostly) shrug off ransomware attack
- Florida LAN: Someone clicks link, again, giving Key Biscayne ransomware
- New ransomware infections are the worst drive-by attacks in recent memory
- “We need to up our game”—DHS cybersecurity director on Iran and ransomware
- Documents Show The NSA’s Abuse Of Its Phone Records Collection Continued Right Up Until Its Decision To Pull The Plug
- Department of State Requests Social Media Profile Identifiers
- Smile, Your City Is Watching You: Local governments must protect your privacy as they turn to “smart city” technology.
- Here We Go Again: Trump Administration Considers Outlawing Encryption
- Standard Contractual Clauses and EU-US Privacy Shield – Under scrutiny
- Cookie consent – What “good” compliance looks like according to the ICO
CREATIVITY
- SCOTUS: Lanham Act’s Ban on Registration of “Immoral or Scandalous” Marks Unconstitutional
- Why the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision to Allow Federal Registration of FUCT Impacts Every Day Businesses
- UMG Tries To Block O-Town’s Trademark Application Over Its Motown Record Label
- Gibson Guitar Declares Shift In IP Enforcement After Most Recent Public Backlash
- NBC and Carrie Underwood Face Lawsuit Over NFL Sunday Night Football Theme Song
- Banning harmful gender stereotypes in advertising – what you should know
- Brazilian court bans subway performers
- College Forgets How The First Amendment Works; Targets Its Own Student Newspaper With A Public Records Request
- The Root weeds out ebony’s Lanham Suit
- Zion Williamson’s Legal Battle with His Former Marketing Agency
- Andy Warhol’s “Prince Series” Ruled Fair Use
- Second Circuit Holds New York’s Met Museum Can Keep Picasso’s The Actor
- Who Owns the Law? Supreme Court to Decide if State Governments Can Copyright Legal Texts
- U.S. Supreme Court to Review Copyrightability of Privately-Produced Annotated State Statutory Compilations
- Inaccurate Copyright Application, Without a Plausible Excuse from the Copyright Owner, Leads to Invalidation of Registration
- Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreements and the Harmonisation of Copyright Law at International Level: Lessons to be Learned from the TTIP (Christophe Geiger)
- 1H 2019 Quick Links, Part 1 (Copyright & More) (Eric Goldman)
GAMES
- Bots and Cheaters Lose as League of Legends is awarded a $10 Million Payout
- Esports contract dispute: Seeking to set an industry standard
- Industry tells UK lawmakers it wants more research into gaming disorder: Commons committee not left reassured following latest immersive and addictive technologies inquiry hearing
- Adolescents and loot boxes: links with problem gambling and motivations for purchase (David Zendle, Rachel Meyer & Harriet Over)
- Digital Minister Margot James defends loot boxes: But MP calls for more research into link between gaming and gambling, and says firms with aggressive monetisation should be “brought into line”
- Man sentenced to 2 years in prison for 2013 DDoS attack against Daybreak
- Man behind Daybreak Games DDoS sentenced to two years in prison: Series of attacks against formerly-Sony Online Entertainment, Battle.net, Dota 2, others also asked to pay $95,000 in damages
- “The games industry has some maturation to do in understanding data protection law”: Information Commissioner tells Parliament it will audit publishers and developers as it works on Age Appropriate Design Code
- Chinese government revokes business license of Devotionpublisher Indievent
- Chinese government reportedly revokes Indievent’s business license: Devotion publisher previously cut ties with developer Red Candle Games following discovery of in-game art mocking Chinese president
- DrDisrespect returns to Twitch after ban over E3 livestream: Guy Beahm was widely criticised for streaming from a public bathroom during E3 2019
- Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm offers statement after E3 bathroom filming fiasco: Beahm says “laws/repercussions of filming in the bathroom” simply didn’t occur to him
- Dr DisRespect Apologizes For Public Bathroom Stream, Teases Twitch Return Next Week
- Mordhau developer denies plans for gender/diversity toggle after describing plans for said toggle
- Mordhau developer denies it was planning a “toggle” for diversity [Updated]
- Wolfenstein: Youngblood will not be altered for German release – International version of the game will be available in Germany, complete with Nazi imagery
- Indie Developers Change Game Name Over Bethesda Trademark Dispute
- Epic pledges to cover refund costs for crowdfunded Epic Games Store exclusives
- The Gaming Platform Wars Are Beginning To Screw Up Crowdfunding Games
- The Game Outcomes Project isn’t returning for its 2018-19 edition
- Don’t Miss: The Game Outcomes Project: Learning how teams succeed and fail
- Super Mario Maker 2: Critical Consensus – A complete and well-rounded experience universally praised by critics
- Nintendo Does The Nintendo: ‘Mario Royale’ Fan Game Becomes ‘DMCA Royale’… And Is Now Dead
- Dear Nintendo: Here Are Some Ways You Could Be A Little More Cool, Man
- Miyamoto: Costs and dwindling appeal make new adventure games a hard sell
- Steam works wonders for the retail PC market – 10 Years Ago This Month: Valve buddies up with GameStop, BioWare talks industry maturity, and the expensive peripheral trend cools off
- Indie developers suggest Steam Summer Sale confusion is hurting their games: Misreading of “Grand Prix” promotion seems to be causing spike in wishlist removals.
- Paradox exec: Steam’s 30% fee is “outrageous”
- Devs hit by Steam promo confusion as games are pulled from Wishlists 10
- Valve clarifies Steam Sale event after devs chart declining wishlists
- Epic Games will foot refund bill for Shenmue III, future crowdfunded exclusives
- Shenmue 3 dev to offer backer refunds over Epic Games Store exclusivity
- Angry Shenmue III backers can get refunds after Epic Game Store move
- Shenmue 3 PC backers will get refunds over Epic exclusivity: Ys Net and Deep Silver will reimburse backers who expected a Steam key for the game
- Video: Darkest Dungeon’s ‘camp counselor’ approach to community management
- Maybe Epic’s Claims For Exclusivity Strategy To Benefit The Gaming Industry Isn’t Entirely Crazy
- Developers call for players to pirate their games rather than buy from G2A: Studio and publisher behind Descenders decry controversial retailer’s sponsored ads, Rami Ismail backs them up
- Editor Roundtable: What’s up with game subscription services?
- EA: “I struggle with the perception that we’re just a bunch of bad guys” – Behind the big blockbusters, EA is offering very friendly deals for indie developers — EVP Matt Bilbey tells us why
- Antonick v. Electronic Arts, Inc.
- EVE players are plotting revenge after alien invasion mostly just annoyed everyone: Though initially terrifying, the Drifter Invasion of EVE Online quickly became tedious and boring.
- Street Fighter characters to be used in Osaka police recruitment ads: Capcom consents to have iconic characters used to recruit “cyber-crime” investigators
- Google Stadia exec isn’t worried about data caps—but he probably should be
- Stadia purchases and saves will remain accessible, even if a publisher pulls support
- Stadia head: Devs, publishers, and players aren’t ready for a subscription-only platform
- PlayStation Vue applies a $5-a-month increase to all live TV plans
- Sony considers turning to studio acquisitions as competition rises
- Jim Ryan says Sony is looking at studio acquisitions: “Companies new to the games industry looking at the market with hope is something we definitely welcome”
- Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo Say Trump Tariffs Will Make Game Consoles Hugely More Expensive
- Gumi lays off 32 with closure of Gumi Europe
- Free-to-play studio Redhill Games secures $11.4 million investment
- Square Enix: “We always look out for new IP” – President Yosuke Matsuda on Avengers, Final Fantasy VII, game streaming and its commitment to new projects
- This GTA 6 ‘leak’ is detailed, but almost certainly fake
- Farming Simulator 19 sold over two million copies
- Focus Home reports record year as Farming Simulator 19passes 2 million sold
- Age of Empires series still attracts more than a million players each month: “And the numbers keep going up,” almost 15 years after the last full game
- Call of Duty League adds LA, Minnesota slots: LA’s Immortals Gaming Club to compete under OpTic Gaming brand
- Riot Games teams up with Nielsen to measure brand exposure for esports sponsors: “We have the opportunity to help monetise Riot Games’ platform and validate this growing market”
- YouTube Millionaires: ‘QJB,’ One Of YouTube’s Longest-Running Gaming Channels, Says Staying Consistent Is The Key To Keeping Fans
- Nexon becomes majority owner of fledgling Swedish studio Embark
- Age of Empires series brings in over 1 million players each month
- Weather Factory on the advantages of being “weird and divisive”: Co-founder Lottie Bevan talks about scrapping the studio’s plans based on a single tweet, and how open development keeps experimental games on track
- Remedy obtains publishing rights to Alan Wake: Remedy talks up possibility of multiplatform release for the cult Xbox 360 favourite
- Report: Microsoft still planning a low-cost, streaming-focused Xbox
- Remedy has acquired the publishing rights to Alan Wakefrom Microsoft
- Village Roadshow has acquired the television and film rights to Myst
- id Software’s origin story set to become USA Network TV series
- Guidemaster: Is Valve Index the best virtual reality system to buy in 2019?
- Valve is exploring ‘several ways’ of doing untethered Index VR
- Valve is already exploring “untethered” Index VR hardware: Gabe Newell placed new headset alongside Half-Life and Steam as a “milestone” for the company
- Valve to release Index 3D models to aid VR headset and controller mods
- Valve Index makes VR prettier, but it’s the controllers that steal the show
- Valve releases CAD files for Index headset: Modeling, design files aim to encourage mod-ability, including “frunk” accessories
- Digital Minister wants UK Games Fund to continue: James declares £5m financing initiative a success but extension depends on next government spending review
- South East, London, North West, and Scotland are largest UK dev centres, TIGA reveals: Over half of UK industry based outside London and South East
- Series: Your Story Universe developer Endless Entertainment lays off 7 staff
- Entrepreneurs educate by gamifying the law
- U.S. Patent No. 4,738,451: Multi-player, multi-character cooperative play video game with independent player entry and departure
- Why Clint Hocking wanted every NPC in Watch Dogs: Legion to be playable
- Tilting Point promises more than $20 million for UA costs in CookApps publishing deal
- Artifact’s pricing and value didn’t quite line up, says consulting designer
- Zachtronics games are now free for public schools and educational nonprofits
- The complicated process of porting Graveyard Keeper to consoles and mobile
- Blog: Charting the pacing of Uncharted 2 – Part 2
- Blog: Historians discuss Total War: Three Kingdoms
- Blog: How game developers can get the most out of Discord
- Blog: MVP like Nintendo in 1980
- Summer Games Done Quick closes 2019 event with $3 million raised for MSF
Jon
News of the Week; June 26, 2019
DIGITAL
- Once Again: It’s Not Clear The Internet Needs Creepy Targeted Ads
- Facebook usage falling after privacy scandals, data suggests: Actions such as shares and likes down nearly 20%, though user numbers still growing
- Facebook adds new limits to address the spread of hate speech in Sri Lanka and Myanmar
- Facebook to identify French hate speech suspects
- Exclusive: In a world first, Facebook to give data on hate speech suspects to French courts
- Australia Says Media Companies Can Be Sued Over User Comments On Facebook
- Court Declines to Dismiss Data Breach Claims Against Facebook Based on Access Token Incident–Bass v. Facebook
- Your Periodic Reminder That Facebook Isn’t a State Actor–Williby v. Zuckerberg
- If Facebook or Google create their own currency, they can control our lives
- Facebook Rolls Out Political Advertising Tools Globally
- After Months of Rumors, Facebook Officially Announces New Libra Cryptocurrency
- Facebook’s New Currency Has Big Claims and Bad Ideas: Libra is an ideological project, not a practical one.
- Why Facebook’s Libra Cryptocurrency Is Both More Interesting Than Expected And Less Interesting Than I Hoped
- Quadriga Founder Spent Client Money, Bankruptcy Monitor Says: Ernst & Young says Gerald Cotten, late founder of defunct Canadian cryptocurrency exchange, funneled client money into fraudulent accounts
- New crypto-currency rules come as enforcement ramps up
- Instagram will start putting ads within the Explore page: Ads everywhere
- Facebook makes another push to shape and define its own oversight
- District Court Finds Use of Third-Party Hashtags Created Implied Association
- Fake news game confers psychological resistance against online misinformation
- Sudan court orders company to end military-ordered internet blackout: lawyer
- Indian Gov’t Uses National Security Law, Bad Information To Block Twitter Accounts All Over The World
- Russian Government Demands All Foreign Press Outlets Register For The Privilege Of Delivering News To Russia
- FedEx sues US government over export controls after Huawei problems
- After Decades Of Demanding China ‘Respect’ US Patent Law, Senator Rubio Pushes Law That Says US Can Ignore Huawei Enforcing Patents
- If China Is A Glimpse Of Our Future Surveillance Nightmare, Maybe Hong Kong Shows How To Fight It
- Trump Ponders Banning All Chinese-Made Gear From US 5G Networks
- The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 17: What To Do About Huawei? – Christopher Parsons Unpacks One of Canada’s Most Challenging Policy Issues (Michael Geist)
- YouTube Reportedly In Late Stages Of Federal Investigation For Violating Children’s Privacy Laws
- YouTube reportedly under investigation over alleged child protection breaches: “An FTC investigation into YouTube’s treatment of children online is long overdue,” says US lawmaker
- YouTube spreads ‘misleading information’ about experimental stem cell treatments: Health Canada has warned unlicensed clinics are offering unauthorized cell therapies and making unproven, outsized claims
- LGBTQ+ YouTube Employees Could Face Consequences If They Protest Steven Crowder Decision At Pride (Report)
- Meghan Trainor To Headline VidCon Kickoff Concert ‘YouTube Onstage’
- In The Ever More Crowded Streaming Space, YouTube Is “Zigging Where Other People Are Zagging,” Susanne Daniels Says
- YouTube Rolls Out 3 Tools To Give Viewers More Control Over Suggested Videos
- YouTube Music Can Now Auto-Save 500 Suggested Songs For Offline Consumption
- Top 50 Most Viewed U.S. YouTube Channels • Week Of 6/23/2019
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 6/23/2019
- Google CEO Admits That It’s Impossible To Moderate YouTube Perfectly; CNBC Blasts Him
- YouTube Confirms Test Of Feature That Hides Comments By Default On Android App
- Google Hardware quits the tablet business, again
- Google is killing YouTube’s “Hangouts on Air” this year
- Kingsley Returns To YouTube After Yearlong Absence, Says #YouTubeBlack “Changed My Life”
- Firefighters Used YouTube Videos To Rescue Ducklings Trapped In Storm Drain
- ‘Siphoning off the crap’: Agencies prioritize buying premium content directly on YouTube
- Yoga Influencers’ Disclosures Show Limits of Flexibility
- Andy Signore Settles Lawsuit Against Defy Media, Is “Looking Forward To Exposing The Truth”
- Cameo raises $50m for its celebrity-shoutouts app
- Cameo Raises $50 Million In Series B, Has Hosted 275,000 Video Shoutouts In 2 Years
- BBTV Signs Kwebbelkop, Family Fun Pack, And Athletes Anthony Adams And Tristan Jass
- UK May Have Finally Ditched Its Absurd Porn Filter Plan
- Before Demanding Internet Companies ‘Hire More Moderators,’ Perhaps We Should Look At How Awful The Job Is
- Review: Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It’s time to switch. – Our latest privacy experiment found Chrome ushered more than 11,000 tracker cookies into our browser – in a single week.
- Insights: The Young Turks Will Intertwine Their Values With Their Ad Dollars, But Can Other Media Sites Afford To Follow?
- After Teaming With Emma Chamberlain, Louis Vuitton Invites The Dolan Twins To Paris Fashion Week
- With new leadership, Snapchat makes friends among marketers and publishers in Cannes
- Sorry, ads are coming to TikTok
- Vice Media to shut down operations in Montreal
- Wattpad strikes Mediaset agreement
- BET’s Upcoming Streaming Service To Be Joint Venture With Tyler Perry
- Netflix Is Testing A Pop-Out Player On Desktops So You Can Multitask While You Watch
- The Obamas’ First Netflix Feature, ‘American Factory,’ Is Headed To Theaters
- Implications from New Hampshire Lottery Commission v. Barr
- Hulu Is Already The SVOD Growth Story of 2019
- Disney Is Saying All the Right Things About the Hulu-Disney+ Relationship: The company will work to keep its divided streaming offerings on the same page.
- Disney Pushing To “Significantly” Expand Hulu’s Original Programming, Says CEO Randy Freer
- The New Takedown Obligations in the EU for Online Content-Sharing Service Providers
- EU Intellectual Property Office Produces Dumbest Propaganda Film Ever, Pretending Without IP There Is No Creativity
- The Paywall Conundrum: Even Those Who Like Paying For News Don’t Pay For Much News
- The Raspberry Pi 4 launch site runs on a Pi 4 cluster
- Proposed Law Would Force Big Tech to Reveal Value of Consumer Data
- Explainer: How Letting Platforms Decide What Content To Facilitate Is What Makes Section 230 Work
- Legislators Propose Narrowing § 230’s Protections
- Supposedly Disadvantaged Conservatives Not Exactly Rushing To Support Josh Hawley’s Anti-Section 230 Bill
- Self-Made Millionaire Loses Lawsuit Over Facebook’s Removal Of Videos Of People Urinating
- The Plaintiff Is Probably Pissed About Section 230–Fyk v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
- Don’t Shoot The Message Board: A Data Driven Look At The Impact Of Section 230 On Innovation And The Economy
- Locksmiths Locked Out: Court Affirms Immunity for Use of Tools That Portray Third-Party Content Pictorially or as an Aggregate Metric
- Concerns about misinformation could lead to limits on key media freedoms
- Guy Pushing Hawley’s ‘Viewpoint Neutrality’ Concept In The Media Used To Write For White Supremacist Site
- States Limit Employer Access to Employee Social Media and Other Internet Accounts
- Amazon takes on TCL’s Roku TV with low-cost HDR Fire TV
- Amazon patents ‘surveillance as a service’ tech for its delivery drones: Including technology that cuts out footage of your neighbors house
- Amazon got clearance to build drones that can carry out surveillance on customers’ homes between deliveries
- Nicosia v. Amazon (U.S. District Ct., Eastern District of New York, Memorandum & Order June 14, 2019)
- Hackers, farmers, and doctors unite! Support for Right to Repair laws slowly grows
- Bill Gates calls failure to fight Android his “greatest mistake”
- Researchers develop ‘vaccine’ against attacks on machine learning
- Ontario Human Rights Commission looking at AI impact on racial profiling: OHRC to create policy guidance on artificial intelligence in policing
- Who’s that bot? California requires clear disclosure starting 7/1/2019
- McCormick’s concept grill plays music based on what you’re cooking: The SUMR HITS 5000 has a built-in DJ to (kind of) spice up your BBQs.
- How Machine Learning Turned Major Lazer’s ‘Make It Hot’ Into Vertical Video
- The trick to saving human factory jobs might be teaming up with the machines
- Queen’s Law partners with European business school for AI project: Collaboration could lead to breakthrough in IP law on both sides of the Atlantic
- Artificial Intelligence and Copyright Protection
- Report from AI Decoding IP: Day 1
- The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
- Is Artificial Intelligence Set to Transform Private Equity Dealmaking?
- Oxford Business Blog highlights Prof. Dignam’s work on AI
- Artificial Intelligence: The Very Human Dangers of Dysfunctional Design and Autocratic Corporate Governance (Alan Dignam)
- The company that owns TikTok now has one billion users and many are outside China
- German regulator says it discovered new illegal software on Daimler diesels
- A History of IP in 50 Objects: Internet (Jonathan Zittrain)
- A paper towel dispenser with an end-user license agreement is a special kind of hell
- Modern Courts and the Need for Judicial Technological Competence
- Major League Baseball’s Obsession With Cashing In On Everything Has Harmed The Game’s Popularity Online
COMMUNICATIONS
- A Spectrum of Opportunities and Challenges: Canada’s 5G Future
- Ex-chair of FCC broadband committee gets five years in prison for fraud
- Robocalls Swamp Hospitals As The Trump FCC Pretends To Fix The Problem
- FCC Tees Up Mid- and High-Band Spectrum Auctions to Support 5G at July Open Meeting
- FCC Releases Draft Order on Changes to Children’s Television Rules – Action Expected July 10
- Ajit Pai tries to kill San Francisco’s attempt to spur broadband competition
- FCC battles meteorologists again over plan to help wireless industry
- FCC lets Verizon lock cell phones to network for 60 days after activation
- Verizon Now Pretending That 5G Will Help Cure Cancer
- AT&T sued over hidden fee that raises mobile prices above advertised rate
- AT&T Ratchets Up The Content Wars
- States Flex Their Muscles and Antitrust Skills to Block Sprint/T-Mobile Merger
- Dish To Buy Parts of T-Mobile To Save Sprint Merger, But It’s Not Likely To Help
- No, Your Kid Isn’t Growing Horns Because Of Cellphone Use
- Another EEO Audit Released – Looking at the FCC’s Current EEO Obligations
- House subcommittee approves bipartisan robocall bill
- Deference to Agency Jurisdiction Still Unanswered: SCOTUS Fails to Resolve Whether an FCC Order Interpreting the TCPA is Binding on Federal District Courts
- Private Publishers Aren’t State Actors–Manhattan Community Access v. Halleck
PRIVACY
- Why data ownership is the wrong approach to protecting privacy (Cameron Kerry & John Morris)
- “Gonna stand my ground; And I won’t back down”¹ – The OPC charges forward with its controversial consultation on transborder dataflows/transfers for processing
- Nation-sponsored hackers likely carried out hostile takeover of rival group’s servers: Like an episode of Spy vs. Spy, Russian-speaking Turla appears to hijack OilRig’s network.
- As The DOJ Continues To Complain About Encryption, Cellebrite (Again) Announces It Can Crack Any IPhone
- Australian Home Affairs Minister Says Government Still Considering Spying On Its Own Citizens
- DHS cyber director warns of surge in Iranian “wiper” hack attacks
- Iranian state hackers reload their domains, release off-the-shelf RAT malware
- A rogue Raspberry Pi helped hackers access NASA JPL systems
- Potent Firefox 0-day used to install undetected backdoors on Macs: So far, attacks are known only to target Mac users involved in cryptocurrency.
- A tale of two cities: Why ransomware will just get worse
- Can’t Have Copyright Enforcement Without Destroying Privacy Protections
- Canadian global leadership on data protection
- Data compliance goes global: Vivek Narayanadas, in-house counsel for Shopify, has his hands full navigating privacy and data protection laws around the world.
- Privacy FAQs: If a company receives a right to be forgotten request, is it required to delete records that show whether an individual opted-in or opted-out from marketing?
- Privacy Report: Three Dating Apps Removed from App Store After Potential COPPA Violations
- Maine and Nevada’s New Data Privacy Laws and the California Consumer Privacy Act Compared
- Want Companies to Comply with the CCPA? Delay Its Effective Date
- State Privacy Laws Continue to Proliferate
- Sshh: Alexa can hear you
- Top 5 ways GDPR impacted digital banking in its first year
- Interior Department Putting Even More Effort Into Dodging FOIA Request
CREATIVITY
- The Copyright Board Game (Howard Knopf)
- Unbalanced Witness List: Why the Copyright Review Was Right To Ignore the Canadian Heritage Committee Study, Part Three (Michael Geist)
- Limited Views: Why the Copyright Review Was Right To Ignore the Canadian Heritage Committee Study, Part Two (Michael Geist)
- Ignoring the Evidence: Why the Copyright Review Was Right To Ignore the Canadian Heritage Committee Study, Part Four (Michael Geist)
- Better Data, Better Results: Comparing the Gap Between the Copyright Review and Heritage Study on the Music Industry’s Policy Proposals (Michael Geist)
- Universal Music Cashed In On Insurance After It Let Thousands Of Master Recordings Burn… And Didn’t Give Any To Artists
- Just Don’t Infringe Copyright, Kawhi Leonard Tells Nike
- Kawhi Leonard v. Nike Inc.: How copyrights can trump trademarks?
- Raptors Win but Trademark still under Claw
- Stephen Curry’s “Holey Moley” Faces Trademark Complaint in California Court
- Appellate Court leaves open question of good faith in copyright litigation
- Supreme Court to Decide Whether States Can Copyright Annotated State Law
- Supreme Court To Review Whether Or Not You Can Copyright State Laws
- Supreme Court to Rule on Whether Sovereign Immunity Protects States from Copyright Infringement Claims
- Have We Learned Anything from Pepe the Frog About Copyright Law?
- US Supreme Court Strikes Down Ban of ‘Scandalous’ Trademarks
- Supreme Court Now Says That The Trademark Office Can’t Reject ‘Immoral Or Scandalous’ Trademarks
- SCOTUS: Ban on “FUCT” trademark registration violates First Amendment
- F-*-C-T- U.S. Supreme Court strikes down ban on registration of immoral or scandalous marks
- Supreme Court Says “Scandalous” Trademarks May be Registered
- Caterpillar Now Going After All The Cats For Trademark Cancellations
- Surge in Defamation Claims: What is Causing the Increase?
- French Museum filled with fakes still questioning how it happened a year on
GAMES
- Rovio files trademark lawsuit against hot chicken restaurant ‘Angry Birdz’
- Rovio sues California chicken restaurant over Angry Birds trademark: Finnish developer alleges Angry Birdz Nashville Hot Chicken violating trademark on both name and logo
- Law against account boosting goes into effect in South Korea
- Cease-and-desist transforms Mario Royale into DMCA Royale
- Don’t Miss: Dissecting the revolutionary game design ofSuper Mario Kart
- Super Mario Maker 2 review: A great sequel, playable on a better console
- Epic and EA execs squirm under scrutiny from British MPs: Testimonies arouse suspicion and dismay from members of immersive and addictive technology inquiry
- British technology inquiry chair says industry is only “paying lip service” to gaming addiction: King Digital, UKIE, TIGA, others struggle to convince MPs that games industry is taking issues like loot boxes seriously
- At U.K. Parliament Hearing, Electronic Arts Says Its Loot Boxes Aren’t Loot Boxes
- EA: Loot boxes actually “surprise mechanics” that are “ethical and fun” – Gaming reps at UK parliamentary panel also answer charges of addictive game design.
- Gimme the loot – United States proposes ban on loot boxes
- Anthem’s rocky launch hasn’t dissuaded EA, says CEO
- EA sees Bioware’s Anthem on “seven to ten year cycle”: CEO Andrew Wilson admits the publisher “might not invest further” if players were not compelled by the experience
- Jedi: Fallen Order hands-on: Finally, a solid EA Star Wars game—is that enough?
- Patrick Söderlund’s $20m retention bonus didn’t leave EA with him: Stock grant reportedly returned to company pool used for initiatives including new hires
- Security firms demonstrate subdomain hijack exploit vs. EA/Origin
- Twitch takes action against trolls amid artifact’s downfall
- Twitch introduces Subscriber Streams: New feature allows Partners and Affiliates to set some streams as only for paid channel subscribers
- YouTuber JacksFilms Accuses ‘Fortnite’ Of Stealing, Selling His Deep Dab
- Desmond ‘Etika’ Amofah found dead at 29: Nintendo-focused YouTuber had been missing since last week after video threatening self-harm
- YouTuber And Twitch Streamer Desmond ‘Etika’ Amofah Found Dead At Age 29
- Razer cuts ties with streamer following Twitter remarks about men: Brazilian streamer removed from company’s influencer program after tweeting that “men are trash”
- Popular Gamers Mini Ladd And BigJigglyPanda To Embark On 27-City ‘Demonetized’ Tour
- Saving Fallout 76: Bethesda’s Pete Hines on using the lessons from The Elder Scrolls Online to fix a rare misstep for Bethesda Game Studios
- The U.S. Government has blocked League of Legends in Iran and Syria
- League of Legends reportedly blocked in Iran: Riot Games’ message to Iranian users attributed block to “US laws and regulations
- Just 15% of European gamers are interested in Google Stadia and xCloud: According to the latest survey results from GameTrack for UK, France, Spain and Germany
- Teamfight Tactics is a super fun Auto Chess variant, despite frustrating RNG: League of Legends’ take on the mod is a winner.
- Square Enix “Ethics Department” advised changes on Final Fantasy VII character: Alterations to Tifa’s character model centred around wardrobe, not breast size, and were guided by internal ethics group
- Square Enix partners with Gary Sinise Foundation to raise cash for first responders
- Project Babel dev Colopl says employees inflated sales to boost app rankings
- CD Projekt Red: “Everyone is feeling the pressure on Cyberpunk 2077” – But the studio’s new crunch stance has been a boost to staff morale, says quest director
- QA bears the brunt of Treyarch’s crunch and culture issues, say staff
- Stories of crunch, neglect for QA at Treyarch: Call of Duty Black Ops 4 employees and contractors describe unfair treatment, disregard for contractor work force
- Bungie pushes back Destiny 2 fix to maintain dev work-life balance
- Bungie delays Destiny 2 patch to avoid crunch: Community asked to wait in the name of “preserving work-life balance”
- The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: Why do we need unions?
- The subtle art of crisis management: From epic crunch to 8chan AMAs, the games industry is never far from a scandal — but PR professionals face many challenges when reacting to calamity
- Console makers seek to avoid 25% price bump driven by Trump’s trade war
- Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony pen letter against Trump’s game console tariff
- Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo: 25% tariff on consoles would cause “disproportionate harm”: Letter from leading hardware manufacturers says tariff on hardware made in China would hurt economy, jobs, innovation
- “Iwata Asks” developer interviews will become a book: Earthbound creator’s company to publish collection of discussions between late Nintendo president and developers
- Nintendo chooses Israel for its second official store: First new outlet in 14 years now open, Tokyo stored planned for later this year
- Tel Aviv is now home to Nintendo’s second official store
- Sega sees streaming’s potential to reach new audiences
- How id built Wolfenstein 3D using Commander Keen tech
- Ninja To Release How-To Gaming Guide, Graphic Novel As Part Of Three-Book Deal
- Alpha Protocol removed from Steam as music rights expire: Sega says it still owns the IP, but nine-year-old game contains songs that would need re-licensing
- Steam now has an official LGBTQ+ tag, hub page: Category appears following Nepenthe developer’s request on Steam forums
- Steam and Ubuntu clash over 32-bit libs
- Steam ending support for Ubuntu over 32-bit compatibility
- Don’t Miss: 20 essential real-world games to study (and play!)
- Subscription services unlikely to replace traditional game sales, says WBIE
- Microsoft’s Strategy to Become the ‘Netflix for Games’
- Report: The rumored second next-gen Xbox model likely won’t see the light of day
- Microsoft reportedly cuts internal content teams at Inside Xbox and Mixer: Change in strategy prompts layoffs and potential contract cancellation as company’s fiscal year nears end
- Report: Microsoft has laid off content creation staff at Mixer and Inside Xbox
- Minecraft: Education Edition is getting an Immersive Reader and new educator resources
- Commodore 64 gets retro re-release: Full-sized version of the 80’s gaming goliath set to launch December 5
- Charity livestream raises $3.7m for children’s hospital: Fortnite streamer Dr.Lupo breaks records, raising $1 million in four hours
- Bungie raises over $400,000 for children’s hospital during charity livestream
- Bungie raises over $400k for St Jude Children’s Research Hospital: Developer’s block on Guardian Con Charity Marathon Stream was largest block in event’s history
- Humble has raised $150M for charity through bundles and storefront
- Ubisoft: Watch Dogs Legion will encourage players “to think differently” – But the E3 hit will still allow players to “make their own minds up” about depiction of surveillance state Britain
- Ubisoft sees high acceptance for opt-out subtitles: Even in games that ship with subtitles off by default, publisher sees more than half of players turn them on
- Crystal Dynamics: The Avengers is the biggest thing we’ve ever done – The Square Enix studio on its transformation beyond Tomb Raider
- F1 2019 simulates the highs and lows of motorsport, on and off the track
- Square Enix launches charity fundraising campaign for first responders: Publisher will match donations made to Gary Sinise Foundation up to $50,000
- Sean Murray on No Man’s Sky: “I thought we were making a niche game” – Hello Games’ founder on the difficulties of transforming a live game, and pushing past a divisive launch
- Cory Barlog: “We’re now able to give actors meaty performances, as opposed to just doing voice” – God of War’s director expects more actors like Keanu Reeves to star in games
- Building interesting emergence in Dying Light 2
- Sea of Thieves is the game it is today because of Game Pass, says Xbox head
- Blog: Creating the the AI of Sea of Thieves – Part 3
- Blog: Consoles are resilient for now, but cloud gaming poses new challenges
- Blog: On narrative from a cognitive perspective – Part 4
- Blog: An archaeologist considers Heaven’s Vault
- Blog: Creating natural looking geometry in Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer’s Legacy
- Blog: The love-hate relationship between marketeers and social media
- Blog: Localizing your game without making it suck
- Video: Learning from the doomed launch of Brigador
- Video: Rapid-fire animation insights from the GDC 2019 Animation Microtalks
- Keeping up with the surprise success of Mordhau
- Cultist Simulator mobile: The all-singing, all-dancing data dump
- Amazon’s struggle is a reminder that content is still king | Opinion: Every tech giant wants a slice of the games business, but the difficulty of creating great games and valuable IP hasn’t changed
- GAME recommends shareholders accept Sports Direct offer: Company says 30 pence per share is a fair value considering industry challenges
- Valve launches first mobile game: Dota Underlords is company’s take on Dota Auto Chess, will also be available on PC, Mac, and Linux
- Dota Underlords has topped 170,000 concurrent users in 24 hours
- World War Z has topped 700,000 sales on the Epic Games Store
- Tim Sweeney: Epic Games Store exclusives will help devs everywhere earn more
- Tim Sweeney: “Unpopular” Epic Game Store exclusives are working – Epic CEO argues that the divisive strategy will benefit gamers in the long term
- Harry Potter: Wizards Unite generated $1.7m less than Pokémon Go on day one – Sensor Tower data shows more than 400,000 installs, $300,000 in revenue across the US and UK, but launch is flagging behind Niantic’s best
- Forge of Empires reaches €500m in lifetime revenue: InnoGames’ strategy title brought in over €250m in the last two years
- This brilliant GTA 5 zombie RP mod is a DayZ-esque nightmare: RottenV adds purpose and structure to GTA 5’s often unpredictable roleplay scene.
- It’s possible to build a Turing machine within Magic: The Gathering
- Azerion has purchased Spil Games’ mobile game division
- Spil Games sells mobile division to Azerion: Founders remain owners of Spil’s web portals, will work in partnership with Azerion
- Esports Star Tfue Sues To Void His Contract With FaZe Clan
- Lessons from the Lawsuit That Could Shake Up the Esports Industry
- Global esports director Kim Phan departs Blizzard
- Blizzard loses global esports director Kim Phan: Phan is the second high ranking departure from Blizzard’s esports department in recent weeks
- Trust Esport invests €1.5m in smartVR: French investment fund supports development of VR arcades and related esports services
- Valve launches VR Portal spinoff Aperture Hand Lab
- Magic Leap suing ex-employee for stealing tech to make his own XR headset: Florida start-up claims former engineer’s Nreal Light headset bears a “striking similarity” to confidential company tech
- Seven years on from Oculus Rift’s launch, how far have we come? | Opinion: Game Dragons’ Andrew Oliver ponders the current state of virtual reality, and how it might benefit from 5G and streaming
- Superdata: PUBG sells 4.7m digital units year-to-date – Fortnite still leader in digital earnings on console last month, though revenue remains down YOY
- Insights: Never Mind Peak TV, Are We Headed To Peak Game Service?
- Making the most of a digital office space: Sonderlust’s Lyndsey Gallant explains how the remote working studio’s all-day video conferences have helped the team
- Time to Chain Up: Is Blockchain About to Change the Gaming Industry?
- 28 years later, a no-disc version of the Sega CD finally exists—and it works
- 22 of the worst PC games of all time
- Myst to be adapted for TV and film: Village Roadshow Entertainment acquires rights to game’s mythology for “multiplatform universe”
- Fed. Cir. Spots Weak Claim Construction Arguments
- A Single Prior Art Reference Can Render a Patent Obvious
- Game and Tech. Co. v. Activision Blizzard (U.S.C.A. Fed. Circuit, June 21, 2019)
Jon
News of the Week; June 19, 2019
DIGITAL
- UK makes ‘first’ conviction over 3-D printed gun
- Browsewrap Terms Enforced Due to Customer Knowledge of Existence of Terms
- New Zealand judge sends neo-Nazi to prison for sharing mosque shooting video: Sharing the video is illegal in NZ and “encourages mass murder,” judge says.
- New Zealand Man Gets 21 Months In Prison For Sharing Footage Of The Christchurch Shooting
- FBI Serves Incredibly Broad Warrant To 8chan, Demanding Info On All Users Who Responded To A Shooter’s Post
- Supreme Court Signals Loud And Clear That Social Media Sites Are Not Public Forums That Have To Allow All Speech
- 60% of British adults and 80% of young teenagers suffered harm online in the last 12 months – the UK debate about the need to regulate the internet continues apace
- Douez v Facebook gives existing class actions green light to grow under new opt-out rules
- Bodies In Seats: At Facebook’s worst-performing content moderation site in North America, one contractor has died, and others say they fear for their lives
- Inside the German antitrust plan to destroy Facebook’s data monopoly: Quietly but effectively, the Bundeskartellamt is landing some serious blows against big tech
- With cryptocurrency launch, Facebook sets its path toward becoming an independent nation
- Facebook launches cryptocurrency with Visa, MasterCard, Uber, and others
- Regulating UK digital services – the British government shares its thoughts
- The Online Harms White Paper: Who will regulate the internet, and how?
- The Online Harms White Paper: Is technology the answer?
- Russia warns of “cyberwar” following report the US attacked its power grid
- Russia To Ban VPN Providers That Refuse To Aid Censorship
- Congress, Regulators, and Justice Department Gear Up to Investigate “Big Tech,” But Focus and Scope Under Current Law Remains Unclear
- Investigating Big Tech!
- There Are Lots Of Ways To Punish Big Tech Companies, But Only A Few Will Actually Help Improve The Internet
- Co-opting digital companies into tax law enforcement
- Content Moderation Is Impossible: You Can’t Expect Moderators To Understand Satire Or Irony
- Once More With Feeling: There Is No Legal Distinction Between A ‘Platform’ And A ‘Publisher’
- Site-Blocking In Australia Expanded Again To Include 105 More Sites, Including A Search Engine
- The Flipside To Figuring Out What Content Do You Block: Cloudflare’s Project Galileo Focuses On Who It Should Protect
- Cloudflare aims to make HTTPS certificates safe from BGP hijacking attacks
- Blockchain company and CEO to pay over $1M for misleading investors
- Facebook Just Blindfolded War Crimes Investigators | Opinion
- Facebook backs social commerce startup Meesho in first India investment
- Facebook confirms it will launch a cryptocurrency called Libra in 2020: The effort is supported by Mastercard and Visa, among dozens of other partners
- Facebook announces Libra cryptocurrency: All you need to know: The use cases, technology and motive behind the new digital money
- Facebook’s cryptocurrency to debut next week backed by Visa, Mastercard, Uber, and others: WSJ – An unveiling is expected next week, with a launch to follow in 2020
- Report claims Spotify is backing Facebook’s new cryptocurrency
- Locksmiths locked out of lawsuit against search engines
- J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot may sign an exclusive deal with AT&T’s WarnerMedia for $500 million: A massive deal for WarnerMedia heading into the streaming wars
- The Tor Browser Afforded CDA Immunity for Dark Web Transactions
- Court Says Section 230 Shields Twitter From Revenge Porn Bro’s Stupid Lawsuit
- Twitter Gets Another Significant Section 230 Win in Lawsuit by Suspended User–Murphy v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Congress Now Creating A Moral Panic Around Deepfakes In Order To Change CDA 230
- How 13 Became the Internet’s Age of Adulthood: The inside story of COPPA, a law from the early days of e-commerce that is shaping a generation and creating a parental minefield
- Anonymous Online Speech: Considerations for Victims and Speakers
- Google CEO Apologizes To LGBTQ+ Staffers After YouTube Firestorm: “You Are A Source Of Pride For Us”
- YouTube weighs changes to how it handles children’s content
- YouTube Considering Moving All Children’s Content To ‘Kids’ App As Sundar Pichai Becomes More Involved In Day-To-Day Decision-Making (Report)
- Former Clevver Hosts Joslyn Davis And Lily Marston Launch Female-Centric YouTube Upstart
- YouTuber Elijah Daniel Rents, Renames Michigan Town “Gay Hell” In Protest Of Trump
- YouTube’s AR ads let you try on virtual makeup alongside beauty vloggers
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 6/17/2019
- YouTube’s Kirsten Dunst Series ‘On Becoming A God In Central Florida’ Moves To Showtime
- YouTube Teams With Universal Music To Remaster Hundreds Of Iconic Music Videos
- After Busy One-Month Hiatus, James Charles Makes Grand Return To YouTube
- Kim Kardashian Deep Fake Video Removed By Copyright Claim
- PewDiePie Mulls The Relative Decline Of His Channel, Says Taking A Break Could “Kill” It
- Even Yoginis Must Comply with the Endorsement Guides
- NAD Not Influenced by Verification Platform’s Claims
- Kayla Itsines, Jeffree Star, Eugene Lee Yang Named Most Influential Influencers (Study)
- Writer-Director And Trans Activist Janet Mock Inks Multimillion-Dollar Netflix Deal
- Netflix is going to get ads sooner or later, say executives from Hulu and NBC
- Cinematographer-Influencer Hunter Moreno Launches Merch Line At Urban Outfitters
- VidCon Will Venture To Mexico For First Latin American Convention In 2020
- Vice Media Digital Makeover Triggers Traffic Slide: April free fall follows closure of partner-traffic program, but company attributes drop to temporary lull in content output
- Vevo Ups Music Video Consumption 140%
- Hannah Hart, Todrick Hall Among LGBTQ+ Celebs In Taylor Swift’s “You Need To Calm Down” Video
- Spotify now allows advertisers to specifically target podcast listeners: The podcast ad targeting begins
- Pandora now has its own ‘audio consultancy’ for advertisers
- Lyrics Site Accuses Google of Lifting Its Content: Genius says it can prove lyrics from its site are appearing in Google search information panels—by examining the apostrophes
- Dumbest ‘Gotcha’ Story Of The Week: Google, Genius And The Copying Of Licensed Lyrics
- Genius hid a Morse code message in song lyrics to prove Google was copying them
- Genius/Google Dispute Gets Even Dumber: Microsoft And Amazon Show Same ‘Coded’ Lyrics, But Genius Doesn’t Care
- Google is ending the integration between Drive and Photos
- Google’s ninth attempt at a messaging service will be based on RCS
- Eugene Lee Yang’s Coming Out Video Has Raised $60,000 For The Trevor Project
- Jaclyn Hill Refutes Accusations That Her New Brand Is Vending Moldy Lipsticks
- Quibi Has Sold $100 Million In Upfront Ads To P&G, Pepsi, Walmart
- Quibi Taps Tyra Banks For Docuseries Dissecting Global Beauty Standards
- Snapchat Renews Two Originals From Vertical Networks, Overtime (Exclusive)
- Distributor DistroKid steps up its fight against fake uploaders
- Target’s same-day deliveries might break my Amazon Prime addiction
- Shopify going head-to-head with Amazon, spending $1 billion on fulfilment network: Fulfilment network aims to provide two-day shipping within 99% of United States
- Domino’s Petitions Supreme Court for Review of Unfavorable Website Accessibility Decision
- DSM Directive Series #6: ‘hyperlinking’ in the press publishers’ right (Eleonora Rosati)
- Polish Government’s Legal Challenge To EU Copyright Directive’s Article 13/17 Remains Shrouded In Mystery, But Details May Not Matter
- Prenda Mastermind Gets 14 Years In Prison, Told To Pay Back Just $1.5 Million
- Legal Aspects of Cloud Computing: Cloud Contracting
- Illinois Regulates the Use of AI in Video Interviews
- Experts: Spy used AI-generated face to connect with targets
- This Marketing Blog Does Not Exist: An AI Generated Marketing Blog by Fractl
- The fourth Industrial revolution emerges from AI and the Internet of Things
- We won’t be listening to music in a decade according to Vinod Khosla
- AI Can Thrive in Open Societies: The belief that China’s surveillance gives it an advantage is misleading – and dangerous.
- Forget About Fake News, How About Fake People? California Starts Regulating Bots as of July 1, 2019
- China‘s Social Credit System: Seeing Like an Authoritarian State (Cristie Ford)
- Huawei bracing for a 40% to 60% drop in international smartphone shipments
- Huawei export ban claims another victim: Huawei’s $2,600 foldable smartphone
- Huawei Now Using Patent Claims To Demand $1 Billion From Verizon, As The US Tries To Chase Huawei Out Of The US Market
- The north face’s wikipedia stunt goes south
COMMUNICATIONS
- Bell and Telus beef up data plans after Rogers sparks ‘unlimited’ price war
- Message Received: Why Unlimited Wireless Plans Show Government’s Emphasis on New Competition is Being Heard (Michael Geist)
- Shockingly, Cable TV and Broadband Customer Satisfaction Is Still The Worst In America
- None Of The Claimed Benefits Of Killing Net Neutrality Ever Arrived
- AT&T cuts another 1,800 jobs as it finishes fiber-Internet buildout
- AT&T Lays Off Thousands After Nabbing Billions In Tax Breaks And Regulatory Favors
- No state action in administering public-access cable channels
- Supreme Court Holds that Private Entity Operating Public-Access Television Channel Is Not A Government Actor Subject to the First Amendment
- US Attorneys and FCC Combine to Shut Down Pirate Radio Station
- Starry aims to bring its $50, 200Mbps broadband to 25 more US states
- FCC Pats Itself On The Back For ‘New’ Robocall Plan That Isn’t New, Has No Real Teeth
- Ajit Pai says NOAA and NASA are wrong about 5G harming weather forecasts
- The 2.5 GHz Band: No Longer Just for Education
- Study finds that a GPS outage would cost $1 billion per day
- Comcast Forgets To Delete Evidence It’s Using Evil Fansubs In Its Streaming Service
- Cable companies can save money now that DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade is mostly done
- TCPA Class Action Update: Dish Network on the Hook for $61 Million for Third-Party Agent’s TCPA Violation
- TCPA Legislative Update: Senate Passes TRACED Act and Works on More Robocall Legislation
- Preparing for the 2020 Elections – Our Updated Political Broadcasting Guide
- Doing Business in Canada 2019: Information and Communications Technology
PRIVACY
- Florida city pays $600,000 ransom to save computer records
- Oracle issues emergency update to patch actively exploited WebLogic flaw
- Apple Accused of Unlawfully Disclosing Users’ iTunes Data
- Canada’s New Digital Charter and What this Means for PIPEDA
- Combatting cyber threats: CSE releases new baseline cybersecurity controls
- La Liga Fined 250K Euros For Using Mobile App To Try To Catch 3rd Party Pirates
- Privacy Shield: If You Got It – Flaunt It; If Not – Don’t
- Samsung’s security reminder makes the case for not owning a Samsung smart TV: Run a virus scan ‘every few weeks,’ it says
- Samsung asks users to please virus-scan their TVs
- We’re Apparently Scanning Our TVs For Viruses Now
- For the industrial Internet of Things, defense in depth is a requirement
- Radiohead Responds To Extortionate Hacker By Releasing Hacked Recordings For Charity
- Hackers behind dangerous oil and gas intrusions are probing US power grids
- Securing The Nation With Insecure Databases: CBP Vendor Hacked, Exposing Thousands Of License Plate, Car Passenger Photos
- Privacy Matters: A Website Privacy Policy is Good Governance
- Internet of Things – A Fast Forward to the Future
- Maine’s New Internet Privacy Law: What You Need to Know
- Nevada Passes Online Consumer Privacy Legislation
- Conduct business in Nevada? If so, be aware that a new Nevada law gives consumers the right to opt-out of the sale of their personal information
- Recent Developments in Consumer Privacy Legislation and Cybersecurity Practices
- Data protection in investigations
- Doing Business in Canada 2019: Privacy and Anti-Spam Laws
CREATIVITY
- The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 16: The Copyright Review Report – Carys Craig on the Roadmap for the Future of Canadian Copyright Law (Michael Geist)
- Appeals Court To Rehear Case On ‘Stairway To Heaven’ Copyright Infringement Questions
- Pepe The Frog Creator, Infowars Both Claim Victory After $15k Copyright Settlement
- Wedding photographers and copyright – what’s your position?
- Retailers: beware the ban on gender stereotyping
- No pictures, please: Scotland v England as a forum for defamation cases
- ‘Star Trek’ Logo Spotted on Mars
- Copyright First Sale Doctrine & Patent Exhaustion Prevent Equitable Estoppel Defenses
- Canada’s trademark changes mean higher fees, more complexities in filing: Amendments are intended to modernize Canada’s intellectual property framework
- Adidas loses EU bid to extend three-stripe trademark
- Adidas loses three-stripe trademark battle in European court: Logo first registered on a football boot in 1949 was not ‘distinctive’ enough, says court
- adidas AG & Marques v. EUIPO (Judgment Of The General Court, 19 June 2019)
- Domain Name Law
GAMES
- The creator of ‘Pokémon Go’ is suing an ‘association of hackers’ that it says helps players cheat at its games
- Niantic is suing Global++ over modified Pokemon Go,Ingress apps
- Niantic files lawsuit against “hacker” group: Global ++ has allegedly created derivative apps based on Ingress, Pokémon Go and Harry Potter Wizards Unite
- From Pokémon to Harry Potter: Niantic’s hopes for Wizards Unite
- Niantic has acquired Beasts of Balance developer Sensible Object
- Twitch Sues Troll Streamers Over Violent Videos, Pornography
- Twitch sues users who posted porn, racism, and more to Artifact stream page
- Twitch Suing 100 Users Who Spammed ‘Artifact’ Game Category With Pornographic And Violent Content
- Twitch sues unknown parties over flood of explicit videos on Artifact streams
- EA praises its own ‘ethical, fun, and enjoyable’ loot box use in FIFA
- CARU Takes Action Against Two Mobile Apps
- State of California investigates Riot for systematic gender discrimination
- Riot Games accused of non-compliance with gender discrimination investigation: State of California turns to the courts for help, but Riot insists it has cooperated since the beginning
- Women accounted for 21% of E3 stage presenters, just 5% of game protagonists: But annual Feminist Frequency gender breakdown shows number of games with multiple choice is at a five-year high
- Devs deserve the benefits of a union, says US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders
- Bernie Sanders endorses game industry unionisation: Presidential candidate says game workers “deserve to collectively bargain”
- Only 17% of E3 games are non-violent: GamesIndustry.biz study found major publishers are behind less than half of all combat-free titles in Los Angeles
- Mobile games are losing to video in the battle for users’ time: Games still earn the majority of revenue, but App Annie report shows video apps streaking ahead in terms of hours spent
- NPD: May 2019 was the worst May for new releases since 1998 – Mortal Kombat 11 overtakes Kingdom Hearts III as best-selling software title year-to-date; hardware and software sales see overall declines
- Tfue’s Lawyer Reveals Shocking New Info on FaZe Clan Lawsuit
- Did FaZe Clan break any laws with the H1ghsky1 signing?
- ZeniMax shuts down fan remake of Doom: Modder pulls the project after legal warning, is forbidden to infringe on Bethesda trademarks again
- Sweeney: Sony enabling cross-play was “one of the greatest moments in Epic’s history” – Meanwhile, Epic founder dismisses the notion of Fortnite addiction
- Steam Remote Play now supports game streaming across different networks
- Steam update changes In-Home Streaming to Remote Play: Games from your Steam client can now be streamed to PCs and devices across different networks
- Alpha Protocol delisted from Steam due to publishing rights expiration
- Twitter data shows Nintendo as the winner of E3 2019: Nintendo Direct E3 generated more Twitter activity than Keanu Reeves
- Avengers, Nintendo Owned The E3 Video Conversation
- Don’t Miss: Captain Toad and the core of Nintendo game design
- Xbox and Cyberpunk 2077 won the battle for media coverage at E3 2019: ICO Partners’ annual report indicates strong coverage for the absent Sony, and finds Square Enix was the most talked about publisher
- Cyberpunk designer says CDPR is working on transgender character options
- Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy VII Remake lead online pre-orders post-E3: Amazon and GameStop data show Collectors, Ultimate Editions top gift card sales following press events
- From The Witcher 3 to Cyberpunk: The evolution of CD Projekt’s quest design
- Next-gen expectations overshadowed E3 | Opinion: Rather than being a final hurrah for the current generation, E3 highlighted expectations that most upcoming titles will bridge next year’s hardware transition
- Opinion: Cloud gaming for both Microsoft and Google remains a horseless carriage
- 83% of gamers potentially interested in streaming services: But 20% of people surveyed have broadband that would struggle to meet Stadia’s minimum requirements
- Google Stadia Is About To Show Everyone Why Broadband Usage Caps Are B.S.
- Stadia’s E3 Doom Eternal demo made me a cloud gaming believer
- Nintendo is ‘evaluating’ game streaming technology
- Nintendo “evaluating” streaming, but focused on physical and downloads: Don’t expect Switch to have its own Stadia-style service any time soon
- Nintendo pledges continued support for the 3DS: “We believe it’s a great entry point for young gamers,” says NOA president Doug Bowser
- NPD: Nintendo likely to end the year as best-selling publisher – With no looming major end-of-year releases, Call of Duty, NBA 2K, and Madden predicted to top 2019 software charts
- Minecraft: Story Mode relisted on Xbox 360, but for $100 to deter new buyers
- Minecraft Story Mode for Xbox 360 gets massive price hike: Episodes temporarily selling for $99.99 each to give existing owners a window to download the game while discouraging new sales
- Square Enix working to preserve and release entire game library
- Square Enix is considering its own subscription service
- Square Enix subscription service would focus on classic titles
- Square Enix eyes its own subscription service: Company currently understanding the model via working with Xbox Game Pass
- How is Game Pass adding so many indie titles at launch?: ID@Xbox director Chris Charla talks about independent developers’ concerns around subscription plans and streaming services
- Video: How the ‘indiepocalypse’ changed the shape of indie success
- Keanu Reeves: “Games don’t need legitimising” – Cyberpunk star praises the impact of games on performance capture, dismisses the notion that they need celebrity endorsement
- Playtonic: “We are never using the term spiritual successor again” – The Yooka-Laylee studio on avoiding the comparisons to Donkey Kong Country
- Forza Horizon 4 reaches 10m players: Best-selling game in Playground’s racing series achieves milestone eight months after launch
- Sea of Thieves reaches 8.4m lifetime players: Since its anniversary update in late April, Rare’s pirate adventure has seen 2m users
- The Witcher 3 has passed 20m lifetime sales: CD Projekt Red’s celebrated game has contributed more than half of the series’ 40m sales
- Zynga-owned Empires & Puzzles has surpassed 34 million downloads
- Fallout Shelter reaches $100m lifetime revenue: US accounts for roughly 60% of global revenue, followed by UK at 9%
- Fallout Shelter is coming to Tesla cars: Mobile management sim to join Cuphead, Atari classics on electric cars
- Final Fantasy VII Remakehands-on: Already feels like the one for jaded JRPG fans
- Live, die, repeat: How Outer Wilds piques curiosity in an ambivalent solar system
- Atari’s new VCS isn’t a console, but it isn’t quite a computer either
- EA pledges new reporting tools, periodic Community Reports to combat toxicity
- EA holds Building Healthy Communities Summit, pledges to fight toxicity: Publisher looking at new tools and features to improve community management and reporting in its games
- PUBG Mobile daily users pass 50m, downloads pass 400m: Figures have more than doubled in seven months — even without a Chinese release
- Niko Partners: Game for Peace expected to bring in nearly $1b by year’s end – PUBG Mobile clone anticipated to be one of Tencent’s biggest games; meanwhile, PUBG Mobile has brought in $400m overseas
- Konami rebrands PES as eFootball PES: New name for long-running sports series designed to underline the company’s commitment to esports
- Twitch acquires Bebo to bolster esports offerings
- Twitch acquires Bebo to bolster esports push: Deal for amateur esports brand is worth a reported $25 million
- Twitch Launches Teespring Integration, Enabling Creators To Sell Subscriber-Only Merch
- Amazon Game Studios lays off ‘dozens’ of staff
- Amazon laid off ‘dozens’ of game developers amid reorganization: The company has reportedly canceled several unannounced games as well
- Amazon Game Studios lays off “dozens”: Multiple unannounced projects cancelled; employees given 60 days to find new internal positions
- D3T details first ever Wellbeing Week: Studio’s new initiative will cover physical, emotional and financial health across five days of activities
- Stardock reveals Cider Cloud engine – CEO Brad Wardell: “Our goal is to be able to design games that just aren’t possible today”
- How Media Molecule designed a fun and robust toolset forDreams
- In-depth: A tool for game accessibility and depth analysis
- Blog: A tool for game accessibility and depth analysis – Part 2
- Blog: A tool for game accessibility and depth analysis – Part 3
- Blog: So you want to have a kick-ass Steam page?
- Blog: Design insights we learned at Dreamhack Dallas 20192
- Blog: The importance of definitions in game design
- Blog: Tips and tricks for managing open game development
- Blog: Creating the the AI of Sea of Thieves – Part 2
- Blog: Four decades of advergames
- Blog: Watch the first Library of Congress lecture given by a game composer
- Don’t Miss: Rethinking the RPG to make it fun to be the bad guy in Tyranny
- Video: 9 takeaways of Duelyst’s journey from tabletop to digital game
- Designing Monster Hunter: World around the conflict of empathy and violence
- Q&A: Writing new characters, new worlds in Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds
- Brenda and John Romero’s Empire of Sin is an emergent narrative gangster flick
- Elite Dangerous dev Frontier signs first third-party publishing deal
- How do you improve a great racing game? Just add Lego bricks
- The Oculus Quest saw $5 million in content sales in first two weeks
- Oculus: Quest’s potential to make VR a ‘viable medium’ means store curation is a must
- Against Gravity raises $24m for VR development: Rec Room studio continues working on ways to connect users in shared VR spaces
- Former Magic Leap employee accused of stealing tech to launch own AR glasses
- GameStop closing down ThinkGeek’s standalone online store
- ThinkGeek closes site, moves in with GameStop: Over 40 US physical locations to remain open, online sales to close July 2
- Elon Musk: ‘The Simulation, The Simulation, The Simulation’: “We could be somebody’s video game right now. Whose avatar are you?”
- Tesla is turning its showrooms into arcades
- The best games, demos, and tech of E3 2019
- E3 2019 in photos: Gooigi, crazy arcade machines, and a DOOM museum
- E3 2019 saw fewer attendees than last year
- E3 attendance drops slightly for 2019: Next year’s show set for Los Angeles Convention Centre between June 9th and 11th
- Blog: Does Sony’s absence mean game over for E3?
- Don’t let ego kill E3 | Opinion: E3 is a silly, special week in the games industry calendar — and maybe it doesn’t need to change that much to survive
- The GamesIndustry.biz E3 Award Winners
- The biggest disappointments of E3
- Call of Duty, Pokemon dominate GameStop pre-orders in wake of E3: Pre-orders up 63% on newly-announced titles last week for gaming retailer
- Assassin’s Creed Discovery Tour honoured at Games for Change Awards: Ubisoft picked up three awards last night, while Nintendo Labo was named Game of the Year
- Nintendo and Ubisoft honored at the 2019 Games for Change Awards
- U.S. Patent No. 7,887,403: Method and system for controlling a game involving battles
- Check out Opus Magnum dev Zachtronics’ entire game design history for free
Jon
News of the Week; June 12, 2019
DIGITAL
- Huawei’s PR Campaign Comes Straight From the Party’s Playbook: The trade war is showing how deep Beijing’s global influence runs.
- Canada’s economic future could be ‘difficult’ if it fails to ban Huawei: expert
- Report: Google argues the Huawei ban would hurt its Android monopoly
- Huawei’s export ban is wider in scope than most people imagine
- Huawei cancels MateBook laptop launch because of US export ban
- New York AG Declares War on Fake Followers, Likes, and Online Deception
- The Catch-22 that broke the Internet
- BGP event sends European mobile traffic through China Telecom for 2 hours
- Facebook’s Triple Woes Over Cambridge Analytica Data Harvesting Scandal
- Facebook is stopping Huawei from pre-installing its apps: From bad to worse for Huawei
- Will this deepfake of a power-hungry Zuckerberg make Facebook rethink fake news?
- Facebook’s AI system can speak with Bill Gates’s voice
- Facebook launches searchable database, identity verification for political ads ahead of federal election
- Facebook Watch grows to more than 720 million monthly users Users are also spending more time in the social network’s video hub.
- Facebook, ProSiebenSat.1 Sign First Content Pact for Watch Platform in Europe
- Facebook bans health and conspiracy site Natural News
- Facebook Tested With Deepfake Of Mark Zuckerberg: Company Leaves It Up
- Facebook lets deepfake Zuckerberg video stay on Instagram
- Delaware Court Of Chancery Grants Books And Records Request Arising From Caremark Claims Related To Facebook User Privacy
- District of Columbia v. Facebook: General Consumer Protection Statute can serve as vehicle for state attorney general seeking redress for data privacy violations
- Researchers discover “Fishwrap” influence campaign recycling old terror news
- Facebook’s Radical Bitcoin-Beating Cryptocurrency Plans Revealed
- Draft law proposes 10-year jail term for dealing in cryptocurrency: Besides making it completely illegal, the bill makes holding of cryptos a non-bailable offence.
- Blockchain Remittance Platform ZED Network Receives First Prospectus Exemption for Distributing Crypto Tokens
- New SEC lawsuit could decide the fate of dozens of blockchain projects: The SEC says Kik’s initial coin offering was an unregistered sale of securities.
- UBC launches Canada’s first graduate blockchain training path
- Tinder and the Russian Intelligence Services: It’s a Match! – Will Facebook and Twitter be next?
- FTC: Consumer Gag Clauses a No-Go
- Senator Blumenthal Calls for FTC Investigation of Detox Teas Promoted on Social Media
- Lawyers post social media videos on legal aid cuts: Videos target provincial budget, #GotBeerNeedJustice hashtag used
- Another One Bytes the Dust: Court Dismisses Flash Drive False Advertising Suit Based On Back-Of-Package Clarifying Disclosures
- Republicans Blame CDA 230 For Letting Platforms Censor Too Much; Democrats Blame CDA 230 For Platforms Not Censoring Enough
- Appeals Court Issues Strong CDA 230 Ruling, But It Will Be Misleadingly Quoted By Those Misrepresenting CDA 230
- DC Circuit Holds that Section 230 Protects Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! Against Locksmiths’ Claims but Warns that Immunity Is Not ‘Limitless’
- D.C. Circuit Issues Sweeping Pro-Section 230 Opinion–Marshall’s Locksmith v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Once Again, Section 230 Protects Twitter’s Account Suspension Decisions–Brittain v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Historical Documentation Of Key Section 230 Cases
- Contract Breach Claims Against Google Survive First Amendment Defense–Dreamstime v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai says tackling hate speech on YouTube is hard: YouTube is under fire for hosting channels and videos that foster hate speech and fake news.
- Susan Wojcicki Apologizes For Hurting LGBTQ Community, But Defends Decision To Let Steven Crowder Videos Stand
- The Impossibility Of Content Moderation Plays Out, Once Again, On YouTube
- Looking for the elusive Goldilocks standard of online content moderation (Andres Guadamuz)
- The Impossibility Of Content Moderation: YouTube’s New Ban On Nazis Hits Reporter Who Documents Extremism, Professor Teaching About Hitler
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 6/9/2019
- Creators Can’t Always Take Risks With Their Content. That’s Why YouTuber Community Standard Built Nebula — A Platform For Its Creators To Experiment.
- Activists Lobby For Google’s Removal From San Francisco Pride Festivities At Board Meeting
- This week’s dead Google product is Google Trips, may it rest in peace
- NY Times Publishes Laughable Propaganda To Argue Google Owes Newspapers Like Itself Free Money
- As Google Ponders Making Ad Blockers Less Useful, Mozilla Ramps Up Tracker Blocking
- Too much sweetener in your grande: ariana grande follows a long line of celebrities being sued for copyright infringement
- YouTube Creators Who Document Extremism Caught In Crossfire Of Site’s Evolving Policies
- YouTube’s anti-extremism crackdown targets journalist who documents extremism
- Bowing to pressure, YouTube will reconsider its harassment policies: ‘One particular challenge we face more and more these days is creator-on-creator harassment.’
- YouTube Adds Notification Settings For Users, Metrics For Creators To Clarify When Subscribers Are Alerted
- Livestreamers Are Changing The World With Their Generosity — And Last Month They Raised A Record $2.1 Million For St. Jude
- Emma Chamberlain Says She Spends Up To 30 Hours Editing Each Of Her Weekly Vlogs
- Fullscreen Signs 9 Creators, Including MindOfRez, Lexy Panterra, And Kellie Sweet
- Sway Calloway, Omarion, and MindofRez Sign With Fullscreen
- Influencer Marketing Platform CreatorIQ Raises $12 Million At $40 To $50 Million Valuation
- Canadian Digital Network BroadbandTV Surpasses 575 Million Monthly Viewers
- Vancouver-based BroadbandTV’s videos clock over 46.9 billion minutes of watch-time every month
- BroadbandTV Corp. is Now Viewed by More Than 575 Million Unique Viewers Each Month and Achieves 46.9 Billion Minutes of Watchtime
- Snapchat Testing In-App Shops For Top Influencers Like The Kardashians, Bhad Bhabie, Spencer Pratt
- Snapchat is experimenting with an events feature of its own: Time for Snapchat to start copying Facebook?
- Student Uses Snapchat’s ‘Gender Switch’ Filter to Nab Cop Allegedly Looking to Hook Up With Teen Girl: Police
- Lionsgate Pacts With Hulu, FX for Two-Year Output Deal
- Insights: Quibbling About Quibi – Too Big To Fail Or Too Expensive To Succeed?
- Quibi’s Steven Spielberg Horror Series Can Only Be Watched When It’s Dark Outside
- Having an ethical framework is the best way to mitigate risks in autonomous technology
- Devs hit Apple with class action lawsuit: Tech giant accused of anti-competitive practices and “profit killing” commissions
- Apple wants to acquire Intel’s 5G business to build its own modems, sources claim
- Michigan Senator Proposes Bill That Would Force YouTube To Stop Recommending Videos Featuring Kids
- Public Metrics Were Never Designed To Be As Important As They Are
- Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi To Revive Iconic MTV Series ‘Singled Out’ And ‘Punk’d’
- The Obamas Ink Exclusive Deal With Spotify For Original Podcast Slate
- Barack and Michelle Obama Sign Spotify Deal to Produce Exclusive Podcasts
- Spotify’s ‘Sound Up’ Boot Camp Returns To Support Women Of Color In Podcasting
- Instagram one-ups TikTok with karaoke lyrics
- Instagram Adds New Custom Gender Options For User Profiles In Honor Of Pride
- Vox Media staff stages one-day walkout over union contract
- Amazon, reeling from recent regulatory hurdles, pumps $404M into its India business
- Amazon Scores U.K. Rights to Women’s Tennis
- HBO Cancels ‘Vice News Tonight’, As Vice’s News EVP Josh Tyrangiel Departs Company
- Mailchimp Created an In-House Entertainment Studio That’s Working With WME, Vice and Others
- Mailchimp Is Making Original Content Now, Because Why Not?
- Netflix’s ‘Love, Death & Robots’ Gets Second Season Helmed By Jennifer Yuh Nelson
- Introducing the Principled Artificial Intelligence Project
- The Other Half of the Truth: Staying human in an algorithmic world
- Artificial intelligence: Is your data well protected across borders?
- Artificial intelligence: Is your data well protected across borders?
- When Employees Are Using Software That IT Hasn’t Approved
COMMUNICATIONS
- Rogers Calls for Expansion of Media Bailout to Cover Broadcast Organizations…and Thinks Netflix Should Pay For It (Michael Geist)
- Netflix, Indigenous cultural groups partnering to develop talent in Canada
- Super-Secret Submissions: Corus and SaskTel Block Disclosure of Their BTLR Submissions Claiming Prejudice to Their Competitive Position (Michael Geist)
- Comcast broke law 445,000 times in scheme to inflate bills, judge finds
- Comcast’s fight against racial-bias lawsuit is taken up by Supreme Court: Comcast seeks dismissal of suit claiming refusal to carry TV channels was racist.
- Comcast Gets $9 Million Fine For Tricking Customers With ‘Worthless’ Protection Plans
- Here’s Why Net Neutrality Still Matters One Year After Repeal
- T-Mobile/Sprint merger faces big test as nine states sue to block it
- 10 State AGs Join Forces, Will Sue To Stop T-Mobile Sprint Merger
- FCC Rules to Permit Default Robocall Blocking by Telephone Companies
- FCC “Passes the Baton” on Stopping Robocalls to Carriers: Final Declaratory Ruling on Default Call Blocking Adopted – Caller Redress Mechanism Part of the Final Ruling
- FCC Announces Results of 5G Millimeter Wave Auctions; AT&T, Verizon Rank at Top of Winner List
- Spam robocalls are a growing problem, but now carriers are allowed to automatically block them: Big questions about how well the technology will work and who will end up paying are still on the table.
- Phone companies can block robocalls by default starting today, FCC says
- Microsoft Again Slams America’s Shaky Broadband Maps
- Small Idaho City Shows The Benefits Of Open Access Broadband Networks
- If You Think The Reason Internet Companies Snarf Up Your Data Is Because Their Services Are Free, Allow Me To Introduce You To The Telcos
PRIVACY
- Get All of Your Bots in a Row: 2018 California Bot Disclosure Law Comes Online Soon
- Spanish soccer league’s app caught eavesdropping on users in anti-piracy push
- We Read 150 Privacy Policies. They Were an Incomprehensible Disaster.
- Majority of poll respondents express support for extending privacy laws to political parties
- AG William Barr Doesn’t Want The Government Spying On The President But Thinks It’s OK If It Spies On Everyone Else
- Released Warrant Shows SFPD Started Monitoring Journalist’s Phone Weeks Before Officers Raided His Home
- Australian Federal Police Raid Even More Journalists Over Leaked Documents
- From face to DNA: New method aims to improve match between DNA sample and face database
- Oversight Says FBI’s Facial Recognition System Has Gotten Bigger, But Not Better
- Whining About Big Tech Doesn’t Protect Journalism
- Amazon, Law Enforcement Joining Forces To Turn Your Front Door Into An Integral Part Of The Surveillance State
- Google confirms that advanced backdoor came preinstalled on Android devices
- China Based Company is Believed to be Behind HiddenWasp Malware
- Is the GDPR fulfilling its real purposes in the age of fake news?
- Does Privacy Shield Provide Adequate Protections?
- The Future Of School Safety Includes Round-The-Clock Surveillance Of Students
- The clever cryptography behind Apple’s “Find My” feature
- Client Alert: Privacy law update: Nevada and Maine Pass Laws Restricting the Sale of Personal Information
- Maine Passes Broadband Privacy Bill
- Maine Enacts Nation’s Strictest Data Privacy Restrictions on Internet Service Providers
- New York State’s Privacy Law Would Be Among The Toughest In The US
- Nevada’s New Privacy Law Has Data Sale Opt-Out Rights
- Oregon Latest State to Require Reasonable Security for IoT Devices
- More States Move to Restrict Companies’ Use or Sale of Personal Information
- The International Encryption Debate: Privacy Versus Big Brother
CREATIVITY
- Pepe the Frog’s Creator Obtains Monetary Settlement from Infowars
- U.S. – District Court reversed: No fair use defense for Adams Morgan neighborhood photo
- Artist takes on Frida Kahlo Corporation in copyright spat
- Rolling Over: Bitter Sweet Symphony copyright dispute between Jagger, Richards and Ashcroft finally resolved
- Copyright Office Urges Federal Publicity Rights for Moral Rights Protection
- The end of political cartoons at The New York Times
- New Canadian Report Offers Balanced Recommendations for Progressive Copyright Reform
- Radiohead Dropped 18 Hours Of Unreleased Music To Screw Pirates
- Radiohead release hours of hacked MiniDiscs to benefit Extinction Rebellion: Climate activists thank the band for ‘unprecedented support’
- The U.S. entertainment industry should know about the astounding contractual protections the EU just guaranteed for authors and performers.
- Kawhi Leonard Accuses Nike Of Trying To Steal His Logo Via Trademark
- The King of the North v. Nike: A Clash Over Valuable IP Rights
- Tom Brady Attempts To Trademark The Nickname He Doesn’t Even Want, That’s Already Used By A Famous NY Met With Dementia
- [Statute of] Queen Anne’s Revenge? Supreme Court Grants Certiorari in Allen v. Cooper
- The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 15: Cows, Cars, and Copyright – A Conversation With Myra Tawfik on the IP Concerns With Implementing the USMCA (Michael Geist)
- Canadian Copyright Mid-Year Update – Looking Back Through 2018 and Ahead In 2019
GAMES
- Report: Global gaming software spend hits $132bn
- Lawsuit alleges Unity CEO sexually harassed former VP
- Unity faces lawsuit as John Riccitiello accused of sexual harassment: Former VP of recruitment claims CEO made several advances before she was unfairly dismissed
- Unity faces lawsuit as John Riccitiello accused of sexual harassment
- Star Control creators no longer opposing Stardock’s Star Control trademark
- Stardock and Star Control creators settle lawsuits—with mead and honey: A surprising – and surprisingly amicable – conclusion to the multi-year legal saga.
- Star Control creators settle legal battle with Stardock:
- Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III say dispute was settled “amicably and in a way where the fans are the biggest winners”
- Blog: What can devs learn from the Ion Maiden trademark lawsuit?
- Activision Shouts ‘First Amendment’ Over Humvee’s Trademark Lawsuit For Call Of Duty Depictions
- Report: Tariffs prompt Nintendo to move some Switch production out of China
- New Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser speaks against crunch
- Nintendo is working on a direct Breath of the Wild sequel
- Breath of the Wild sequel partially inspired by Red Dead Redemption 2
- Don’t Miss: Designing Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s unconventional mechanics
- Nintendo’s E3 Direct had nothing new for the 3DS
- Inside the work to get Doom on the Super Nintendo
- Streamer Dr Disrespect has E3 badge revoked after filming in public bathroom: Twitch channel also taken down after multiple “IRL” livestreams that included bystanders using restrooms
- Ubisoft: Watch Dogs Legion “has a message for sure”: Creative director Clint Hocking says the new game is about “fighting back against things that are obviously wrong”
- Ubisoft says avoiding messages is part of making “more mature games”: VP of editorial Tommy Francois talks about publisher’s stance on politics in games, says “Nothing is simple in life”
- New Ubisoft tool lets Assassin’s Creed Odyssey players create custom quests
- Ubisoft’s new Uplay+ subscription launches for PC this year, Stadia in 2020
- Ubisoft fills E3 hour with Tom Clancy games and Watch Dogs Legion gameplay: Publisher also announces multiple new IP and a new subscription service, UPlay+
- Ubisoft enters subscription battleground with Uplay Plus: PC and Google Stadia service to include over 100 Ubisoft PC games
- Google Stadia will let publishers offer their own subscription plans
- Anita Sarkeesian: “No more excuses for the lack of women at E3” – The Feminist Frequency founder on the need for better representation, both with games characters and on-stage presenters
- Pole to Win CEO: Building a team that will retire with you: Deborah Kirkham on the importance of company culture, and how she landed her current executive role by asking for it
- Epic collaborates with dance creator on Fortnite emote: Developer changes tact after series of lawsuits over alleged copyright infringement dominate headlines
- ‘Fortnite’ Still Leads Views For Gaming Titles On Social Video. By A Lot.
- Game over for loot boxes in new proposed legislation
- After 8Chan-gate, THQN unveils stirring anti-Nazi game set in 1930s Germany
- Xseed Games’ controversial credits policy only names current staff members: Publisher says it “appreciates the hard work of everyone who contributes” but removes them from game credits if they leave
- Are we witnessing the end of the console wars? | Opinion: Sony and Microsoft’s controllers appearing onstage at an Apple keynote speaks to a new landscape where former rivals are working together
- Sony trialing new PlayStation voice chat transcription feature
- Sony chief: ‘There’s no scenario where the PlayStation and Xbox platforms combine’
- Sony: There is “no scenario where the PlayStation and Xbox platforms combine” – PlayStation’s Jim Ryan insists that Sony’s new partnership with Microsoft will only go so far
- Xbox One successor Project Scarlett slated for Holiday 2020
- Microsoft reveals first details on “Project Scarlett” game console for 2020
- Microsoft’s next-gen Project Scarlett console will still have a disc drive
- Microsoft working to get “every single Xbox One game” working on Scarlett
- Microsoft ending Xbox One backwards compatibility efforts to focus on next-gen
- Microsoft will launch new Xbox console next year: Halo Infinite will be a launch title for the new hardware, codenamed Project Scarlett
- Phil Spencer on Project Scarlett: “We want to be compatible across all generations” – Xbox head nods toward backward compatibility on next-gen console with emphasis on Xbox Live
- Microsoft ends Xbox One backwards compatibility efforts to focus on Project Scarlett: Reveals final titles to be added as it aims to make four generations of games work with next console
- Xbox at E3: Halo Infinite leads massive first-party deluge of Xbox, PC games – Microsoft moves on Sony’s E3 absence with a smorgasbord of Xbox Game Studios fare.
- Phil Spencer: “It would be nice to buy a Japanese studio” – The head of Xbox on Game Pass, the impact of streaming, and why he’s not afraid of Google
- Microsoft revamping Xbox Live gamertags so users can share the same name
- “There is no downside to Game Pass,” says Playground Games: Forza Horizon studio tells us how the Xbox subscription service has taken its series to even greater heights
- Microsoft announces PC Game Pass pricing, adds to Ultimate bundle
- UPlay+ subscription lets you play every Ubisoft game on PC and Stadia: $14.99/month service includes all DLC, “earliest access” to new Ubisoft titles.
- Project Xcloud demo of Halo 5 nearly indistinguishable from local play
- Xbox’s Phil Spencer: Our next console will have a disc drive – Microsoft gaming boss says that millions of people still love physical
- Xbox adding Remote Play-style console streaming, xCloud preview launches this October – Platform holder’s streaming strategy will centre around two pillars: Project xCloud and user’s own consoles
- Xbox head: xCloud aims to complement video game hardware, not replace it
- Microsoft xCloud console streaming service goes live in October
- Microsoft acquires Double Fine Productions
- Microsoft picks up Psychonauts 2 publishing rights from Starbreeze
- Double Fine Productions is Microsoft’s latest Xbox acquisition: Crowdfunders will still get Psychonauts 2 on their chosen platform.
- Microsoft buys Double Fine Productions: Xbox paid Starbreeze $13.2 million for publishing rights to Psychonauts 2
- Ooblets to self-publish after Double Fine joins Microsoft
- Struggling Starbreeze granted extended reconstruction period until September
- Double Fine: Xbox deal won’t change multi-platform Psychonauts 2 release – Tim Schafer describes relief at no longer having to pitch ideas “to every publisher that exists”
- Double Fine confirms no layoffs to publishing team after Xbox acquisition: Plans for Double Fine Presents are still “evolving,” but it is committed to spotlighting original developers
- Microsoft has quietly established a new Age of Empiresstudio
- Microsoft forms dedicated Age of Empires studio
- Xbox now has 15 standalone studios follow past year’s high-profile acquisitions
- Microsoft confirms no Forza Motorsport 8 in 2019: Next entry in the series is “in concept” as Turn 10 Studios focuses on building community
- Google Stadia’s paid subscription service launches in November: Stadia Pro to cost $9.99/month for 4K streaming, occasional free games; free version ‘Stadia Base’ coming next year
- Google Stadia requires $130 upfront, $10 per month at November launch
- Stadia ‘Founder’s Edition’ launches in November, base version in 2020
- Despite “revolutionary” promises, Stadia’s biz model is pure establishment
- “Big exclusive games win the day, and Stadia does not have any”: Industry analysts are questioning the value that Google Stadia will offer to its paying subscribers
- YouTube can’t be trusted with Google Stadia | Opinion: Years of lax content policy has permitted bigotry, hate groups, and harassment to flourish on YouTube. Now Google wants to use it to sell games directly
- Publishers can put their own separate subscriptions on Google Stadia – Phil Harrison: Publishers with “bigger catalogs and more significant lineups” could put other subscriptions on top of Stadia Pro
- Google Stadia in 4K might push you past your home-Internet data cap
- Larian Studios will not “participate in the exclusivity game” with Baldur’s Gate III: The long awaited RPG sequel will not be exclusive to Google Stadia or any other platform
- Divinity: Original Sin developer Larian Studios is behindBaldur’s Gate 3
- Baldur’s Gate III is finally official, coming to PC and Stadia
- Atari’s throwback Atari VCS console up for pre-order, starting at $250
- Hatch partners with Samsung to bring 5G game streaming to the U.S.
- EA signs fresh indie publishing deals with Zoink, Glowmade and Hazelight: Meanwhile, more studios join EA’s Origin Access subscription service
- UK Charts: Sony’s Days of Play campaign puts FIFA 19 back at No.1 – PlayStation exclusives account for almost half the top ten best-selling games of the week
- Konami announces plug-and-play TurboGrafx-16 Mini
- Super Mario Maker 2’s online mode will get a “friends” patch after launch [Updated]
- Fallout 76 updates promise turnaround after “well-deserved criticism”: Battle royale mode, human NPCs, and free trial among coming changes.
- Bethesda unveils Orion to offer engine-level enhancements for streaming games
- Bethesda unveils Orion game streaming tech: Robert Duffy and James Altman discuss the details of the company’s new engine optimization SDK that works with any streaming service
- Bethesda says its Orion tech can make all cloud gaming better, faster
- Bethesda’s E3 revealed new IP from Tango Gameworks, Arkane Lyon
- The Elder Scrolls Online has reached 13.5m players: Zenimax’s MMORPG has gained 2.5m new players in the last year
- Destiny goes free-to-play as Destiny 2: New Light
- Destiny 2 will become free-to-play later this year, cross-platform [Updated]
- FFVII and Avengers bookend Square Enix’s hour of announcements, commercials: Multiple retro remasters also announced, and a new title from Square Enix Collective
- Bungie to launch free-to-play Destiny 2 in September –
- Destiny 2: New Light will launch on the same day as transition to Steam, the “new home for the Destiny PC community”
- Shenmue 3 is an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC
- Shenmue III is an Epic Games store exclusive on PC: It appears Ys Net will not be issuing refunds for those upset at the game’s removal from Steam
- Steam developers can start uploading assets for new library layout
- Epic Games Store exclusive Satisfactory has topped 500,000 sales
- Epic Games store offering a free game every week for 2019: Storefront to continue Epic Mega Sale offer for the rest of the year
- Epic launches its overhauled Unreal Online Learning portal
- Epic Games has acquired group video chat platform Houseparty
- Playground Games: “Crunch has no place in modern development” – The Forza Horizon developer on its new studio, and the transition to running a game as a live service
- Report: Blizzard began making, then canceled, a StarCraftfirst-person shooter
- Report: Blizzard cancels StarCraft spinoff to double down on new Diablo, Overwatch games
- Blizzard reportedly cancels StarCraft FPS to focus on Overwatch, Diablo: No layoffs from StarCraft project or other cancelled mobile game, resources allocated to upcoming major IP sequels
- Naughty Dog is shutting down PS3 servers for Uncharted 2,3, and The Last of Us
- Minecraft Dungeons hands-on: A shameless Diablo clone—and better for it
- Blog: Admiring the design in hyper-casual games
- Video: Efficient texture streaming in Titanfall 2
- Video: Inside the theme-oriented design of Phantom Doctrine
- Video: How cheating and making player life easier helpedDead Cells shine
- Video: Why fashion in (most) games sucks, and why you should care
- Don’t Miss: A look at the data-driven AI framework behindDestroy All Humans 2
- Don’t Miss: How bad crediting hurts the game industry and muddles history
- Opinion: Observation’s AI is a brilliant narrative device
- What Massive has learned making live content for The Division 2
- Next Games is making a location-based Stranger Things mobile game
- Zynga launches Snap Games-exclusive battle royale game
- Zynga proposes $600m convertible note sale: If successful, it would add to the $600m raised from the sale of its San Francisco headquarters
- Novaquark secures $11.2 million in funding to continueDual Universe development
- Novaquark raises additional $11.2 million for Dual Universe: Including Kickstarter funds, the French developer has brought in $22.6 million toward the game
- Rec Room dev Against Gravity secures $24 million in funding
- Tencent sells a quarter of its Glu Mobile shares for $56 million
- Tencent sells a quarter of its stake in Glu Mobile: Online giant still owns nearly 15% of mobile publisher after unloading about 5% for more than $56 million
- Intellivision opening European office: Hires Computec CEO ahead of new Amico console launch in 2020
- SuperData: US millennials spend $112 a month on gaming – Report finds 71% of millennial gamers watch gaming video content online
- AAA game downloads on the brink of overtaking physical in Europe: Exclusive figures reveal rapid digitisation as consumers drop physical in favour or digital
- Sports Direct offers to buy UK retailer Game Digital for $66 million
- Can Sports Direct halt the gradual demise of GAME?: Expect more store closures, but hopefully a future for the specialist UK retailer
- Immortals Gaming Club acquires Infinite Esports & Entertainment: Deal brings OpTic Gaming and Houston Outlaws under same umbrella as MIBR and the LA Valiant
- Esports Global Fund launches next month backed by British Esports Association: Esports and gaming investment venture secures €30m in total investment with goal of €100m in three years
- Esports: an untapped market for both brands and law firms
- ReKTGlobal acquires Greenlit Content: Esports company takes on portfolio including GameDaily.biz, Prima Games, and Shacknews
- FaZe Clan’s Youngest Member, 12-Year-Old H1ghSky1, Gets Twitch Account Deactivated After Lying About His Age
- Imagine Dragons Become First Major-Label Band With a ‘Beat Saber’ Music Pack
- VR app Virtual Desktop dropping VR streaming feature at Oculus’ behest
- Oculus is Forcing the Removal of SteamVR Streaming from Quest App, Dev Says
- Facebook: $5m in Oculus Quest software sold since launch: VP of AR and VR Andrew Bosworth indicates size of the software market in Oculus Quest’s first two weeks
- Analysis: Monthly-connected VR Headsets on Steam Pass 1 Million Milestone – Monthly-connected headsets on Steam are up 80% year-over-year
- Sony sets December 2020 release date for Uncharted movie: Spider-Man’s Tom Holland will play Nathan Drake in the long in development adaptation
- EverQuest’s long, strange 20-year trip still has no end in sight
- Vanessa Gill and Damon Packwood named Global Gaming Citizens
Jon
News of the Week; June 5, 2019
DIGITAL
- The New Commissioner of Competition Requests Changes to Address Digital Economy Challenges
- Fixing Fair Dealing for the Digital Age: What Lies Behind the Copyright Review’s Most Important Recommendation (Michael Geist)
- The Authoritative Canadian Copyright Review: Industry Committee Issues Balanced, Forward-Looking Report on the Future of Canadian Copyright Law (Michael Geist)
- This Is Why We Can’t Have Fun Things: The Copyright Dispute Over Lord Buckethead’s UK Political Career
- Federal Court Issues A Very Good Very Bad Decision Where Copyright And Free Speech Meet
- European Court Of Justice Suggests Maybe The Entire Internet Should Be Censored And Filtered
- Facebook Investors Voted in Support of Proposals to Fire Mark Zuckerberg as Chairman, but Zuckerberg Still Holds Power
- Congressional hearings signal growing antitrust problems for big tech
- House starts antitrust probe of Facebook, Google, other tech giants: It’s meant to be a sweeping investigation of Silicon Valley companies.
- Facebook, Google stocks fall on imminent antitrust probes
- Killing News Comments Only Solidified Google, Facebook Dominance
- Facebook Screws Up a Critical Piece of Its Anti-Revenge Porn Tech
- This is Silly: Pelosi Says Facebook Is A ‘Willing Enabler’ Of Russian Election Meddling. It Is Not
- Shallow Fakes: Why Facebook Was Right Not To Delete The Doctored Video Of Nancy Pelosi
- Sheriff’s Deputy Sued After Arresting Man For Criticizing Him On Facebook
- Facebook Fails To Block EU Court Case That Could Rule Against Most Transatlantic Data Flows
- Twitter acquires AI startup to help it fight fake news: Its technology has a 93 percent success rate in detecting fake news, according to ‘TechCrunch.’
- Twitter And Liz Mair Explain Why Devin Nunes’ Lawsuit Doesn’t Belong In Virginia
- We Found The Guy Behind the Viral ‘Drunk Pelosi’ Video: The video was uploaded by a sports blogger from the Bronx, currently on probation for domestic battery.
- The 2020 campaigns aren’t ready for deepfakes
- On YouTube’s Digital Playground: YouTube’s Recommendation Algorithm Is Under Scrutiny For Surfacing Harmful Content
- On YouTube’s Digital Playground, an Open Gate for Pedophiles
- YouTube’s “Wormhole” Of Videos And Comments Fetishizing Young Children Is Still Thriving
- An update on our efforts to protect minors and families
- YouTube bans neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denial videos in push against hate speech
- YouTube Bans Supremacist Content, Including Neo-Nazi and Holocaust Denial Videos
- YouTube To Remove Thousands Of Extremist Videos, But Rules Steven Crowder’s Harassment Of Carlos Maza Can Stay
- YouTube harassment of gay journalist “doesn’t violate our policies”: Video platform appears to demonetize YouTuber Stephen Crowder, conditions of reinstatement unclear
- YouTube Bans Kids From Live-Streaming Video Unless Accompanied by an Adult
- YouTube Pivots Physical ‘Spaces’ Strategy To Emphasize Region-Specific Pop-Ups
- YouTube Integrates Ticket Vendor AXS To Help Artists Bolster Concert Sales
- YouTube Will Debut Augmented Reality Ads That Let Users Virtually Try On Lipsticks
- How T-Series took over YouTube
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 6/2/2019
- Montreal-Based YouTube Giant WatchMojo Taps Bank As It Seeks Potential Sale
- German Political Leader Questions YouTubers’ Right To Tell Fans Not To Vote For Her Party, Urgently Summons Her Advisers In Response — By Fax
- Patrick Starrr Launches Influencer Incubator And Management Agency ‘The Beauty Coop’
- Influencer Marketing Council Releases “Fraud Best Practices and Guidelines”
- Influencer Marketing Council Provides Tips on Influencer Fraud
- Insights: Beating Burnout, The Biggest Threat To Influencers Everywhere
- Beware of the “influencer”
- The Florida Bar Regulates, But Doesn’t Ban, Competitive Keyword Ads (Eric Goldman)
- ‘They have you in a cultish grip’: the women losing thousands to online beauty schemes
- KSI’s Video Response To Deji Gets Demonetized After Copyright Claim From Logan Paul
- Supreme Court Opens Door to Antitrust Claims Against Online Platforms in Apple Inc. v. Pepper
- Apple CEO Denies the Tech Giant Is a Monopoly but Says U.S. ‘Scrutiny Is Fair’
- Apple will soon kill off iTunes and, with it, an entire era of music history
- Insights: Apple Dumps The Web, And iTunes, In An App-Driven Privacy Push
- Apple Is Officially Killing iTunes for Mac, Replacing It With Three Dedicated Media Apps
- Apple is being sued by iOS devs over ‘profit-killing’ App Store fees
- Answers to some of your iTunes questions: Old libraries, Windows, and more
- Apple’s Hire of a Disney+ Video Executive Highlights Talent Rivalry
- Disney+ ‘to lead’ doubling of western Europe SVOD base
- U.S. Now Requiring Visa Applicants to List Social-Media Names
- Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google: Probe would closely examine Google’s practices related to search, other businesses
- Tubular Labs Global Video Measurement Alliance expands with first focus on social video
- Systemic Algorithmic Harms: Theories of “bias” alone will not enable us to engage in critiques of broader socio-technical systems.
- Ai-Da, the humanoid robot artist, gears up for first solo exhibition
- AI may help with alternative dispute resolution: Won’t replace humans
- This Clothing Line Was Designed By AI: ‘Glitch’ is a new company that sells dresses generated by machine learning algorithms.
- Watching AI Slowly Forget a Human Face Is Incredibly Creepy
- New Study Shows That All This Ad Targeting Doesn’t Work That Well
- Vine Successor ‘Byte’ Has A Live Beta, Tech Review Creator Sam Sheffer Calls It “Very Promising”
- Snap Sells Its User Location Data Company ‘Placed’ To Competitor Foursquare
- Foursquare buys Placed from Snap Inc. on the heels of $150M in new funding
- ESPN Will Test NBA Game Stream Aimed Just at Teens
- Netflix Unveils Trailer For First Awesomeness TV Series, Teen Shoplifting Drama ‘Trinkets’
- Netflix Is Piloting An Instagram-Like, In-App Feed To Promote Its Series, Films
- Netflix Is Nearing Subscriber Peak in the U.S., PwC Says
- Netflix, Which Has Previously Touted Its Ability To Compete With Piracy, Joins Australian Antipiracy Efforts
- Chinese Tech Giant Alibaba Invests $100 Million Into TikTok Competitor ‘VMate’
- Alibaba pumps $100 million into Vmate to grow its video app in India
- 91% of Hulu Subscribers Still Have Cable
- Israeli Court Rules Bitcoin is Not a Form of Currency Exempted From Tax
- Virtual Currency Gets Real Social Media Ads
- Cryptocurrency firms renew push to break free from SEC rules
- A Legal Fight Against The SEC May Represent Our Last Hope For An Open, Distributed Internet
- German Politicians Seek To Regulate ‘Legal Tech’ Companies
- Massachusetts AG’s Lawsuit Against E-Cigarette Retailer Provides Guidance On How Not to Market to Kids
- “WHAT HAPPENED????” How a remote tech writing gig proved to be an old-school scam
- FTC Reminds Crowdfunders: Deliver on Your Promises or Refund
- FTC Launches Two More Actions under the Consumer Review Fairness Act, Requires Companies to Stop Restricting Reviews through Form Contracts
- eSignature and ePayment News and Trends
- No Vicarious Liability Absent Financial Benefit, Even in Context of Contributory Infringement
- Good Faith Belief that Content isn’t Copyrighted is Bad Infringement Defense
COMMUNICATIONS
- SCC decision highlights tension between access to justice and party autonomy: Gives clarity around arbitration clauses
- Cogeco Warns Against Online Video Services Undermining Canadian Sovereignty in BTLR Submission (Michael Geist)
- The Trouble with Trebles: Fourth Circuit Upholds Record $61 Million Vendor Liability Verdict in TCPA Class Action
- If ‘Big Tech’ Is a Huge Antitrust Problem, Why Are We Ignoring Telecom?
- For 5G, AT&T and T-Mobile buy $1.8 billion worth of 24GHz spectrum across US
- Trump Whines About AT&T, Ignores His FCC Has Spent Two Years Kissing The Company’s Ass
- What if Amazon took Sprint’s place as the US’s fourth wireless carrier?
- DOJ Floats A Truly Stupid Idea To Salvage The Sprint, T-Mobile Merger
- Now I Get It! FCC’s Potentially Forthcoming Call Blocking Rule Explained- Carriers May Soon Be Able to Auto-Enroll You Into Call Blocking Features By Default
- Ajit Pai works to cap funding for rural and poor people, gets GOP backing
- FCC Broadband Report: What Broadband Competition Problem?
- US Telcos Are Giving Up On Residential Broadband And Nobody Seems To Have Noticed
- Verizon avoided a decade’s worth of taxes—a new law could make it pay up
- Investors Slam Comcast For Lack Of Lobbying Transparency
- Qualcomm Used Patent Monopolies To Shake Down The Entire Mobile Phone Industry For Decades
- Techdirt Podcast Episode 214: Blame Fox News Before Facebook
PRIVACY
- Surreptitious Recordings Offend a Student’s Right to Privacy at School
- Privacy commissioner suspends consultation following Equifax data breach, say lawyers
- Privacy Commissioner Consults on Cross-Border Data Flows
- Organizations Can Expect Increased Canadian Regulation for Privacy Violations
- Nude Video Chats Are Voyeurism
- Nearly 50 million Instagram users’ data exposed, adding to Facebook’s privacy woes
- Moscow to create large-scale facial recognition system, mayor says
- Army’s Next Infantry Weapon Could Have Facial-Recognition Technology
- Data Governance Best Practices: How to Oversee Your Content
- Microsoft practically begs Windows users to fix wormable BlueKeep flaw
- Microsoft says mandatory password changing is “ancient and obsolete”
- Baltimore ransomware perp pinky-swears he didn’t use NSA exploit
- Baltimore’s bill for ransomware: Over $18 million, so far
- San Francisco Police Union Steps Up To Criticize Police Chief Over His Handling Of The Leak Investigation
- Internal Report Says DOJ Did Nothing Wrong Targeting Journalists’ Communications To Hunt Down Leakers
- Australian Federal Police Raid Journalist’s Home Over Publication Of Leaked Documents
- “WHAT HAPPENED????” How a remote tech writing gig proved to be an old-school scam
- Happy Birthday GDPR. At one year on, what have we learned?
CREATIVITY
- CNN harassed while reporting on Tiananmen Square
- China’s Rebel Cartoonist Unmasks: Badiucao’s work has brought him praise from critics – and threats from Beijing.
- Which Way with Huawei?
- Singapore’s Fake News Law Is Also An Internet Surveillance Law
- Canada Introduces USMCA Implementation Bill…Without a General Copyright Term Extension Provision (Michael Geist)
- Judge Rules that Documentary’s Use of “Super Bowl Shuffle” Didn’t Violate Copyright
- Red Label Music Publishing v. Chila Productions
- Australian police raid public broadcaster over coffee and sandwiches
- AFEX Deplores Massive Crackdown on Free Expression Rights by Sudanese Army
- Canadian Copyright Law Updates
- Paradigm Shift 2: More recommended changes to Canadian copyright law announced
- Heffel Gallery Limited: The National Importance of Foreign Art in Canada
- Federal Court of Appeal Weighs in on Cultural Property: A Win For Canadian Museums and Art Galleries
- Settlement In Tom Brady Photo Case Leaves Issue Of Copyright On Embedded Images Unsettled
- Salvator Mundi painting pulled out of upcoming Louvre exhibition
- Forget Geoffrey Rush: most defamation cases are petty and incredibly local
GAMES
- Mario Kart-themed go-kart company loses against Nintendo in court, again
- Iron Maiden is suing Ion Maiden dev 3D Realms for trademark infringement
- Iron Maiden sue 3D Realms over Early Access title Ion Maiden: Metal band accuses developer of “incredibly blatant” infringement
- Mobile developer DoubleJump accused of cloning: Cannon Brawl creator Theresa Duringer claims Canadian studio copied her competition entry
- Blog: FAQ on The Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act
- United States Senator Proposes Law to Regulate Microtransactions and Loot Boxes
- Games on the Google Play Store now required to disclose loot box odds
- Google Play mandates odds disclosure for loot boxes: Android storefront also tweaks rules regarding hate speech and sexual content
- Google Play Now Requires Disclosure of Loot Box Odds
- Google’s New Play Store Policies Make Developers Disclose The Odds Of Getting Good Items In Loot Boxes
- Google introduces stricter Families policies to protect younger players: Android developers will now need to declare their target audience and ensure their title does not unintentionally attract children
- Google to reveal Stadia pricing information this week: More details on the streaming service’s launch and games will arrive on Thursday
- Report: Destiny 2 is coming to Google Stadia
- 238 Google Play apps with >440 million installs made phones nearly unusable
- Don’t Miss: How Dicey Dungeons balances chance and predictability
- Cloud platform Coherence wants to ‘democratize’ online game development
- Sony: Microsoft cloud partnership was a response to Google Stadia – PlayStation’s Jim Ryan says new thinking is required to avoid, “having events around us overtake us”
- Sony could use ‘cross-generational play’ to soften next-gen transition
- PlayStation Plus prices to rise in Asia and Europe: Price increases take effect in August, will vary by country and type of subscription
- Online gaming disorder test calls for volunteers: Academics plan to use the data to further study the impact of newly-classified condition
- Researchers pit DeepMind AI against human Quake IIIplayers
- Did Fallout 76 launch too early or just in time to be saved?
- Niantic is ending Apple Watch support for Pokemon Go
- tvOS 13 and iOS 13 will support PlayStation 4 and Xbox One controllers
- Minecraft Earth gets first live demo, coming to iOS “this summer”
- Support for Telltale’s Minecraft: Story Mode will end this month: “As you might have heard, its publisher is no longer in business,” Mojang said
- Apple expands tvOS gaming with PS4, Xbox One S controller support: Say goodbye to fiddly third-party MFi controllers.
- Missed Kinect-tions – E3 in the time of motion controls – 10 Years Ago This Month: Microsoft unveils Project Natal, Sony debuts the Move controller, and optimism runs unchecked
- Who really won E3 2018?: With another E3 fast approaching, we look back at the big games of last year that went on to become commercial hits
- First UK digital chart: Total War: Three Kingdoms was last week’s true No.1 – Team Sonic Racing would have had to settle for No.2
- Three Kingdoms breaks Total War records with 1m sold: Strength in the Chinese market pushed Creative Assembly’s game to a new launch week record
- War Stories: How This War of Mine manipulates your emotions
- Next-gen consoles must not “segregate” Rainbow Six community: Ubisoft’s Alexandre Remy wants to maintain one community for Rainbow Six Siege
- Microsoft rebrands Windows 10 Xbox app as the Xbox Console Companion
- Gears 5 to launch on Steam as Xbox opens up to other PC stores: Xbox Game Studios titles will now launch on multiple PC stores to provide, “choice in where you buy your PC games”
- BlueStacks Inside aims to give mobile devs a painless way to launch on Steam
- Blog: Marketing an upcoming Steam game
- To Infinite and beyond: Attracting new Halo fans without a new game – 343 Industries’ Kiki Wolfkill explains how the studio’s transmedia efforts will prepare the world for Master Chief’s return
- Two of Korea’s largest gaming firms bid for Nexon parent company: Netmarble and Kakao joined by three equity firms in bid for NXC
- Mail.ru plans to enter digital distribution space with launch of new gaming brand: My.Games will continue work of parent company’s gaming division in developing, publishing, and funding new titles
- Hardware and software sales on the decline at GameStop
- GameStop share price hits 16-year low after Q1 results
- GameStop shares plummet nearly 39%: VSpecialty retailer trading at lowest price since 2003 after reporting sinking sales and halting shareholder dividends
- GameStop quarterlies show slumping sales: Collectibles and new Switch hardware sales are up, but nearly everything else is down as retailer eliminates quarterly shareholder dividends
- GameStop COO and CFO Rob Lloyd steps down amid executive shuffle
- Sports Direct makes £51.9m offer for GAME: Retail giant triggers cash offer for full GAME retail business after acquiring another 10%
- Coherence: “Lowering the barrier to entry has always proved to be a game changer” – Dino Patti on joining forces with David Helgason and Peter Björklund to democratise online game development
- Microsoft is bringing Xbox Game Pass to Windows PC
- Microsoft to launch Xbox Game Pass on PC: Custom version of the service will have 100+ games, including day-and-date launches of first-party titles
- Xbox Game Pass is coming to Windows 10, but many questions remain
- Esports Upstart 100 Thieves Signs Gaming Luminary Jack ‘CouRage’ Dunlop
- Take-Two CEO: “Fortnite never affected the industry” – Strauss Zelnick explains why free-to-play games won’t change premium business models, and why platform revenue share splits may soon change
- ‘Fortnite’ Champ Nick ‘Nickmercs’ Kolcheff Joins FaZe Clan After Abrupt Departure From 100 Thieves
- Audience Growth For ‘Fortnite’ Gamers Ninja And KittyPlays Stays Strong Ahead of E3
- FaZe Clan Is Being Sued For “Ransacking” The Office It Shared With Former Partner Company Hubrick
- Riot Games launches premium viewing service for LoL esports: Pro View will be available for this summer’s esports competitions, with prices starting at $14.99
- Tencent reportedly gives up on Arena of Valor: Tencent spokesman denies reports overseas marketing and sales team were disbanded
- Zynga launches Tiny Royale on Snapchat
- Zynga launches Snap Games-exclusive battle royale game
- Quake III Arena is the latest game to see AI top humans
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare brings cross-platform play to the series
- In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s campaign you’ll play both as soldiers and ‘freedom fighters’ – As special forces you’ll have high-tech gear, but as a rebel you’ll have to make do with improvised weapons and guerrilla tactics.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reveal: Old name, new campaign, new brutality
- Apple’s ARKit 3 offers real-time people occlusion and motion capture
- Dragon Quest Walk is a Pokemon Go-style AR game from Square Enix
- UK Charts: Blood & Truth is the first VR game to claim No.1: In a tight boxed chart, the PlayStation VR critical hit storms to the top
- Nintendo brings Labo VR support to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- Report: VR/AR company Leap Motion sold to UltraHaptics for $30 million
- The clash between storytelling and selling in Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery – Jam City president Josh Yguado on the challenge of monetising the world famous franchise responsibly
- The balance between fact and fantasy when building game worlds: Croteam’s Nika Dvoravic shares how studying architecture has – and hasn’t – helped her work on Serious Sam
- Failbetter Games’ quest to eradicate crunch: Adam Myers and Hannah Flynn talk about making Sunless Skies with a dedication to ethical development practices
- Bossa Studios to close Worlds Adrift in July: Ambitious MMO made with SpatialOS lasted one year in Early Access, but didn’t find a big enough audience
- Bulletstorm and Gears of War developer People Can Fly opens New York studio
- Stillfront acquires War Commander dev Kixeye for $90 million
- Stillfront Group acquires Kixeye for $90m: Global studio group continues to grow portfolio with four live titles from mobile RTS developer
- Discovery launches Discovery Game Studios for licensing, distribution: Label has 12 games launched and more on the way in partnership with Ubisoft, Jam City, and others
- Starbreeze is laying off a quarter of its entire workforce
- Starbreeze lays off a quarter of its staff in further efforts to cut costs: Struggling Swedish publisher makes organisational changes that will save £310,000 per month
- Starbreeze applies for second extension on reconstruction period: Troubled Swedish publisher wants another three months to get itself back on track
- YoYo Games shuts down publishing division after struggling to ‘add value’
- YoYo Games closes publishing division: Also halves mobile licence cost in hopes of attracting more developers
- Quantic Dream pushes into third-party publishing with new hire: Microsoft veteran Sebastian Motte will be director of third-party studios at the French company
- Zynga sells San Francisco headquarters for $600m
- Tesla’s next big feature is… a port of Cuphead?
- Cuphead is launching for Tesla cars
- Cuphead arriving on Tesla dashboards later this year: Punishing bullet hell platformer joins Atari classics on in-car systems
- GameBender console merges video games with kid-friendly programming
- (Religious Game) Developer or Religious (Game Developer)?
- Indie publisher Raw Fury has acquired the rights to theKingdom franchise
- Blog: On narrative from a cognitive perspective
- Blog: On narrative from a cognitive perspective – Part 2
- Don’t Miss: Ray Muzyka’s Baldur’s Gate II postmortem
- Don’t Miss: Why are so many devs employing a retro ’90s aesthetic?
- Don’t Miss: 9 things we can learn about game design fromDark Souls
- Video: Using empathy as a game mechanic in Unravel
- Video: The things I wish I knew before becoming an art director
- Video: How Blizzard brought Orphea to Heroes of the Storm
- Video: Building interactive worlds the Walt Disney Imagineering way
- Game Design Deep Dive: Frenetic local multiplayer inEmergency Water Landing
- Eight ways your games can inspire climate action: “I want to see games trade material growth for social growth,” says Fe designer and climate activist Hugo Bille
- MAME for the masses? “Legends” arcade cabinet could thread that needle
- Gearbox names Borderlands 3 gun after fan with terminal cancer: Trevor Eastman was also able to play a section of the game ahead of its September launch
- The Institute of Play is winding down after 11 years
- Institute of Play shutting down: New York non-profit focused on integrating game design with education closes after 11 years
- Control pre-E3 hands-on: The modern-day X-Men video game we’ve always wanted
- Post-End Game, Russo Brothers to adapt Magic: The Gatheringfor Netflix
- Netflix and Avengers Endgame directors working on a Magic The Gathering TV show: Wizards of the Coast is bringing its 25 year-old IP to the screen
- RPG Time: The Legend of Wright, The Missing, and more awarded at BitSummit
- Detroit: Become Human, Nintendo Labo among Games for Change Awards finalists
- Thumper: Pocket Edition and Ordia among 2019 Apple Design Award winners
Jon
News of the Week; May 29, 2019
DIGITAL
- Zuckerberg and Sandberg ignore Canadian subpoena, face possible contempt vote
- Facebook Took Down 2.2 Billion Fake Accounts in Q1
- Conservative Bias? Twitter Bans Famous ‘Resistance’ Heroes
- Distorted Videos of Nancy Pelosi Spread on Facebook and Twitter, Helped by Trump
- Trump allies spread distorted videos of Pelosi
- Facebook on fake Pelosi video: Being ‘false’ isn’t enough for removal
- Backlash after Facebook agrees Nancy Pelosi video is fake but declines to delete it: ‘We don’t have a policy that stipulates that the information you post on Facebook must be true,’ the company said
- Why it took Facebook so long to act against the doctored Pelosi video
- Pelosi says altered videos show Facebook leaders were ‘willing enablers’ of Russian election interference
- Deepfakes are getting better—but they’re still easy to spot
- Shady Political Ads Are Pouring Into Facebook. We Still Can’t Track Them.
- Section 230 Doesn’t End Lawsuit Claiming Facebook Facilitated Sex Trafficking–Doe v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
- Section 230 Helps Facebook Easily Defeat Claims Over a User’s Post–Richard v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
- Dear Kara Swisher: Don’t Let Your Hatred Of Facebook Destroy Free Speech Online
- New Assange indictment adds 17 espionage charges
- Federal Prosecutors Questioned The Assange Prosecution, But Their Concerns Were Ignored By The DOJ
- The Wikimedia Foundation Asks The European Court Of Human Rights To Rule Against Turkey’s Two-Year Block Of All Wikipedia Versions
- Jim Balsillie : ‘Data is not the new oil – it’s the new plutonium’: Lawmakers told technology is disrupting governance and if left unchecked could render liberal democracy obsolete
- Civil society, industry and government must join hands to protect free speech, curb extreme speech: Our next challenge is to find the mix of tools and approaches that strengthen public discourse that work in the digital age.
- Forget ‘Breaking Up’ Internet Companies, Senator Josh Hawley Says They Should All Die Because They’re Too Popular
- Want to fix big tech? Change what classes are required for a computer science degree: When people learn to code, they should also learn about ethics, humanities, and equity.
- Social Media Companies Seek Government Content Regulation?
- Regulating social media
- Is Fake News spam?
- Several Pro And College Sports Teams Suspended From Twitter Over Mystery DMCA Notices
- Donald Trump’s Wikipedia Entry Is a War Zone: It’s one of the most popular pages on the internet. But behind the scenes, editors are fighting a brutal, petty battle over every word.
- Canada Digital Charter Announced
- Canada Introduces a Digital Charter to Better Protect Privacy
- Canada proposes to increase penalties for tech giants in its Digital Charter
- Feds call on Competition Bureau to address Big Data
- Youth and Artificial Intelligence: Where We Stand (Alexa Hasse, Sandra Cortesi, Andres Lombana-Bermudez, Urs Gasser)
- Robots conduct daily health inspections of schoolchildren in China
- When algorithms mess up, the nearest human gets the blame: A look at historical case studies shows us how we handle the liability of automated systems.
- Hollywood Is Quietly Using Ai To Help Decide Which Movies To Make: AI will tell you who to cast and predict how much money you’ll make
- Poland has filed a complaint against the European Union’s copyright directive: The directive was approved in April, and goes into force in June
- Internet Regulation: Endgame (Andres Guadamuz)
- Kentucky to Begin Taxing Video Streaming Services under Telecom Tax
- Streaming Services Far Exceed Traditional Cable in Customer Satisfaction
- HuffPost Gets 512(c) Defense for Contributor-Uploaded Photo–Downs v. Oath (Eric Goldman)
- Dark Web Provider Escapes Wrongful Death Drug Case
- Filtering Actions by Anti-Malware Software Provider Protected by CDA “Good Samaritan” Immunity
- Here’s How Many Views YouTubers Need To Make It Onto The ‘Trending’ Tab (Study)
- YouTube’s Trending section puts creators at a huge disadvantage over big brands: Study collected data on more than 40,000 videos
- T-Series’ YouTube Channel Becomes First-Ever To Net 100 Million Subscribers
- T-Series Becomes First YouTube Channel To Pass 100 Million Subscribers
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 5/26/2019
- Youtubers And Record Labels Are Fighting, And Record Labels Keep Winning: The battle over copyright continues
- Meet the man with an impossible job: cleaning up YouTube
- Friday essay: YouTube apologies and reality TV revelations – the rise of the public confession
- New Collab Study Finds YouTube Viewership Has Dramatically Shifted Toward TV Screens
- YouTube Millionaires: ‘The Mean Kitty’ Is YouTube’s Most Beloved Cat
- Grumpy Cat – legal lessons from the ultimate sourpuss
- Rudy Mancuso To Direct ‘Black Mirror’ Promo Series With Lele Pons, Jeff Wittek, Others
- Insights: Remaking Education To Inspire And Engage An Influencer-Fueled World
- StyleHaul Scraps Plans To Shift Operations To U.K., Confirms Total Shutdown (Exclusive)
- Sephora Takes Crowdsourced Approach To Influencer Marketing With New Beauty ‘Squad’
- High School Students Are Making College Decision Reaction Videos (And They’re Good)
- ‘Believe in the brand’: Kellogg’s is now using influencers like creative agencies
- KSI Loses 100,000 Subscribers After Brother Deji Posts Video Accusing Him Of Abusive Behavior
- Logan And Jake Paul To Chat YouTube Drama On New Joint Channel
- Snap in Talks to License Music to Let Snapchat Users Embed Songs in Posts
- Snap Hires Google Exec Oona King as First VP of Diversity and Inclusion
- Snap Poaches Google, YouTube Vet Oona King To Serve As VP Of Diversity And Inclusion
- Remember the iPod? Apple just released the first new one in four years
- No chill: Google just banned marijuana delivery apps from the Play Store
- TikTok parent Bytedance is reportedly working on its own smartphone
- The Music-Making Site That Can Get You a Global Hit (Or a Lawsuit): Lil Nas X bought the beat for “Old Town Road” for $30 from a website called BeatStars.
- Nielsen Using Patent Monopolies To Act Like A Monopolist
- Netflix Says It Will “Rethink Our Entire Investment In Georgia” If Anti-Abortion Law Is Enacted
- Netflix the Only Hollywood Studio to Speak Out in Attack Against Abortion Rights
- Rudy Mancuso To Direct ‘Black Mirror’ Promo Series With Lele Pons, Jeff Wittek, Others
- Hulu Says 70% of Its 82 Million Viewers Are on Ad-Supported Plan
- 70% Of Hulu’s 28 Million Subscribers Are On Its Ad-Supported Tier — And Hulu’s Innovating Ads To Keep Them There
- Why CBS, Viacom and others are open to making shows for streaming and TV rivals
- BuzzFeed’s Viral Tasty Brand Dives Deeper Into Long-Form Shows With ‘Making It Big’
- Instagram Adds Horizontal Video Support For IGTV 1 Year After Launch
- Chrissy Teigen Will Reign In Quibi’s ‘Judge Judy’-Esque Reality Series ‘Chrissy’s Court’
- Jay-Z and Tidal to Host Release Events for Prince’s ‘Originals’ Album
- It’s Ok That Amazon Will (Likely) Get The .Amazon Domain
- Amazon avoids liability for defective product
- Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Long-Feared Purge of Small Suppliers
- MacKenzie Bezos Signs ‘Giving Pledge’ to Donate Half Her $37 Billion Amazon Fortune to Charity
- Amazon Isn’t Liable for Defective Marketplace Sale (No Thanks to Section 230)–Erie Insurance v. Amazon
- Porter Gale Becomes Reddit’s First Female Board Member
- Who owns the Bitcoin white paper? (Andres Guadamuz)
- Copyright Office Weighs In After Wannabe Satoshi Craig Wright Registers Copyright On Original Bitcoin Paper
- How blockchain and smart contracts will change the face of insurance in the U.S.
- Modi’s Indian election win clears way for cryptocurrency ban
- Proposed Amendments to the GST/HST Treatment of Cryptocurrencies
- Fake cryptocurrency apps on Google Play try to profit on bitcoin price surge
- Website for storing digital currencies hosted code with a sneaky backdoor
- Blockchain, Hype or Hope?
- Salesforce’s Success Rides on One Man’s Gut: Marc Benioff’s acquisitions have kept the software giant growing at an incredible rate.
- A technology blueprint for personalization at scale
- The internet is changing Africa, mostly for the better: Cheap smartphones are flooding Africa, giving many of its citizens access to the internet for the very first time.
- 30-plus years of HyperCard, the missing link to the Web
- Before Netscape: The forgotten Web browsers of the early 1990s
- The unlikely origins of USB, the port that changed everything
COMMUNICATIONS
- No Mandated Netflix Cancon Payments: Shaw Argues Success Lies in More Regulatory Flexibility in BTLR Submission (Michael Geist)
- Self-Serving in the Extreme: Bell’s Broadcast and Telecom Submission to the BTLR Revealed (Michael Geist)
- Ajit Pai May Have Lied To Congress About FCC’s Failure To Address Wireless Location Data Scandals
- If Facebook’s Privacy Practices Anger You, AT&T Shouldn’t Get A Free Pass
- FCC Starts Accepting ATSC 3.0 Applications – The Next Generation of TV Transmission
- Federal Communications Commission Plans to Combat Robocalls with Carrier-Initiated Blocking
- U.S. Adds Chinese Giant Huawei and Non-U.S. Affiliates to Entity List; Grants Limited Reprieve
- Huawei in Hot Water: Trump Declares National Emergency
- Is Huawei in retreat?
- Microsoft pulls Huawei laptops from its online store
- Research in UBC-Huawei partnership proceeds as pressure builds to exclude giant Chinese firm
- Huawei argues congressional ban on its equipment is unconstitutional
- House Dems Start To Wimp Out On Net Neutrality
- 47 Democrats cave on net neutrality after GOP calls bill “dead on arrival”
- Report Says EU ISPs Are Happily Ignoring Net Neutrality Rules
- Comcast does so much lobbying that it says disclosing it all is too hard
- Directors and Officers May Be Found Personally Liable Under CASL
PRIVACY
- Proposed digital charter could bring sweeping changes to Canadian privacy laws
- Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada Suspends Consultation on Transborder Data Flows
- Apple promises privacy, but iPhone apps share your data with trackers, ad companies and research firms
- Nearly 50 million Instagram users’ data exposed, adding to Facebook’s privacy woes
- Government Prosecutor Caught Sending Emails With Tracking Software To Reporters And Defense Attorneys
- Google bots shut down Baltimore officials’ ransomware-workaround Gmail accounts
- Eternally Blue: Baltimore City leaders blame NSA for ransomware attack
- Dating App Maker Gets COPPA Warning Letter from the Commish
- Why a Windows flaw patched nine days ago is still spooking the Internet
- FTC, App Stores Break Up With Dating Apps
- Pennsylvania Superior Court holds county where reputational harm occurs is proper venue for Internet defamation suits, confirming 50-year-old inquiry applies to website-based claims
- Amazon now lets you tell Alexa to delete your voice recordings
- Why We Should Stop Fetishizing Privacy
- Mending (Geo)fencing Concerns
- Why Privacy Is an Antitrust Issue
- SFPD Finally Admits The Search Of A Journalist’s Home Over A Leaked Document Was Probably Illegal
- San Francisco Bans Facial Recognition Technology Amidst Wave of Government Scrutiny
- Law Firm Domain Names Spoofed to Launch Phishing Scams
- Can Employers Request Social Media Account Information?
- Germany mulls giving end-to-end chat app encryption das boot: Law requiring decrypted plain-text is in the works – Officials want to upgrade rules from device searching to message interception
- Ship Your Enemies GDPR
- One Year Into The GDPR: Can We Declare It A Total Failure Yet?
- FTC Toughening Stance on Data Security – Five Key Takeaways from Recent Consent Orders
- Privacy Unravelled: what do Facebook and Google know about us?
- Connected devices: Challenges for both technology providers and consumers
CREATIVITY
- New Assange Indictment Makes Insane, Unprecedented Use Of Espionage Act On Things Journalists Do All The Time
- The indictment of Assange is a blueprint for making journalists into felons: The First Amendment is meaningless if it only protects people the government recognizes as journalists
- Under DOJ’s Own Theory For Prosecuting Julian Assange, Donald Trump Probably Violated The Espionage Act
- SFPD Earning Universal Condemnation For Raiding A Journalist’s Home During Its Internal Leak Investigation
- San Francisco police chief concedes raid on journalist was wrong – ‘I’m sorry’
- San Francisco police union wants chief out over raid on freelance reporter
- ‘Gimme the prize’: the author dysfunction (Johanna Gibson)
- The Books of College Libraries Are Turning Into Wallpaper: University libraries around the world are seeing precipitous declines in the use of the books on their shelves.
- Portland Trailblazers Streisand Stupid Local Article Into National Spotlight For No Reason At All
- Countdown To Canada’s New Trademarks Act
- PR Firm Not Covered by Privilege Umbrella in Trademark Row
- ITC to Investigate Infringing Uses of Trademarks and Copyrights to Sell Counterfeits
- Peppa Pig: Copyright infringement by the former licensee
- Jenni Rivera Enterprises LLC v. Univision Communications Inc.
- A “Boost” for copyright protection in the fashion industry: Kanye’s Yeezy sneakers to receive copyright registrations
- NCAA Athletes Move Closer to Receiving Pay from Their Names, Images, and Likeness
- Publishing Law Insight – The Perils of Mimicking a Famous Advertising Slogan
- Chris Brown’s “Wobble Up” Video Allegedly Copied Visual Artists’ Work
- Double trouble: the fight to be the real Lord Buckethead:
- When the political candidate stood against Theresa May in the 2017 general election, he became a viral star. But not all is well
- Bittersweet no more: Rolling Stones pass Verve royalties to Richard Ashcroft – Acrimonious dispute meant Ashcroft gave up royalties but ‘kind and magnanimous gesture from Mick and Keith’ passes rights to him
- A True Story Of ‘Copyright Piracy’: Why The Verve Will Only Start Getting Royalties Now For Bittersweet Symphony
- Why Is Congress Moving Forward With Its Plan To Encourage Copyright Trolling?
- Brooke Shields Hits Charlotte Tilbury with Eyebrow Suit
- Profit Motive Does Not Magically Transform Data Request Fax Into Unsolicited Advertisement
- How One Hollywood Producer Is Trying to Change the Boys’ Club From Within
- NAD Washes Out Superiority Claims in Tide Pods Commercial
- Meredith Sells Sports Illustrated to Authentic Brands Group for $110 Million
- Jeff Koons becomes world’s most expensive living artist
- Aaron Sorkin read Breitbart for inspiration as he wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird” script
- By Censoring Arthur’s Same-Sex Wedding, Alabama Public Television Betrayed Mr. Rogers’ Legacy
- How Berlin Became an Unlikely Home for China’s Artists: The German capital not only offers freedom, but also invites people to provoke and challenge orthodoxy.
- The 25 Best High School Movies
GAMES
- Sony Europe taken to court for alleged consumer rights violations: ACCC alleges PlayStation Store refund policy does not reflect the consumer rights protected under Australian law
- Zenimax settles ‘Redfall’ trademark dispute with book publisher
- Bethesda And Zenimax Settle ‘Redfall’ Trademark Dispute With Trollish Book Publisher
- ‘Gaming disorder’ officially recognized as a disease despite industry protests
- World Health Organization makes ‘gaming disorder’ a recognised illness: Classification to come into effect January 1, 2022
- Trade groups decry gaming disorder classification: Six industry associations from around the world say evidence of the condition is not “sufficiently robust”
- South Korean government split on gaming disorder: Ministry of Culture argues diagnosis violates right to cultural freedom while Ministry of Welfare supports the WHO classification
- Senators Hawley, Markey, And Blumenthal File Legislation To Stop Manipulative Video Game Practices Aimed At Children
- US loot box bill receives bipartisan support: Republican senator’s ban on loot boxes pay-to-win mechanics for children has been co-sponsored by two Democrats
- GOP, Dem Senators officially introduce loot box, “pay-to-win” legislation
- A BILL To regulate certain pay-to-win microtransactions and sales of loot boxes in interactive digital entertainment products, and for other purposes.
- Games industry being “dragged through the mud” by Belgian loot box ruling: Flemish Games Association questions the motives of Belgian Gaming Commission report on loot boxes
- Proposed anti-loot box bill has big implications for devs and publishers
- Shocking U.S. “Loot Box” Bill Should Surprise No One: The Video Game Industry Under Attack (Ryan Black, Tyson Gratton)
- The Relationship of Loot Box Purchases to Problem Video Gaming and Problem Gambling (Wen Li Anthony, Devin Mills & Lisa Nower)
- Rage 2 Drops Denuvo In Record Time After Customer Outcry
- FaZe Clan’s Contract With Tfue Leaks, FaZe Banks Acknowledges Its Terms Are “Horrible” For Gamers
- Tfue Lawsuit Sparks Scrutiny of Gamer Agreements and Esports Agency Activity
- Riot forms governing body for scholastic esports: Riot Scholastic Association of America to oversee high school and collegiate League of Legends competitions
- Overwatch League commissioner joins Epic’s Fortnite esports push
- Overwatch League commissioner Nate Nanzer leaving Blizzard for Epic Games
- Gearbox didn’t file a grievance against former legal counsel: Wade Callender confirms that the Borderlands studio has not followed through on its threat
- The Epic Games Store exceeded THQ Nordic’s expectations, says CEO
- ZeniMax amicably resolves “Redfall” trademark dispute: Contested trademark is thought by fans to be a possible title for the next Elder Scrolls game
- US considers 25% tariff on game consoles: Trump administration proposes tax on “essentially all products” coming from China as part of escalating trade dispute
- Roblox targets China with Tencent education partnership: Joint venture will run educational programmes at first, with Chinese launch of Roblox “the ultimate goal”
- Report: Tencent backs away from Arena of Valor after it fails to take off in the West
- Tencent reportedly gives up on Arena of Valor: Honor of Kings’ Western revamp has been left to “live or die on its own course” after rift with Riot Games
- Bossa shutting down Worlds Adrift, says game is ‘no longer commercially viable’
- The Playdate is a new crank-clad handheld from Firewatchpublisher Panic
- Firewatch publisher unveils Playdate gaming handheld: New hardware from Panic will include a game each week from a different designer — and a hand crank
- Playdate handheld pressured Playdate event to change name, says organizer: Nathalie Lawhead criticizes Panic rep for “bullying” people building the culture the handheld is marketed toward
- Razer signals the end of Ouya with online store closure: The microconsole brand had survived as part of the Forge TV service, but that will close in June
- Telltale Games titles are being delisted from GOG
- All Telltale Games to be pulled from GOG next week: Eight more series to be removed, but 2K is working on getting Tales from the Borderlands reinstated to digital storefronts
- Patrice Désilets’ Ancestors will be exclusive to Epic Games Store for three months: Staggered console release means Panache Digital’s first game will be exclusive to EGS when it launches in August
- From Rockstar Lincoln studio head to anti-crunch advocate: Mark Lloyd shares how he embraced crunch culture, how he got out of it, and how he’s dealing with the lingering guilt and regret
- Blog: Why crunch will break the best and brightest in the industry
- Four new Pokemon projects have been unveiled, including cross-platform trading hub
- Pokémon Home adds cloud service to series: The Pokémon Company also announced new mobile titles, including one that tracks sleeping patterns, and more plans for China
- Pokémon is a masterclass in brand management | Opinion: Last night’s reveals offered more evidence of The Pokémon Company’s masterful 23 year strategy
- Super Mario Maker 2’s paid online mode won’t let you matchmake with friends
- Dauntless saw 500,000 new players within 24 hours of its cross-platform launch
- Dead Cells has surpassed 2 million copies sold
- Subway Surfers surpasses 2.5 billion lifetime downloads
- These were the best-selling new releases on Steam in April
- 13 data centers in key game dev areas now support xCloud, testing open for some devs
- Don’t Miss: The blessing and the curse of early buzz forRime
- How everything has fallen into place for Tetris: The classic puzzle game is making headlines once again, just in time for its 35th birthday celebrations
- GitHub launches Patreon-like crowdfunding program GitHub Sponsors
- Zynga sells headquarters for $600 million to help finance acquisitions
- Blog: Understanding the impact of the creative gaming revolution
- Blog: 7 essential ingredients for building tension in horror games
- Blog: The double-edged sword of live service games
- Blog: A technical approach to Titan’s environment inAfterlight
- Blog: Design trajectories in Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Chess Edition
- A composer’s insight to making music for games: Workflow, creativity, and tech
- Opinion: How Draugen lets down its characters
- Don’t Miss: The making of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- Don’t Miss: 7 classic arcade games that can still teach developers lessons today
- Video: Cultivating and caring for great AI behavior trees
- Video: The grind behind Boyfriend Dungeon’s $272K funding success
- Sonic the Hedgehog film delayed: Paramount Pictures pushes back Sega mascot’s live-action film as it overhauls character design
- TIGA: UK industry now contributes record £1.8b to GDP – New report shows UK headcount at an all-time high of 16,532 full-time staff
- Superhot passes two million lifetime sales: VR accounts for around 40% of game’s total sales
- VR and AR must converge, says Unity XR lead: Timoni West foresees a future where VR/AR/mixed reality technology outpaces consoles, replaces PCs entirely
- Unity announces support for Labo VR goggles
- Augmented reality changes how people interact and communicate, study finds
- Superdata: Apex Legends digital revenue down 74% in two months – EA’s battle royale title shows second month of steep digital revenue decline, falls out of PC and console top ten
- EA exec lays out a vision of the future: Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele shares her optimism, predicts a machine-learning powered metaverse of gaming within 10 years
- Quake II gets free real-time raytracing updates on June 6
- Leigh Alexander: “Power fantasies are boring”: The award-winning narrative designer is tired of games giving players whatever they want — it’s time we explored “disempowerment fantasies” instead
- Total War: Three Kingdoms is a massive hit in China
- How Total War conquered China to break franchise records: The latest Total War game has got off to the best start in the franchise’s history as Three Kingdoms rules in China
- Sony CEO: Consoles a ‘niche market’ within the games industry
- Putting PlayStation on the silver screen: Efforts to adapt games to TV and film have generally been poorly received – but the cultural and business climate we’re in may be perfect for Sony’s new venture
- Sony: Next PlayStation’s success will depend on backwards compatibility and streaming – Both Remote Play and PlayStation Now will be key pillars for Sony’s next generation offering
- Kojima’s Death Stranding gets November 8 release date, wackadoo trailer: If the glowing “bridge baby” isn’t enough for you, there’s now a tentacle-boss tease.
- UK charts: Team Sonic Racing laps the competition -Sega’s kart racer is first Sonic game to top charts in 11 years as Rage 2 slides a few spots in its second week
- Sonic the Hedgehog film delayed: Paramount Pictures pushes back Sega mascot’s live-action film as it overhauls character design
- Bossa shutting down Worlds Adrift, says game is ‘no longer commercially viable’
- WeQ acquires and rebrands Booster Studios to branch into publishing
- Video: A Dream Daddy dev’s survival guide for terminally online indies
- The YouTube Gaming app is shutting down this week
- YouTube Will Permanently Shutter Standalone Gaming App On May 30
- Google Play’s new dev policies aim to improve child privacy and safety
- Google kills its Twitch killer—the YouTube Gaming app shuts down this week
- Google investing €600m into Finnish data centre ahead of Stadia
- Why the quirky Playdate portable could succeed where Ouya failed
- GDPR: One year in | Opinion: Too many games businesses remain complacent about complying with GDPR, says Keywords Studios’ Andrew Brown
- ‘If You’re Playing EVE Online You Basically Already Have An MBA,’ Says Player Who Built His Own Company
- A Way Out picks up Game of the Year at Nordic Game Awards: Hazelight Studios’ game beat Supercell and EA DICE to the prize
- In praise of ultra-short games
Jon
News of the Week; May 22, 2019
DIGITAL
- Federal government proposes sweeping digital charter
- Canada’s Digital Charter: Trust in a digital world
- The Foundation of Canada’s Digital Charter: Privacy Law Reform Focused on a Data-Driven Economy (Michael Geist)
- The World Wants to Fight Online Hate. Why Doesn’t President Trump?: The White House foolishly rejected an international effort to stop the spread of extremism and violence on the internet.
- White House unveils new tool to report censorship by social media giants
- White House Sets Up Echo Chamber For Complaints About Social Media Bias Against Conservatives
- Governments And Internet Companies Agree On Questionable Voluntary Pact On Extremist Content Online
- Combating online hate could mean legal change
- Why Facebook shareholders want Mark Zuckerberg out
- Facebook and Google pressured EU experts to soften fake news regulations, say insiders: On the eve of European elections, the tech giants stand accused of sabotaging the European Union’s fight against disinformation.
- Flip Side To ‘Stopping’ Terrorist Content Online: Facebook Is Deleting Evidence Of War Crimes
- And Now The Prime Minister Of Canada Is Threatening To Fine Social Media Companies Over ‘Fake News’
- Huge New Study Finds Almost No Evidence That Social Media Makes Kids Unhappy
- AT&T denies that selling phone location data was illegal as FCC investigates
- AT&T Has Become a New Kind of Media Giant: Bellhead CEO Randall Stephenson is taking on Netflix and Comcast simultaneously. It won’t be easy.
- AT&T outclassed Verizon in hurricane response, and it wasn’t close, union says
- Trump tries to shut Huawei out of US market with executive order
- President Trump Issues Executive Order on Information Security; Huawei Technologies to Be Placed on “Entity List”
- Trump issues Executive Order on securing information and communications technology and services – key points
- Telecom trade restrictions when dealing with Huawei and its non-U.S. affiliates
- Chinese Telecom Companies Under Fire: Commerce Moves to Cut Off Huawei From U.S. Technology, With More Restrictions Coming
- Trump Administration Limits US Purchase and Use of Certain Technology From Foreign Adversaries, Sale of US Technology to Huawei
- US Adds Huawei and Affiliates to the Department of Commerce Entity List – What to Expect From the Final Rule
- ARM cuts ties with Huawei, threatening future chip designs: A major blow to Huawei
- ARM is the latest partner to shun Huawei, so how will it design chips?
- Sanctions on Steroids: Huawei is a Prohibited ‘Entity,’ Foreign Adversaries Are Lurking in Information and Communications Services, What Does It All Mean?
- Google Joins The Evidence-Optional Assault On Huawei
- Google reportedly ends business with Huawei, will cut it off from Play Store [Updated]
- Huawei a small part of an ‘insurmountably hard problem’ of cybersecurity
- Foxconn Still Trying To Tap Dance Around Its Ever-Shrinking Wisconsin Promises
- Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant
- Our Way or the Huawei: Are Your Fintech Contracts Ready for a National Emergency?
- Huawei’s US ban: A look at the hardware (and software) supply problems
- The US DOC gives Huawei a 90-day window to support existing devices
- Creator claims Lenovo stole foldable Moto Razr video it played at a press event
- Forget Huawei, The Internet Of Things Is The Real Security Threat
- Section 230 Protects Tor Project from Liability for Tragic Drug Overdose–Seaver v. Estate of Cazes (Eric Goldman)
- A Recap of My Recent Section 230 Papers (Eric Goldman)
- EFF Highlights Stories Of Bad Content Moderation With New TOSsed Out Site
- 3D-printed guns are back, and this time they are unstoppable: A decentralised network of gun-printing advocates is mobilising online, they’re anonymously sharing blueprints, advice and building a community.
- Malaysian Teen Commits Suicide After Instagram Users Voted For Her Death In Poll
- Instagram’s IGTV copies TikTok’s AI, Snapchat’s design
- Snapchat Bans Adult Entertainment Company’s X-Rated Lenses
- Alarming Lessons From Facebook’s Push to Stop Fake News in India
- Facebook’s A.I. Whiz Now Faces the Task of Cleaning It Up. Sometimes That Brings Him to Tears.
- Facebook has finally revealed what its secretive robotics division is working on, and it could spark competition with rivals like Google and Apple
- Should digital platforms be treated as publishers? Key elements of Digital Copyright Directive
- Killer Apps: The Real Dangers of an AI Arms Race
- Unboxing Artificial Intelligence: 10 steps to protect Human Rights (Council of Europe Commissioner For Human Rights)
- US to endorse new OECD principles on artificial intelligence
- ICO focuses on AI and biometric data
- How Tech Companies Are Shaping The Rules Governing AI
- Can Machines be Authors? (Daniel Gervais)
- Human rights concerns about AI hit lawyers in immigration, criminal law and trusts
- I listened to a Massive Attack record remixed by a neural network
- Is AI-generated music worth anything?
- DARPA Funds Ambitious Brain-Machine Interface Program: The N3 program aims to develop wearable devices that let soldiers to communicate directly with machines.
- Tesla’s Navigate on Autopilot Requires Significant Driver Intervention: CR finds that latest version of Tesla’s automatic lane-changing feature is far less competent than a human driver
- Talk Dirty With Machine: The future is robots, and they’re teaching us how to flirt.
- Amazon’s AI improves emotion detection in voices
- Court Rejects Service of Process Via Amazon Messaging–Noco v. Chang (Eric Goldman)
- Amazon made video games for its workers to reduce tedium of warehouse jobs
- Grindr and Armslist Cases Reaffirm Core Protections for User-Generated Content
- DMCA Damages are Based Upon Defendant’s Acts, Not its Customers
- US Magistrate Judge Provides The Template To End Copyright Trolling With Ruling Against Strike 3
- Virtual kidnappings are rattling families across the US
- We Are Tenants On Our Own Devices
- The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet: Why the dark forests of the internet – podcasts, newsletters, and other private channels - are growing, and why might that pose a problem
- Inside Google’s Civil War: Some employees say Google is losing touch with its “Don’t be evil” motto. What happens when an empowered tech workforce rebels?
- Google Updates Ad Policies on Abortion-Related Advertising
- Anti-abortion clinics that try to trick women face new Google ad policy
- You Don’t Own What You’ve Bought: Google Nest Edition
- Google Glass still exists: Meet Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2
- Google’s Duplex Uses A.I. to Mimic Humans (Sometimes): In a free service, bots call restaurants and make reservations. The technology is impressive, except for when the caller is actually a person.
- Songza Co-Founders Have Left YouTube Music Ahead of Google Play Music Shut-Down
- Terminated AdSense Publishers Can’t Get Their Accrued Earnings–eOnline v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Prince And Bigi Jackson Launch Movie Review Series On YouTube
- YouTube Opens Applications For VR Creator Lab In London, Announces Oculus Quest App
- YouTube Convenes ‘DTC Council’ To Fortify Relations With Direct-To-Consumer Brands
- ‘Games Of Thrones’ Grey Worm Actor Sees Massive YouTube Spike This Season
- Twitter Bans Members Of Popular YouTube Music Group For Posting Covers Of Elton John Songs
- YouTube Cracks Down On Videos Instructing Viewers To Ingest Bleach As ‘Miracle’ Medical Cure
- YouTube’s Controversy-Ridden Beauty Community Reaches Detente. But Is That What Viewers Want?
- YouTube Will Soon Only Display Abbreviated — And Not Exact — Subscriber Counts
- YouTube is changing how subscriber counts are displayed, possibly shifting its culture: Sites like Social Blade may be impacted
- How Tea Accounts Are Fueling Influencer Feuds: As James Charles and Tati Westbrook battle it out, drama channels are raking in subscribers.
- YouTube Sets Sights On Primetime Emmy Nods For Will Smith, ‘Cobra Kai’, ‘Wayne’
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 5/19/2019
- TikTok tops the iOS App Store for the fifth quarter in a row
- TikTok Owner Preparing Streaming Service to Rival Spotify
- TikTok Parent Company Bytedance Will Launch Paid Music Streaming Service This Fall (Report)
- With 156% growth in 2018, Vice Media focuses on programmatic guaranteed deals
- VidCon Hires First Content Director, Enters Original Programming Fray With Inaugural Series
- Digital Talent Agency Gleam Futures Launches Creator-Brand Marketing Firm Gleam Solutions
- How Amazon turned its darkest time into runaway riches: When Amazon was in trouble back in 2001, Jeff Bezos called professor and Good to Great author Jim Collins — and became his best student ever.
- Amazon targets Uber Eats with Deliveroo investment: The online retailer is the largest investor in new $575 million funding round
- Amazon Sellers Hit With Phishing Scheme
- Amazon Taps ‘Game Of Thrones’ EP Bryan Cogman For ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Prequel
- ‘MissionRacer’: How Amazon turned the tedium of warehouse work into a game
- Yes, Quora still exists, and it’s now worth $2 billion: According to some, the financing round for the question-and-answer platform speaks to the high valuation for virtually everything these days in the tech sector.
- Former US Attorney Preet Bharara says good journalism may have undermined the Mueller report: “The ‘fake news’ that Donald Trump decried, I think there’s an argument that it sort of saved him.”
- The CW Ends Netflix Distro Deal, But Streamer Won’t Necessarily Lose Hits Like ‘Riverdale’
- The CW is ending its Netflix deal, but that doesn’t mean Riverdale is disappearing
- Netflix Again Blows Past HBO, Others as No. 1 Pick for ‘Best Original Programming,’ Survey Finds
- Hulu Buys U.S. Distribution Rights For Weinstein Exposé Documentary ‘Untouchable’
- Retailers Should Consider Whether Behavioral Advertising Is Sale of Information Under CCPA
- BBTV Founder Shahrzad Rafati Named Vice Chair Of Canadian Federal Investment Agency
- Rob Glaser 2.0: RealNetworks Reinvents Itself As Facial Recognition Security Platform
- Wyoming Affords “Money” Status to Certain Virtual Currencies
- The Blockchain Paradox
- New Blockchain Solutions Debut Amid Enforcement Actions, New FinCEN Guidance and Warnings of ‘Blockchain Fatigue’
- Fuming Craig Wright Demands Podcaster Tell Court He Created Bitcoin
- Tech billionaires who donate millions are just “bribing society at large,” Anand Giridharadas says
- Genetic self-experimenting “biohacker” under investigation by health officials
- Biohacker Josiah Zayner accused of being an unlicensed practitioner: He says he’s under investigation by the California Medical Board.
- Viral Star Grumpy Cat Passes Away, Is Memorialized In Memes
- Grumpy Cat’s death marks the end of the joyful Internet
- A Computer Afflicted With 6 Infamous Viruses Has Passed $1 Million at Auction: The art project can be yours for a mere seven figures.
- Downs v. Oath
- Laying Out All The Evidence: Shiva Ayyadurai Did Not Invent Email
COMMUNICATIONS
- Cable TV customer satisfaction falls even further behind streaming video: Pay-TV again ranks last in customer satisfaction among all US industries.
- US Targets Telecommunications Transactions Involving the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain
- Chairman Pai, Commissioner Carr Issue Formal Statements Supporting T-Mobile/Sprint Merger; Commissioner O’Rielly Also “Inclined” to Support Merger
- Ajit Pai OKs T-Mobile/Sprint merger, “requires” 5G rollout that’ll happen anyway
- Unsurprisingly, Ajit Pai’s FCC Thinks The T-Mobile Sprint Merger Will Be Wonderful
- Consensus Quietly Builds That 5G Was Overhyped, Rushed To Market
- T-Mobile/Sprint merger faces big trouble at DOJ despite FCC approval
- DOJ Staffers Think T-Mobile’s Merger Benefit Claims Are Nonsense
- Man who threatened to kill Ajit Pai’s children gets 20 months in prison
- FCC Adopts Sweeping Changes to FM Translator Interference Rules
PRIVACY
- The Government Is Expanding Its Social Media Surveillance Capabilities: But social media monitoring programs and the algorithms that power them aren’t effective – and may be discriminatory.
- Should we ban facial recognition? From companies to cities, debate over privacy rages on
- Police facial recognition surveillance court case starts
- Some US Cities Are Moving Into Real-Time Facial Surveillance
- City Of San Francisco Bans Use Of Facial Recognition Tech By Government Agencies
- San Francisco Is The First City In The World To Restrict Government Use Of Facial Recognition Technology. Hopefully It’s Not The Last.
- As San Francisco Bans Facial Recognition Tech By Local Cops, New York City’s Legislators Stall On Transparency Reforms
- No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in Case of Online Child Luring
- Data breach lawyer confirms thousands more TalkTalk customers could have claims for compensation
- >20,000 Linksys routers leak historic record of every device ever connected
- Federal Court Says Warrants Are Needed To Grab GPS Data From Third-Party Tracking Services
- Another Federal Magistrate Says Compelled Production Of Passwords/Biometrics Violates The Fifth Amendment
- ‘Privacy horse is sort of out of the barn’: Congress circles closer to federal privacy law
- Privacy Perils: The Downside of Pop-Ups
- Ransomware Cyberattacks Knock Baltimore’s City Services Offline
- Baltimore ransomware nightmare could last weeks more, with big consequences
- FBI Tells The Governor Of Florida About Election Hacking, But Says He Can’t Tell Anyone Else
- Hackers abuse ASUS cloud service to install backdoor on users’ PCs: Computer-maker’s WebStorage software tied to malware attack from the BlackTech Group
- FTC Commissioners discuss state privacy preemption
- GDPR Turns One, eh? Current Impact on Canadian Businesses and the Road Ahead
- Prince Harry Uses GDPR To Obtain Payout From Photographer Who Shot Photos Of His Rental Home
- These firms promise high-tech ransomware solutions—but typically just pay hackers
- WannaCry? Hundreds of US schools still haven’t patched servers [Updated]
CREATIVITY
- In San Francisco, an attack on press freedoms and echoes of autocracy
- San Francisco District Attorney Condemns Raid On Journalist’s Home: City police raided reporter’s home in probe of leaked information about Public Defender death.
- A step forward or new concerns? Examining the proposed Trade-marks Act
- Paradigm shift: Recommended changes to Canadian copyright law announced
- Canadian Committee Publishes Ludicrous Fantasy Pretending To Be Copyright Reform Analysis
- A Catfight Over Copyright
- Adidas Gets a Boost in Yeezy Copyright Battle
- Insights on Gen Z’s Perceptions of Brands & Counterfeits
- EU Blocks ‘Brexit Beer’ Trademark, First As ‘Offensive’, Then As Non-Distinctive
- Judge Alsup Slams Patent Troll For Basically Everything
- Disney accused of being real pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean
- Disney Wins ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’ Copyright Suit As Court Declares You Cannot Copyright Pirate Life
- When the Music Biz Had It That Way: The Backstreet Boys’ ‘Millennium’ album, which turns 20 this week, was a diamond-selling mainstay in the pre-Napster era. It also may have helped bring about the bad times that followed.
- Trump won’t stop coining nasty nicknames for his foes — but the media must stop amplifying them.
- Trump vs. New York Times: the executive editor’s perspective
- Is it illegal to lie to voters in political ads?
- How Vince McMahon’s WWE Seized on TV Disruption to Become a Wall Street Champ
- Caesars, ESPN Reach Media Partnership Deal
- ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro is fighting the cord-cutting wave
- “Varsity Blues”: Don’t Let Morals Clauses Leave Talent in the Red
- Unearthing the Black newspaper that sold the California dream to freed slaves
- Kazakhstan Cops Protect Citizens’ Free Speech Rights By Arresting A Protester Holding A Blank Sign
- Scientists ‘paint’ Mona Lisa on a quantum canvas
GAMES
- N.Y. Supreme Court Dismisses Right of Publicity Claims against Take-Two Based on a Character from NBA 2K18
- Nintendo is pulling two mobile games from Belgium over loot box laws
- Belgian loot box decision takes down some of Nintendo’s mobile games
- Nintendo to halt service of two mobile games in Belgium amid loot box debacle – Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Fire Emblem Heroes to be taken offline in Belgium on August 27
- Nintendo offers Switch Online voucher to serve up digital discounts
- Mario Kart Tour beta hands-on: Microtransactions land like a nasty blue shell: The actual gameplay has some polish. Everything else in this Android beta stinks.
- Why we’re headed toward loot box legislation | Opinion: The games industry is poorly positioned to defend itself on this front, and the fallout could impact a lot more than just loot box mechanisms
- Who is responsible for loot boxes?: Voices from around the industry share their thoughts on what’s at stake and who should be doing what
- Access to Red Dead Online’s poker restricted by regional gambling laws
- Red Dead Online’s in-game poker unavailable in certain regions: Despite no connection with real-world money, players in countries with strict gambling laws may not be able to access minigame
- Unity slammed over engine features supporting the gambling industry: Developer removes posts detailing “especially helpful” real-money gaming features
- Zynga on licensing and addiction: Bernard Kim explains the strategy on deals for Star Wars and Game of Thrones Slots Casino, then ties addiction debate to Garth Brooks
- Riot ignores calls to scrap mandatory arbitration for all employees
- Riot Games stands firm against walkout employees’ demands
- Report: Tencent and Riot working on a mobile version ofLeague of Legends
- The Subtle Economics Of Private World Of Warcraft Servers: Anarchy, Order And Who Gets The Loot
- Xbox head commits to building a safe and inclusive game community
- Xbox: “We have a huge responsibility to a healthy gaming lifestyle” – The platform holder discusses addiction, aggressive monetisation and its role in protecting gamers
- Windows 10 now offers a game-focused Xbox Game Bar overlay
- Sega’s Judgement will be available in Japan again in July: A new character model and voice will replace that of actor Pierre Taki, who was arrested on drug charges
- Esports Pro Sues Gaming Organization FaZe Clan Over “Oppressive” Contract
- Streamer Tfue sues esports organization for illegal operation as a talent agency: Turner Tenney claims Faze Clan did not act in his best interests, withheld 80% of his earnings from streaming
- Esports Pro Tfue Sues FaZe Clan, Alleging Unpaid Sponsorship Earnings And Restrictive Contract
- Faze Clan and Tfue’s legal dispute could reshape e-sports and YouTube contracts forever: The lawsuit could be a turning point for e-sports organizations
- A New Lawsuit Could Transform How the Influencer Industry Is Regulated: Filing says “the time is now for content creators, gamers and streamers to stop being taken advantage of through oppressive, unfair and illegal agreements.”
- Some publishers pay streamers as much as $50k an hour to play new games
- Game Publishers Pay Top Streamers Like Ninja $50,000+ Per Hour To Play Their New Games (Report)
- Sega to resume sales of Judgment in Japan following drugs scandal
- Disney and Sega join $7.8m Series A funding round for Tyffon: Location-based VR company plans third Tokyo venue and US expansion
- The Ouya’s game store will close for good in June
- Crowdfunded gaming console Ouya will shut down for good on June 25th: Only games downloaded directly to console will be playable.
- Don’t Miss: A retrospective on the Ouya
- LCS directs Echo Fox to separate from shareholder over racist remarks: Esports organized instructed to take action within 60 days or risk participation in League of Legends Championship Series
- Legal Issues in Esports
- Valve is making Dota 2 players pay to avoid toxic gamers
- Valve lets players avoid toxic people in DOTA 2, charges for the privilege: Experimental Avoid Player feature included in $9.99 battle pass
- Valve making its own version of popular Dota 2 mod: After talks for a collaboration are abandoned, Valve will make a competing version of Dota Auto Chess “with Drodo’s blessing”
- Valve wasn’t ‘really sure what to do’ following Assassin’s Creed Unity review surge
- CD Projekt Red talks Cyberpunk 2077 crunch, vows to be ‘more humane’ to devs
- CD Projekt Red wants to be “known for treating developers with respect”: Company is pushing “non-obligatory crunch policy” for development of Cyberpunk 2077, asking workers to push back if hours are too much
- Kickstarter won’t recognize employee union without an election: Interim CEO acknowledges problems but believes the company is “better set up to be successful without the framework of a union”
- Apple ruling opens a can of worms for digital storefronts | Opinion: The Supreme Court ruling could open the floodgate to consumer lawsuits for digital stores – including the content of developer agreements
- Esports to add $8bn to Chinese domestic games revenue by 2023: Niko Partners report shows mobile esports game revenue doubling by 2023, when Chinese domestic market will top $41 billion
- Tencent games business remains steady in lingering effects of license freeze: Q1 growth mostly came from other sources, but company looks to more new releases in Q2
- Alibaba is the ‘better stock’ compared to Tencent, analyst says
- Tencent has acquired Swedish game developer Sharkmob
- Tencent acquires Sharkmob: Chinese tech giant buys nascent Swedish online game developer before it’s announced its first game
- NetEase pushed Minecraft to 200m registered Chinese users in Q1: Milestone achieved against a backdrop of rising revenue and profits from online games
- NetEase reveals game deals with Pokémon and Marvel: Pokémon Quest will be the first mobile game in the series to launch in China
- God of War has sold 10 million copies
- God of War reaches ten million lifetime sales: Meanwhile, streaming be part of Sony’s “mainstream business model” with its next-gen console
- Sony launches PlayStation Productions to turn games into movies and TV shows
- Sony announces PlayStation Productions to bring gaming IP to film and TV: Production studio to be headed by Asad Qizilbash, already working on first round of projects
- Shawn Layden stresses importance of diverse teams: PlayStation boss says teams need to represent a global fanbase, warns that “sameness is the death of innovation and creativity”
- PlayStation boss: “We believe the streaming era is upon us.”
- Backwards compatibility and streaming key to Sony’s next-gen strategy
- Sony hardware demo showcases speedy next-gen load times and rendering
- See how much faster Sony’s next PlayStation can load Spider-Man
- Sony and Microsoft teaming up to develop cloud and AI tech
- Sony and Microsoft partner for cloud, AI innovations: Rival platform holders to collaborate on projects using Microsoft Azure for competitive cloud technology
- Report: PlayStation staff were in the dark about the Sony and Microsoft team-up
- Report: Sony employees caught off guard by Microsoft cloud partnership
- Microsoft: Gaming should be for everyone, shouldn’t be toxic stew
- Xbox’s Gaming for Everyone: “Diversity has always been here”
- What Microsoft and Sony’s streaming partnership means for gaming’s future
- Xbox, PC get a little bit closer with the latest Xbox updates
- Minecraft Earth gives franchise a Pokémon Go twist: Microsoft launching free-to-play augmented reality mobile game in closed beta this summer
- Inside Minecraft Earth, Microsoft’s huge augmented reality gamble: Microsoft is taking the world’s second-best-selling game of all time into augmented reality. But will the push to net even more players stretch the game’s DNA past breaking point?
- Minecraft Earth Goes A Step Beyond Pokémon Go To Cover The World In Blocks – Microsoft’s ambitious goal: holograms that persist everywhere
- Minecraft has sold 176 million copies worldwide: Latest figure makes Mojang’s sandbox adventure the best-selling game of all time based on known game unit sales
- Marvel, The Pokemon Company partner with NetEase to launch games in China
- Mortal Kombat 11 is the second best-selling game of 2019 in the US: NPD data shows NetherRealm’s game beating Days Gone as the biggest game in April
- World War Z has sold almost 2 million copies in one month
- World War Z closes first month with almost 2m sold: Saber Interactive’s sleeper hit has doubled sales since its launch week
- Metro Exodus recoups all costs, boosts Q1 revenue at THQ Nordic: Net sales spiked 158% at the publisher thanks to 4A Games’ shooter and Coffee Stain’s Satisfactory
- THQ Nordic acquires Gothic and Risen developer Piranha Bytes
- THQ Nordic acquires Gothic developer Piranha Bytes: German studio’s entire team and the rights to Risen and Elex were also part of the deal
- Ubisoft: The Division 2 missed sales goals on consoles due to crowded market
- Inside Station F: The grander ambitions of Ubisoft – Ubisoft’s focus on emerging technology, from blockchain to VR, points to something bigger for the French games giant
- Video: Writing and designing Star Trek: Bridge Crew for VR
- An exhaustive look at Oculus Quest’s first day of great, wireless VR software
- Oculus Rift S Review – A Good Choice for VR Newcomers, a Difficult Choice for VR Vets
- Magic Leap acquires Mimesys to boost spatial computing offerings
- This robot hits you in real life when you get hit in VR
- Pre-E3 2019: Oculus wants you to paddle a stealth VR kayak—and it’s awesome
- New Minecraft Earth AR game takes a cue from Pokemon Go
- Minecraft has sold 176 million copies in 10 years
- Uplay boost fails to prevent The Division 2 missing sales targets: PC gamers choose Ubisoft’s own marketplace over Epic Game Store as sequel sells ten times more than original
- Re-Logic won’t “sell our souls” with Epic Games Store exclusivity: VP Whitney Spinks assures Terraria developer’s audience that it won’t follow trend for PC exclusives
- Epic discounts entire Game Store library in storewide “Mega Sale“ [Updated]
- Teething pains for Epic Games Store as publishers opt out of debut ‘Mega Sale’
- Borderlands 3, other games temporarily removed from Epic Games Store sale [Updated]
- Gaming Platform War Update: Epic Games Store Suspends Accounts… For Buying Too Many Games
- Epic footing the bill for some discounts in the Epic Games Store’s first sale
- Steam Link streaming app launches on iOS a year after Apple rejection
- Steam Link finally available for iOS: Valve’s streaming up launches a year after Apple rejected it
- Steam Link comes to iOS without Steam Store functionality [Updated]
- GOG Galaxy 2.0 aims to bridge the platform gap in game communities
- Nippon Ichi Software reportedly unable to pay staff after Disgaea RPG teething problems: Japanese developer issues warrant to sell stock at reduced price
- Defiant Studios axed as Lords of the Fallen 2 developer
- Defiant Studios dropped as developer of Lords of the Fallen 2: CI Games terminates contract after one year, calls Defiant’s work on the game “inadequate”
- Epic Games store eats cost of site-wide sale: Company takes $10 off everything over $15 at no cost to publisher or devs, giving refunds for preorders, recent purchases
- Paradox pulls Bloodlines 2 from Epic Store during Mega Sale: Klei Entertainment follows suit with Oxygen Not Included as Epic offers $10 off basically everything
- 2K cuts off Borderlands 3 pre-orders on PC during Epic Mega Sale
- 2K halts Borderlands 3 pre-orders during Epic Games Store Mega Sale: Publisher says decision is temporary, and pre-orders made during sale will be honoured
- World of Warcraft Classic beta testers are reporting vanilla WoW features as bugs
- Dauntless launches on consoles with full, day-one crossplay
- Playtika launches casual games division
- The state of singleplayer games in 2019 so far: In 2017, we worried singleplayer games were dying. 2019 tells a different story.
- Making the player the AI in outer space thriller Observation
- Don’t Miss: The world design of Diablo III
- Game Design Deep Dive: Environmental storytelling inGeneration Zero
- Blog: Peeping under the hood of a rhythm game in Unity
- Blog: Was it worth quitting my job to go indie?
- Blog: Successfully launching a game with a near-zero marketing budget
- Video: Slime Rancher dev’s guide to making games that stand out and survive
- Blog: Picking a platform – Bottom-up vs top-down thinking
- Blog: Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2019
- Blog: The contradiction between hard fun and accessibility
- Blog: The ‘how’ of bittersweet game design
- Behind the enthralling dystopian student game, Burning Daylight
- Video: Designing Path of Exile to be played forever
- Video: The care and feeding of live narrative game Fallen London
- Don’t Miss: Looking back at the development of the originalRage
- Video: How RimWorld found success through ridiculous, contrarian design
- Metro Exodus made back its dev and marketing costs in under 2 months
- Don’t Miss: Effectively marketing Chasm in a crowded Metroidvania market
- No show floor booth for Activision at E3: E3 floor plans reveal another big player has left the LACC show floor; EA returns with private meeting room
- Gaming Advertising Fines and Bans: How Might Recent Increases in Restrictions on Gaming Advertisements Across the Globe Impact Gaming Advertising in North America?
- Top 5 takeaways from the Games Industry Law Summit
- U.S. Patent No. 8,882,590: Touch-controlled game character motion providing dynamically-positioned virtual control pad
- Required gamer viewing: The history of M2’s Japanese retro-port empire
Jon
News of the Week; May 15, 2019
DIGITAL
- White House refuses to sign international statement on online extremism: Trump administration is “not currently in a position to join” global statement.
- Chinese owners of Grindr forced to sell by US over spying and blackmail fears
- CBS Happily Engages In Censorship To Placate China
- Your 5G Phone Won’t Hurt You. But Russia Wants You to Think Otherwise.
- Facebook co-founder calls for breakup of Facebook
- While Trump Complains About Facebook Takedowns, Facebook Is Helping Trump Take Down Content He Doesn’t Like
- Facebook is a capitalism problem, not a Mark Zuckerberg problem: Regulating social media is more important than breaking up Facebook.
- Facebook Says New Political Ad Policies are being Circumvented
- How far-right extremists rebrand to evade Facebook’s ban
- Facebook Should Be Broken Up Because Mark Zuckerberg Has ‘Unchecked Power,’ Company Co-Founder Says
- It’s Time to Break Up Facebook
- Breaking Up Facebook?
- Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes Calls For Facebook’s Breakup… But Seems Confused About All The Details
- More Democrats are considering a breakup of Facebook: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the latest to say they are thinking about it
- Facebook: Brussels Court of Appeal refers case to Court of Justice of the EU
- Facebook’s ‘Please Regulate Us’ Tour Heads To France
- Facebook sues app maker, says it made millions misusing Facebook user data
- Imagine A Facebook Without Facebook: How A.I. Will Soon Disrupt Social Media
- Facebook imposes restrictions on live-streaming to prevent future abuse: ‘Our goal is to minimize risk of abuse on Live,’ Guy Rosen said
- Facebook Implements One-Strike Policy Barring Users From Livestreaming If They Post Hateful Content
- Section 230 Protects Facebook’s Account and Content Restriction Decisions–Ebeid v. Facebook
- Vox Admits It Got Section 230 Wrong, Fixes Its Mistake
- Section 230 Keeps The Internet Open For Innovation
- Democracy’s Dilemma: Democracies rely on the free exchange of ideas, but that freedom can be weaponized. How can democratic societies protect the free flow of information? (Henry Farrell, Bruce Schneier)
- The Bizarre Accuracy of Online Ads: A Case Study of Trackers on the Internet – A call for transparency and consent
- Online Retailer Redbubble Says It Will Pull Auschwitz-Themed Merchandise
- Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft Take On Hate Content With ‘Christchurch Call To Action’
- Selling Fear? There’s An App For That
- Audit suggests Google favors a small number of major outlets
- White House launches tool to report censorship on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter: ‘If you suspect political bias caused such an action to be taken against you, share your story with President Trump’
- Friend portability is the must-have Facebook regulation: FTC must pave the path to competition
- Taliban fighters double as reporters to wage Afghan digital war
- French media is polarizing. But not in the way we expected.
- Higbee Tries To Shake Down Forum For Deep Linked Photograph
- Strike 3 Gets Another Judge To Remind It That IP Addresses Aren’t Infringers
- Don’t Suppress Customer Reviews: The FTC Really Means It
- You can’t spell FinTech without FTC
- Broad Coalition Tells Congress To Bring Back The Office Of Technology Assessment
- Instagram blocks vaccine hoax hashtags
- How Silicon Valley’s successes are fueled by an underclass of ‘ghost workers’: The invisible labor that makes our technology run
- Court Filing Reveals Kim Kardashian West Can Command $500,000 Per Sponsored Instagram Post
- Terms and Conditions: Recent Supreme Court Decisions Highlight There is More to Consider than Just the Privacy Policy
- Disney takes full control of Hulu as Comcast steps aside
- Comcast is giving Disney full control of Hulu
- Disney In Total Control Of Hulu After $5.8 Billion Deal With Comcast
- Disney Takes Full Control Of Hulu, Ending Years Of Managerial Schizophrenia
- Hulu CEO Randy Freer explains why Hulu never promoted its ad-free version: The more expensive Hulu No Commercials plan was announced in 2015, and almost four years later, the company is finally ready to start advertising that it exists.
- Hulu’s VP Of Brand Nick Tran On Influencer Marketing: “It’s Not Bad To Be A Sellout If You Embrace It”
- #Advert – Transparency requirements for influencers
- How low prices could make for an antitrust case against Amazon: A theory of ‘predatory pricing’
- Talking to the Law Student With a Novel Theory About Amazon’s Power
- Is Amazon Violating the Sherman Act? (Shaoul Sussman)
- Prime Predator: Amazon and the Rationale of Below Average Variable Cost Pricing Strategies Among Negative-Cash Flow Firms (Shaoul Sussman)
- Exclusive: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
- Amazon to employees: Quit your job, we’ll help you start a delivery business
- “Goodwill Hunting”: Latest on Cybersquatting
- Accessing a Deceased’s Digital Accounts
- New Citizen Lab report suggests Iran spreads fake news
- Editorial: Can Apple News+ kill ‘fake news’ and save journalism?
- Apple Launches New TV App, Providing Access to Over 150 Video Apps Including HBO, Hulu, CBS, Showtime, Starz, ESPN and Amazon Prime Video
- Parodies are coming for house HBO
- The Tinder Hacker: When I asked Sean about his hobbies, I wasn’t prepared for what he said.
- Gigi Gorgeous, Troye Sivan To Feature In YouTube’s Pride Month Programming
- VidCon Pacts With The Trevor Project To Curate LGBTQ+ Programming And Panels
- VidCon Unveils Creator Attendees, Industry-Track Lineup for 2019 U.S. Confab
- The EU Copyright Directive Passes – But Member States Remain Split on Upload Filters
- YouTube and its users face an existential threat from the EU’s new copyright directive
- CJEU considers individuals’ liability under data protection law in respect of videos published on YouTube: Individuals publishing online in breach of data protection laws may benefit from a ‘journalistic exemption’.
- YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Now Available In More Than 50 Countries
- Digital Rights Startup SuperBam Wants To Help YouTubers Reclaim The Millions They Lose From Piracy
- Is the war on piracy over?
- Tati Westbrook Rockets Past 10 Million Subscribers After Cutting Ties With Mentee James Charles
- Amid YouTube Beauty Rift, James Charles Loses 2.8 Million Subscribers As Tati Westbrook Gains 3.2 Million
- Tati Westbrook-James Charles Scandal Spawns Thousands Of Third-Party Videos And Tens Of Millions Of Views
- James Charles’ Sisters Apparel Seemingly No Longer Affiliated With Jeffree Star’s ‘Killer Merch’ In Wake Of Scandal
- James Charles’ YouTube downfall is big business for the rest of the community: Commentary and news channels are the big winners
- There’s No One To Root For In The James Charles Beauty YouTuber Drama
- YouTube Launches ‘Bumper Machine’ Tool, Which Auto-Generates 6-Second Ads
- YouTube Creators Will Receive Revenue From New Google Shopping Features
- Google’s Translatotron can translate speech in the speaker’s voice: It’s the first tool that can directly translate speech from one language into another.
- One Year Later, Restaurants Are Still Confused By Google Duplex: Google Duplex works until it breaks in unexpected ways
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 5/12/2019
- Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019
- Report claims Google has 15m paying music subscribers
- YouTube Music And Google Play Music Count A Collective 15 Million Subscribers
- TikTok Is the New Music Kingmaker, and Labels Want to Get Paid
- Audible Teams With Reese Witherspoon For Its First Original Programming Slate
- The Eternal Revenue Stream of Led Zeppelin: In the streaming era, record companies are cashing in anew on old hits – and getting more creative about how to do it
- As ‘Game of Thrones’ Comes To An End, Maisie Williams Launches Creator Collaboration App Daisie
- Netflix has made a rare acquisition, to help it make more kids’ stuff: The streaming company has bought StoryBots, a kids’ brand made by the guys who made JibJab.
- Videos On ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Are Still Racking Up Over 200 Million Views A Day
- Government of Canada creates Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence
- When Humans Attack: Re-thinking safety, security, and AI
- The AI Supply Chain Runs on Ignorance: Tech companies often fail to tell users how their data will be employed. Sometimes, the firms can’t even anticipate it themselves.
- Turn Your Pet Into Another Species With This AI Tool: Using similar algorithms to deepfakes, Nvidia developed a new way to turn your pets into tigers, wolves, and other animals.
- Why Google believes machine learning is its future: We heard so much about machine learning at Google I/O this year.
- Another Day, Another Company Scraping Photos To Train Facial Recognition AI
- AI in Focus – Robotics
- Fired by a robot!
- Starbucks to test out bean-to-cup blockchain
- Supply chain is obviously not a blockchain use case
- Adobe Warns Users Someone Else Might Sue Them For Using Old Versions Of Photoshop
- New Blockchain Solutions Across Industries, Institutional Cryptocurrency Trading Announced, Major Cryptocurrency Exchange Is Hacked
- Bitcoin and cryptocurrency negotiability is an uncertain landscape
- Bitcoin-Bashing Democrat Calls for Blanket Ban on Cryptocurrencies
- It took just five days for bitcoin to rise from $6,000 to $8,000
- Improving upon the SEC’s Blockchain “Framework”: Toward a Reasonable Regulation of Digital Tokens
- Facebook Updates Ad Policies on Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Other Financial Products
- Legal and regulatory issues for custodians and administrators of digital assets
- How to Attract Startups and Tech Companies to a City Without Relying on Tax Breaks
- Why you should be rooting for startups like Uber
- Esther Wojcicki explains how she raised the CEOs of YouTube and 23andMe
- Technology Is as Biased as Its Makers
- We’re a Niche, We Just Didn’t Know: Why you probably belong to an inter-intellect and why this matters
- Microsoft: The open source company
- Microsoft open sources algorithm that gives Bing some of its smarts
- Miami Plastic Surgeon Sues Two Patients For Negative Reviews After He Had Them Sign Illegal Non Disparagement Agreements
- Lenovo shows off a folding-screen laptop, coming some time in 2020
- Why I (Still) Love Tech: In Defense Of A Difficult Industry
- Q&A: Melinda Gates opens up about tech industry, equality and 3 women who changed her life
- Mind the Gap: The Status of Digital Files Under Property Law (Johan Michaels & Christopher Millard)
COMMUNICATIONS
- 1.28 Million US Residents Cut The TV Cord Last Quarter
- All Four Major Wireless Carriers Hit With Lawsuits Over Sharing, Selling Location Data
- AT&T promised 7,000 new jobs to get tax break—it cut 23,000 jobs instead
- AT&T, Verizon Employees Caught Up In DOJ SIM Hijacking Bust
- Ajit Pai’s robocall plan lets carriers charge for new call-blocking tools
- Pai FCC ‘Solution’ To Nation’s Great Robocall Apocalypse? More Meetings
- The Pai FCC Sits On Its Hands While Phone Companies Rip Off American Taxpayers
- FCC Denies China Mobile Application to Provide Service in US
- FCC Seeks Comments on Univision Request to Exceed 50% Foreign Ownership
- FCC says carriers failed Florida after hurricane—but lets them off the hook
- 5G likely to mess with weather forecasts, but FCC auctions spectrum anyway
- Elon Musk’s Starlink Could Bring Back Net Neutrality and Upend the Internet: Thousands of spacecrafts could power a new global network.
- Advertising Message or Informational Content? – How Israeli Courts Interpret the “Spam Law”
- 2019 Ranking Digital Rights: Corporate Accountability Index
PRIVACY
- Canadian Border Agents Also Routinely Demanding Passwords From Travelers And Searching Their Devices
- Amazon’s Echo Dot Kids Edition is illegally recording your children, 19 privacy advocates warn
- Millions of people uploaded photos to the Ever app. Then the company used them to develop facial recognition tools.
- New Data On London Metro Police Facial Recognition Tech Shows It’s Still Wrong 96 Percent Of The Time
- San Francisco Bans Facial Recognition Technology
- San Francisco bans city use of facial recognition surveillance technology
- San Francisco PD Raids Journalist’s Home To Find Out Which One Of Its Cops Leaked An Autopsy Report
- Surveillance software targets WhatsApp users
- WhatsApp reveals major security flaw that could let hackers access phones
- Justice Department charges Chinese hacker for 2015 Anthem breach
- Feds charge Chinese national in 2015 breach of health insurer Anthem
- Hackers breached 3 US antivirus companies, researchers reveal
- The kidtech is all right: Dylan Collins, CEO of SuperAwesome, describes how his six-year-old company is hitting a growth spurt by leading the charge on digital privacy for children.
- Ralph Lauren Must Defend TCPA Suit Over Excessive Text Messages
- Seventh Circuit Finds That Autodialing Platform Providers Can Be Held Liable Under The TCPA When Controlling Calls Made By Clients
- People say they care about privacy but they continue to buy devices that can spy on them: Experts explain why people are giving mixed signals about smart tech.
- Reading the Tea Leaves: What Do GDPR Enforcement Efforts Tell Us?
- GDPR Concerns Temporarily Result In The Removal Of Trash Cans From Ireland Post Office
- Enveloped in Suspicion
CREATIVITY
- The “Bulte Report” Redux: Canadian Heritage Committee Releases Embarrassingly One-Sided Remuneration Models Study (Michael Geist)
- The Canadian House of Commons Copyright “Shifting Paradigms” Report – Let’s Just Call it the “Values Gap” Report (Howard Knopf)
- Heffel Gallery decision is good news for museums building public art collections
- Hotel Can Legally Destroy Artwork, but Can’t Reproduce It, Says Court
- Copyright As Censorship: American Law Institute Uses Copyright To Stop Discussion Of Controversial Publication Prior To Vote
- A Complex Picture
- Batman-turned-artist faces copyright lawsuit
- Arthur Lee Alfred v. The Walt Disney Co.
- Putting some teeth into Copyright law
- Conan O’Brien Explains The Insanity Of Fighting Bogus Joke Stealing Lawsuit For Years
- U.S. journalism really has become more subjective and personal – at least some of it: Analysis finds newspapers are a lot like 30 years ago. But TV news – especially cable news – has ramped up the emotion and arguing.
- Is It Still Punk When the Musician Makes It Big?
- Rapper on the Run: When Spanish authorities sentenced this provocative musician to prison for “glorifying terrorism,” his dedicated fans helped him make a daring escape across the border.
- In the Jungle: Inside the Long, Hidden Genealogy of ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ – How American music legends made millions off the work of a Zulu tribesman who died a pauper.
- Pittsburgh’s Rap Scene Is Wounded But Optimistic:
- Following the deaths of Mac Miller and Jimmy Wopo, rappers like Benji. and My Favorite Color are doing their best to pick up the pieces.
- New rules on harmful gender stereotypes
- Coalition Of Rights Activists And Journalists Wants To Know Why DHS, CBP, And ICE Are Spying On Activists And Journalists
- Judge rejects Musk’s arguments to dismiss “pedo guy” defamation suit
- Guns N’ Roses sue brewery over Guns ‘N’ Rosé beer
- Copycat Flattened by Patent & Trade Dress Jury Verdict in Win for Tieks Shoes
- Joel Embiid Registers Trademarks in THE PROCESS
- Chicago Cubs Successfully Oppose Iowa Man’s ‘Cubnoxious’ Trademark; Court Cites Obnoxious Cubs Fans
- Using Third Party Trademarks as Hashtags Creates an Implied Association–Align v. Strauss
- Apples Only For Apple: Apple Opposes A German Bicycle Path
- A Fight for Authorship and Ownership of 150+ Quilt Patterns, and Bad Business Planning
GAMES
- Philip Champion v. Take Two Interactive Software, Inc.
- Champion v Take Two Interactive Software, Inc. (Decided on May 10, 2019 Supreme Court, New York County, Kahn, J.)
- Hey! That’s My Move!
- The dangers of in-game data collection: Can your choices come back to haunt you?
- Devs reflect on the privacy risks surrounding how games subtly collect data
- Newzoo: More than one billion women are active gamers – Firm’s latest analysis shows 46% of all video game enthusiasts are female
- Only 9% of ESRB rated-games were deemed Mature in 2018
- Antitrust lawsuit over iOS App Store to move forward, despite Apple’s arguments
- Supreme Court Rules Against Apple in Case Alleging App Store Is a Monopoly
- US Supreme Court says Apple can be sued for monopolization: Decision from lower court that iPhone owners are direct purchasers from Apple rather than from developers is upheld, opening door to future storefront suits
- Supreme Court Allows Consumers to Sue Apple for Antitrust Violations
- Supreme Court Says iPhone Users Can Pursue Antitrust Claims Against Apple Over App Store
- Taking a Bite at the Apple: Ensuring a Level-Playing-Field for Competition on App Stores
- Supreme Court ruling could threaten Apple’s 30 percent app commission
- Former Claptrap voice actor details Randy Pitchford assault allegations
- YouTube Gamer ‘ProJared’ Accused Of Soliciting Nude Photos From Underage Fans
- Loot boxes should be banned, says US senator
- Sweden investigating loot boxes: Swedish Consumer Agency has been instructed to review casino-like elements of gaming mechanics
- What yesterday’s EU court ruling means for the games industry: Companies are advised to start acting quickly or face legal trouble once ruling implemented
- Employers must track staff working hours, EU court rules: Ruling to help uphold EU Working Time Directive should help tackle industry crunch problem
- NetherRealm reportedly responding to crunch concerns with meeting, survey: Studio-wide meeting sees employees share experiences, WB assembling focus groups to address issues
- The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: Crunch and walkouts are failures of management – Latest episode available to download now, discussing the recent incidents at NetherRealm Studios and Riot Games
- Big game, small team, no crunch: Behind the success of open world RPG Outward
- One month later, $249 All-Digital Xbox One S still seems unsustainable
- Microsoft patented a braille-displaying controller accessory for the blind
- WWE 2K dev establishing second wrestling IP to foster internal competition: “I think having no competitor isn’t healthy at all,” says Yuke’s senior vice president Hiromi Furuta
- ESA reportedly troubled by eroded trust, harsh management styles: Former president Michael Gallagher said to have exhibited “challenging” management approach that celebrated burnout
- Stanley Pierre-Louis named CEO and president of the ESA
- ESA names Stanley Pierre-Louis CEO: Trade group’s newly appointed head downplays reports of disarray and concerns about E3, crunch, loot boxes, and the WHO’s decision on gaming disorder
- Revenue and profit up at Tencent despite stagnant games revenue
- Tencent adds ‘Gameplay Management’ system to PUBG Mobile to encourage “healthy gaming”: Players under 18 will receive pop-ups reminding them to take a break
- PUBG Mobile now reminds minors to take breaks from playing in some countries
- Blog: Dealing with China’s ban on blood in video games
- The Epic Games Store quietly launches in China
- Epic Games Store stealth launches in China: Chinese players now able to purchase games from Fortnite creator’s marketplace
- Ghost Recon Breakpoint will skip Steam for Epic Games Store: Newly announced Ubisoft title follows The Division 2 into PC exclusivity
- Epic bolsters Unreal Engine with Twinmotion acquisition
- Epic Games to receive BAFTA Special Award for contribution to game development
- Epic’s store continues to absorb PC gaming exclusives large and small
- Crowdfunded Outer Wilds joins growing list of Epic Games Store exclusives
- Google Play Store tweaks ratings system to focus on recent reviews
- Sony releases documentary detailing God of War’s development
- Nintendo Switch sales pass PS4 in Japan
- Nintendo Switch lifetime sales outstripping the PS4 in Japan
- Nintendo predicts tough expansion into China despite Tencent partnership
- Super Mario Maker 2 news dump: Finally, Mario gets an online-versus mode
- 28 years later, hacker fixes rampant slowdown on SNES‘ Gradius III
- Blog: Requiem for a Game Gear
- Sports and mobile titles driving growth at Konami
- Key franchises boost video game sales at Bandai Namco
- Bandai Namco sales and profits up last year, led by gaming segment: Company projects fewer releases next year, elevates Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada to general manager of original IP
- DeNA and The Pokemon Company have a mobile Pokemongame on the way
- DeNA reveals new Pokémon mobile game amid declining revenue: Games revenue and profit fell at DeNA, but Mario Kart and Pokémon are due to launch this fiscal year
- Insights: ‘Fortnite’ Is The New Social-Media Platform – Here’s What It Means
- Capcom creates feeder leagues to grow Street Fighter esports: Three new competitions kick off this summer to prepare players for professional tournaments
- Bigben Interactive aims to be “the middleweight champion” of games publishing: Head of publishing describes the French publisher’s escalating ambitions after acquiring Cyanide, Eko and Kylotonn
- New releases driving sales at Square Enix, but launch costs cause profits to dip
- Profits tumble at Square Enix due to escalating launch costs: Kingdom Hearts, Tomb Raider drove revenue, but higher costs led to sharp declines in profit
- Square Enix-founded RPG dev Studio Istolia closes down
- Studio Istolia closes down: Square Enix assigning staff elsewhere in company as Project Prelude Rune is cancelled
- Take-Two sees record net bookings thanks to flagship franchises
- GTA V is nearing 110 million sales worldwide
- Take-Two ends fiscal year with a group effort: Red Dead Redemption 2 sales slowing down but GTA V and NBA 2K19 continue to drive Take-Two results
- Grand Theft Auto V has sold 110m copies: Borderlands series has sold over 43m units, with Borderlands 2 accounting for 20m
- Take-Two: Investors are re-rating the games business –
- It’s still an entertainment business, reminds CEO Strauss Zelnick
- Take-Two CEO: Subscriptions not a ‘foregone conclusion’ for game industry
- Ubisoft sees record player engagement as full-year net bookings surpass $2.2 billion
- Ubisoft posts record sales again, delays Skull & Bones again: CEO Yves Guillemot says the games industry will reach 5 billion players in the next ten years
- Record-breaking Q1 revenues for Nexon at $840m
- Korean publisher exceeds forecasts thanks to stronger-than-expected performances for Dungeon&Fighter and MapleStory
- EA and Activision need to show us something new | Opinion: The industry’s biggest publishers now focus on pumping old franchises for incremental growth rather than honing their ability to create the next big thing
- ‘Record high’ investments see profits fall at Paradox
- Profit and revenue down at Paradox as investments reach “record high”: Q1 2019 performance “characterised by a focus on long-term growth and expansion” says CEO
- Nier: Automata has shipped over 4 million copies
- The Killing Floor series has earned $100 million in revenue in 10 years
- Discord surpasses 250 million registered users in four years
- Discord reaches 250m users after just four years: Gaming chat platform has doubled audience in a year, with 56m monthly active users
- Unity seeks another $125 million in funding
- Unity is looking to raise $125 million in additional funding
- Rage 2 aims to encourage streaming through interactive Twitch extensions
- The Australian Labor Party wants to restart the Interactive Games Fund
- Australian Labor party pledges to reinstate $25m Interactive Games Fund: If elected, Labor promises to end six years of budget cuts around creative industries
- Assassin’s Creed should partner with Stranger Things: Lessons from Changing Channels – We report back on the key takeaways from last week’s TV and games conference with BBC Studios
- Starbreeze lacks funds to operate for another year
- Rockstar acquires Indian art studio Dhruva from Starbreeze
- Rockstar acquires Dhruva Interactive from Starbreeze for $7.9m: Indian art production studio joins Red Dead Redemption publisher as Starbreeze continues to struggle
- Epic Games acquires Twinmotion: Developer offers visualisation toolkit for free with “no strings attached”
- Following your dreams: Pursuing a career making games | Opinion
- Blog: Four steps for branding your studio
- Blog: Tools for selling your story
- Blog: Creating a physics based fighting game in Unity
- Don’t Miss: Lessons of game design learned from Super Mario Maker
- Blog: The challenges of teamwork and game design
- Blog: We’re looking at accessibility all wrong
- Blog: Using your YouTube channel to market your games
- The 12 principles of animation in video games
- When grinding is fun: Forager’s compelling approach to ‘idle game’ design
- Video: Insomniac’s technical postmortem of Marvel’s Spider-Man
- Don’t Miss: Reflections on the afterimage of Final Fantasy VII
- How hit crafting game Forager happily handles thousands of instances
- Sega has acquired Two Point Hospital developer Two Point Studios
- TinyBuild: Development to publishing, and back again
- Valve Index asks for innovation without incentive | Opinion: Platform agnosticism and high price may inhibit the innovative VR game development Valve claims the headset was made for
- Valve breaks down different tools for marketing games on Steam
- ‘Beat Saber’ Has Been PSVR’s Top Download for 6 Months Running
- Somnium Space Raises $1M to Expand Social VR Platform
- High Fidelity lays of 25% of staff and pivots to virtual communications: Founder Philip Rosedale admits “we probably still have a few years to wait” for tech to catch up with original vision
- Scopely acquires Digit Game Studios
- Fig Open Access offers devs an ‘open-ended’ crowdfunding option
- Facebook’s VP of VR Hugo Barra steps down
- Hugo Barra steps down as Oculus head for new Facebook AR/VR role
- Facebook Shuffles Top Oculus Executives
- Challenging player entitlement by making them homeless: Homelessness is “intimidating for any artists who really wants to take it seriously” says Delve Interactive founder Danny Hayes
- The timeless magic of Shadow of the Colossus
- AI-generated pokemon that should not be
- Detective Pikachu film review: This is how you adapt a video game for theaters
- Detective Pikachu earned $161m worldwide in its opening weekend: Pokémon tie-in had best ever opening weekend for a video game film in the US, but its worldwide performance is still behind Warcraft
- Party like it’s 2004 with WoW Classic starting August 27
Jon
News of the Week; May 8, 2019
DIGITAL
- Feds take down dark web index and news site Deep Dot Web
- How Chinese Spies Got the N.S.A.’s Hacking Tools, and Used Them for Attacks
- A mysterious hacker gang is on a supply-chain hacking spree: Group of likely Chinese hackers has poisoned software of at least six companies.
- China Stole NSA Cyberweapons And Used Them Against Us Allies
- Putin signs “Internet sovereignty” bill that expands censorship
- Canadian Billionaire Sues Twitter For Nasty Things Twitter Users Said About Him
- Why a Republican senator wants the FTC to throw the book at Facebook
- FBI And Half The World Bust Operators Of A Site That Made The Dark Web Searchable
- Mark Zuckerberg has to go. Here are 25 reasons why
- Alex Jones was banned from Facebook, but an hour later he was back on Facebook livestreaming
- Facebook And Instagram Permaban Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer For Posting Hate Content
- Instagram and Facebook Ban Far-Right Extremists: Alex Jones, Infowars, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer, Paul Nehlen, and Louis Farrakhan have all been removed from the platforms.
- Facebook Rolls Out Broad Changes To How Its Algorithm Will Rank Videos
- Facebook will change video ranking to prioritize original content: It will prioritize videos that holds viewers’ attention.
- Report: Facebook looking to disrupt credit cards with cryptocurrency
- Facebook’s cryptocurrency might work like loyalty points
- Bitcoin is worth $6,000 for the first time this year: Bitcoin’s price has been rising in recent weeks and it’s not clear why.
- Amazon discriminates against pregnant women, seven lawsuits have said
- Amazon’s “Zero” Tolerance for Counterfeiting
- Wisconsin Supreme Court Fixes a Bad Section 230 Opinion—Daniel v. Armslist (Eric Goldman)
- New Essay: The Complicated Story of FOSTA and Section 230 (Eric Goldman)
- It’s One Thing For Trolls And Grandstanding Politicians To Get CDA 230 Wrong, But The Press Shouldn’t Help Them
- The Ninth Circuit Broke The Internet. So We Asked Them To Unbreak It.
- Twenty-one States Inadvertently Tell The DC Circuit That The Plaintiffs Challenging FOSTA Have A Case
- The Human Cost Of FOSTA
- Content Moderation is Broken. Let Us Count the Ways.
- Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: Facebook Still Can’t Figure Out How To Deal With Naked Breasts
- Global regulation threatens to take a bite out of the FAANGs
- Instagram Planning AI-Powered Pop-Ups To Ratchet Down Anti-Vaccination Content
- The Legislation That Targets the Racist Impacts of Tech: A proposed law would make big companies determine whether their algorithms discriminate
- Your phone isn’t spying on you – it’s listening to your ‘voodoo doll’: An ex-Google employee has described what’s going on when you think your phone has been listening to you
- Google unveils auto-delete for location, Web activity, and app usage data
- Apple to be formally investigated over Spotify’s antitrust complaint, says report: EU investigation will launch ‘in the next few weeks,’ according to the FT
- FBI Reports An Increasing Rate Of Internet-Facilitated Crime
- Fourth Circuit Rejects “Good Faith” as Defense to Copyright Infringement
- “Please don’t stop the music”: Peloton Files Counterclaims Against Music Publishers in Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
- #1 app YOLO Q&A is the Snapchat platform’s 1st hit
- Disney could take full control of Hulu, but that doesn’t mean subscribers’ favorite shows disappear: Disney CEO Bob Iger comments on Hulu’s future
- Disney Writes Off Its Vice Stake in Latest Sign of Trouble
- Disney+ will not be a “Netflix killer” because at this point, nothing can kill Netflix: Redef CEO Jason Hirschhorn watches a lot of TV and he says Netflix has sucked him into watching less of everything else.
- Netflix Has Propelled The ‘Fab 5’ From ‘Queer Eye’ Into Bonafide Social Media Stars
- Open Source Makes Kodi Add-ons Proliferate — And Hard To Eradicate
- YouTube Now Has 2 Billion Monthly Users, Who Watch 250 Million Hours on TV Screens Daily
- More Than 250 Million Hours Of YouTube Content Are Watched On TV Screens Every Single Day
- More Than 500 Hours Of Content Are Now Being Uploaded To YouTube Every Minute
- YouTube Copyright Filters Suck: The ‘Beat Saber’ And ‘Jimmy Fallon’ Edition
- Ex-YouTube engineer reveals how video site worked to kill off Internet Explorer 6
- YouTube’s Always Wanted TV Ad Dollars. But At This Year’s Brandcast, Execs Upped The Intensity Of The Pitch.
- YouTuber Austin Jones Sentenced To 10 Years Behind Bars For Child Pornography
- Pornhub wants to buy Tumblr and restore site to former porn-filled glory
- Justin Bieber Pacts With YouTube for Project Premiering in 2020
- YouTube Renews Kevin Hart Comedy Series, Sets Maluma and Paris Hilton Documentaries, Lollapalooza Live-Streaming Deal
- Kris Jenner, Gary Vaynerchuk Talk Life And Business With 120 YouTubers At The Site’s ‘Top Creator Summit’
- YouTube Plays A Major Role In Google’s Plans To Revamp Ecommerce Arm
- Bad Influence: Complying with FTC’s Endorsement Guide
- FTC Warns Ukraine Company: You Can’t Let Kids Use Your Dating Apps
- Dating Apps Warned of Potential COPPA and FTC Act Violations Removed from App Stores
- Liza Koshy, James Charles, And Lilly Singh Got Coveted Invites To The Met Gala
- Police Investigating Alleged Drugging Of Guest At Jake Paul-Hosted House Party
- After Streamlining Web Presence, Vice Reportedly Raises $250 Million In Debt Funding
- Vice Media Gets $250 Million in Debt Funding From George Soros, Other Investors
- ‘Game Of Thrones’ Videos Are Collecting Nearly 100 Million Views A Day
- CatCon Partners With Cats Of Instagram To Celebrate The Internet’s Greatest Cat Videos
- Sock Startup Bombas Says YouTube Yields More First-Time Orders Than Any Other Ad Platform
- Instagram’s In-App Shopping Feature ‘Checkout’ Helped Boost Adidas’ Online Sales By 40%
- Instagram Planning AI-Powered Pop-Ups To Ratchet Down Anti-Vaccination Content
- The Comedian Is In The Machine. AI Is Now Learning Puns
- Can AI Fairness Be Regulated?
- How to prepare students for the rise of artificial intelligence in the workforce
- The impact of intellectual property on artificial intelligence
- Blockchain, zero-code machine learning coming to Azure
- Blockchain Technology Embraced by Maryland Legislature
- Binance exchange hackers steal bitcoins worth $41m
- 3D-printing and IP rights
- Microsoft joins Climate Leadership Council: Company becomes first tech organization to join controversial group pursuing carbon fees, legal immunity for oil giants
- This Year’s Biggest NewFronts Buzzwords Were “Audio” And “Brand Safety”, Says Mindshare’s Christine Peterson
- Man Wins Legal Battle Over Traffic Ticket By Convincing Court A Hash Brown Is Not A Phone
COMMUNICATIONS
- CRTC Issues Its First Penalty Against a CEO for Violating Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation
- CRTC ups the CASL liability ante for directors and officers
- More Than 100 CNN Staffers Take Buyouts as AT&T Pares Debt
- CMS Finalizes Rule Requiring Disclosure of Drug Prices in TV Ads
- Verizon Media Said to Be Looking for Tumblr Buyer
- US Bandwidth Consumption Surges As Usage Caps Pose A Looming Threat
- Charter squeezes more money out of Internet users with new cancellation policy
- Megamergers Can’t Help Charter Spectrum As Cord Cutting Exodus Continues
- FCC Fixes Giant Error Over-Stating Broadband Availability… Then Doubles Down On Bogus Claims
- Ajit Pai refuses to investigate Frontier’s horrible telecom service
- The Super ‘Transparent’ Pai FCC Is Still Trying To Hide Details On Those Fake Net Neutrality Comments
- The FCC Hasn’t Done A Damn Thing To Seriously Police Wireless Location Data Scandals
PRIVACY
- Student Files $1 Billion Lawsuit Against Apple Over Supposedly Faulty Facial Recognition Tech That Falsely Accused Him Of Theft
- Refunds for 300 million phone users sought in lawsuits over location-data sales
- Does Canadian Privacy Law Matter if it Can’t be Enforced? (Michael Geist)
- How Mass Surveillance Works in Xinjiang, China: ‘Reverse Engineering’ Police App Reveals Profiling and Monitoring Strategies
- Chinese Spies Intercepted NSA Malware Attack, Weaponized It Against Targets Around The World
- “RobbinHood” ransomware takes down Baltimore City government networks
- Smart Lock Vendors Under Fire For Collecting Too Much Private Data
- Massachusetts Judge Says ATF Can Apply A Suspect’s Fingerprints To Unlock An IPhone
- Latest ODNI Transparency Report Shows Steep Spike In Unmasking Requests For US Person Caught In NSA Collections
- Unless you want your payment card data skimmed, avoid these commerce sites
- Google Is Finally Copying Apple’s Approach to Privacy: New features will help keep your data on your device
- Google’s Sundar Pichai snipes at Apple with privacy defense: ‘Privacy cannot be a luxury good’
- Facebook’s contract workers are looking at your private posts to train AI: Human workers have to categorize posts to create training data for AI systems
- Canada Border Services seizes lawyer’s phone, laptop for not sharing passwords
- $3 Million Settlement for Exposure of and Latent Response to Exposure of 300,000 Patients’ Protected Health Information
- Accused CIA Leaker Files Complaint Against The Government Seeking $50 Billion In Damages
- Governments are deploying spyware on killers, drug lords – and journalists
- Schools Are Safer Than Ever, But That’s Not Stopping Schools From Buying Social Media Monitoring Software
- First GDPR fine issued!
- GDPR, ePrivacy and cookies: an update
- GDPR Penalties Prove Why Compliance Isn’t Enough—And Why Companies Need Clarity
- Senator Markey Announces ‘Privacy Bill of Rights’
- The Lure Of Learning Analytics: Researchers now have access to a flood of educational data on students that they hope will offer insights on how to improve the learning experience. Will it work?
- Spot the not-Fed: A day at AvengerCon, the Army’s answer to hacker conferences
CREATIVITY
- Infringement Plagues Pharaoh’s Fortune
- Artist’s trash is treasure
- Saatchi Gallery decides to cover up artworks dubbed “blasphemous”
- The male torso: Is it distinctive?
- UMG Fails To Get Trademark For ‘As Heard On TV’ In A Remarkably Sane Ruling From The TTAB
- Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Inc. Keeps Telling Licensees Its Trademarks Are Valid While Courts Keep Insisting They Are Not
- The Russo Brothers Break Down the Biggest Marvel Moments
- Unsurprisingly, Larry Klayman’s Veiled Threats And Insulting Of Judges Isn’t Helping Roy Moore’s $95 Million Defamation Lawsuit
- Why we are addicted to conspiracy theories: Outsiders and the disenfranchised have always embraced the existence of wild plots and cover-ups. But now the biggest conspiracy-mongers are in charge.
- Just Because The Rest Of The World Doesn’t Have A 1st Amendment, Doesn’t Mean It Can Trample Online Speech
- Federal Judge Says Flashing Headlights To Warn Drivers Of Hidden Cops MIGHT Be Protected Speech
GAMES
- Riot Games employees organize walkout over forced arbitration
- Riot Games employees hold walkout over forced arbitration: In one of the first games industry walkouts, League of Legends studio employees protest studio policy in light of gender discrimination lawsuits
- Riot Games walkout sees 150 developers protest forced arbitration
- Riot Games will drop mandatory arbitration following walkout threats: Staff at League of Legends developer will no longer be blocked from filing lawsuits over sexual harassment or assault
- Riot agrees to scrap mandatory arbitration, but only for new employees
- Study sees link between loot boxes and gambling: Most gamers surveyed believe loot boxes are a form of gambling, more than a quarter have sold loot box items
- US Senator introducing legislation banning loot boxes in games aimed at minors
- U.S. Senator Introduces Bill To Ban Loot Boxes And Pay-To-Win Microtransactions
- Senator Wants to Ban Loot Boxes and Pay-to-Win Aimed at Kids
- Senator Hawley announces bill banning loot boxes, pay-to-win mechanics: “Game developers shouldn’t be allowed to monetize addiction,” Mo. Republican says.
- Proposed legislation aims to ban loot boxes in the United States
- Senator Hawley To Introduce Legislation Banning Manipulative Video Game Features Aimed At Children
- Blog: Complying with China’s new loot box rules
- Don’t Miss: Pay-To-Flay: Examining microtransactions inMortal Kombat X
- Bethesda’s latest Elder Scrolls adventure taken down amid cries of plagiarism
- Don’t Miss: How a ragtag band of modders restored Star Wars KOTOR II
- Game Devs Trolling Pirates Goes All The Way Back To At Least The Playstation Days With Spyro 2
- Video: Legal experts discuss the law’s impact on game dev in 2019
- Tencent shuts down PUBG Mobile in China following approval struggles
- China Replaces PUBG With Bizarre, Propaganda-Filled Clone
- Tencent pulls blockbuster game PUBG in China, launches patriotic alternative
- Tencent gives up on monetising PUBG in China: Long wait for approval prompts Chinese publisher to migrate users to new battle royale title, Game for Peace
- China remains a massive PC game market despite regulation hiccups
- Niko Partners: China online PC gaming revenue saw slight decline in 2018 – Domestic revenue dropped by approximately $300m from 2017 in the face of game license freeze
- Niko Partners: Chinese mobile gaming revenue up 29% last year despite license freeze
- Germany considers new youth protection guidelines for mobile monetisation: Deliberately broad draft guidelines leave questions hanging around enforcement
- Pitchford promises no “free-to-play junk” for Borderlands 3
- WHO gaming disorder could cost South Korean economy over $9bn: Korean culture ministry writes to World Health Organisation protesting ICD-11 draft
- GWU calls for testimonies against reported sexual predators at Quantic Dream – Update: French developer claims no knowledge of any incidents and urges victims to, “contact the relevant authorities”
- Claptrap voice actor accuses Gearbox CEO of assault, underpayment
- Claptrap voice actor accuses Randy Pitchford of assault amid pay dispute: Gearbox takes Eddings’ allegations “very seriously” but declines to comment due to it being “a personal matter”
- Star Citizen development reportedly troubled by mishandled money, micromanagement: Cloud Imperium Games has raised $288 million so far over a nearly eight-year development, but the end still isn’t in sight
- Starbreeze seeks funding to avoid imminent “liquidity shortfall”: Swedish company’s Q1 report suggests it won’t last 12 months without a new source of funds
- Bandai Namco’s long-running Tales series has crossed 20 million lifetime sales
- World War Z has topped 320,000 sales on the Epic Games Store
- World War Z sold 320k on Epic Games Store: Saber Interactive’s hit game skipped Steam, but PC still accounted for 25% of its week one sales
- Watch Close To The Sun’s developers talk launching on the Epic Game Store
- Risk of Rain 2 crosses 1 million sales in first month
- Mordhau sells 500,000 copies in one week
- Live service roster helps Zynga deliver record mobile revenue and bookings
- Apple’s first new game in 10 years is Warren Buffett’s Paper Wizard
- Xbox’s new Code of Conduct: yes to “get wrecked,” “potato aim,” no to hate
- Gameloft to bring Xbox Live features to 3 mobile games
- Xbox Live coming to select Gameloft mobile titles: Asphalt 9: Legends, Asphalt 8: Airborne, and Dragon Mania Legends among the first mobile games to use recently-announced mobile SDK from Microsoft
- Anthem fell short of EA’s sales expectations
- Revenue drops at Electronic Arts despite strong digital bookings
- EA Access is launching on PlayStation 4
- EA Access is launching on PlayStation 4 in July: Almost five years after its Xbox and PC debut, EA’s subscription service is finally available on Sony’s console
- Apex Legends, Anthem can’t save EA’s fourth quarter: Revenue and net income down double-digits as company falls off last year’s pace, but publisher forecasts a record-setting rebound ahead
- EA in ‘advanced negotiations’ to bring Apex Legends to China and mobile
- EA’s plan for a record year revolves around ongoing games: Apex Legends hopes are high as it heads to mobile and China, while the publisher projects unit sales of up to 8m for single-player Jedi Fallen Order
- GTA V becomes third most-watched game on Twitch thanks to role playing server: Live viewership hours increases nearly sixfold in space of single month
- Key franchises help Capcom to record profits for second consecutive year
- Capcom’s full-year results boosted by software strength: Devil May Cry, Resident Evil and Monster Hunter drive profit to record levels
- Supercell invests $3.8 million into Swedish studio Luau Games
- Activision Blizzard quarterly revenues take a dip
- Activision Blizzard sees predicted Q1 start to “transition year”: Revenue down largely due to 16% drop in Blizzard earnings as the segment begins a year with “no major frontline release”
- The Call of Duty series has sold over 300 million games
- Activision Blizzard looks to esports, mobile, free-to-play during company transition: Call of Duty’s city-based league sells first five franchise teams; company staffs up for numerous mobile initiatives
- Danish government launches esport strategy to foster growth and tackle toxicity: Dedicated esports panel aims to build a “sustainable structure for the entire food chain”
- Creators Going Pro: ‘Fortnite’ Creative Expert Swiftor Doesn’t Just Make Content For His 3 Million Subscribers — He Makes Content With Them
- Former Fortnite UX lead digs into ethical game design
- Global console content, services spend reaches record high in 2018 – IHS Markit: 2019 expected to see continued market growth largely thanks to the Nintendo Switch
- Nintendo: “The reality is that the Chinese market is almost all mobile and PC games” – Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa cools enthusiasm around the Chinese launch of the Switch
- Nintendo says 3DS demand ‘stable’ despite notable declines
- Pokémon characters have their own pea-sized region in brain, study finds
- United devs stand, divided they crunch | Opinion: Management doesn’t need to mandate excessive overtime when it has developers policing each other
- CEO and co-founder Emily Greer departs Kongregate
- Former temps claim NetherRealm has long history of exploitation and abuse
- NetherRealm’s self-sustaining culture of crunch: Current and former employees describe pressures at Mortal Kombat studio placed on them from management and peers alike
- NetherRealms Studios investigating crunch and toxicity allegations: Following multiple exposés on self-sustaining culture of crunch, Mortal Kombat developer vows to “improve our company environment”
- Mortal Kombat 11 review: Great gameplay, excessively packaged
- Path of Exile devs “sometimes feel we are being asked to crunch” by fan demands: Grinding Gear Games asks fans for patience as it works on improvements for Path of Exile
- The pressure to constantly update games is pushing the industry to a breaking point: Live service games have trained players to expect a constant stream of new content, and only constant work can deliver it.
- What responsibility do leaders have to their developers?
- Microsoft files patent for controller accessory with Braille input and output: Gamepad would allow users to read and input Braille text, as well as convert speech commands to input
- Kerbal Space Program’s Breaking Ground DLC adds robotics and more experiments
- After 32-bit purge, GameClub raises $2.5M to bring back classic iOS games
- GameClub raises $2.5m for premium mobile game development: Studio is currently working to revitalize and update over 50 classic titles
- Phoenix Games has acquired UK studio Well Played Games
- Phoenix Games’ first acquisition is UK developer Well Played Games
- Echo developer Ultra Ultra closes down
- Google Stadia caused investors to walk away from Slightly Mad’s console: Future of the “Mad Box” is in question following the emergence of Google’s streaming service
- Google’s current VR plan is more about services than new hardware
- Google pivots away from VR hardware to focus on software: Company says it is in ‘deep R&D’ on new headsets, and is focused on games and apps for now
- Location-based VR Attraction ‘Hologate’ Celebrates 2 Million Player Milestone
- Microsoft announces HoloLens 2 Development Edition
- HoloLens 2 dev kits: $3,500, or $99/month, with Azure credits, Unity trials
- Developer’s edition of HoloLens 2 launches today at $3,500: Alternatively, studios can pay $99 per month for access to the kit
- ‘High Fidelity’ Refocuses on Enterprise Market, Lays off 25% of Staff
- The Terrawurm experiment: Can indies work together on multiple games?
- Developing out loud for Amazon Alexa: Amazon head of voice design education Paul Cutsinger talks about how independent developers are rising to the unique challenges of making games for voice
- Remedy: “Single-player games are stronger than they have ever been” – At Reboot Develop, CEO Tero Virtala examined the new opportunities streaming services will create for independent AAA developers
- Ubisoft and Genba aim to thwart key resellers with silent key activation
- Ubisoft and Genba to “kill the grey market” with silent key activation: Genba’s Matt Murphy reveals how the two companies are clamping down on key reselling
- Sindiecate founders go AWOL, owing staff and contractors over €30,000: Spanish indie publisher collapses without answers after founders cultivate toxic work environment
- How Denuvo is tackling cheaters who think outside the box: Publishers face an uphill battle as cheats get more sophisticated and harder to detect
- BlizzCon 2019 tickets revolve around invasive, poorly reviewed smartphone app: And, lo, did fans sarcastically reply, “You guys all have phones, right?”
- After trailer outcry, Sonic the Hedgehog director tells fans to expect “changes”
- Sonic The Hedgehog film character design will change, says director: Jeff Fowler promises to overhaul Sonic’s look following the negative response to the film’s trailer
- Blog: What is ‘live support’ and how does it fit into the games industry?
- Blog: Transitioning from desktop to mobile game development
- Blog: Tips for finding and working with a publisher
- Blog: Creating music and SFX for games
- Blog: A mini-postmortem of the hero theme
- Don’t Miss: Analyzing how friendly AI ‘cheats’ in Ghost Recon Wildlands
- U.S. Patent No. 8,814,677: Using real-time constructive solid geometry to provide painting and thinning game mechanics
- Evil Video Games Great At Detecting Early Dementia In People
- Brexit and its impact on the gaming sector | Opinion: Wright Hassall solicitor Patrick McCallum offers an update on the potential impact of the UK’s departure from the EU
- Nordic Game Discovery Contest reveals 15 finalists for 2019: Finalists were picked during heats at 15 global games events
- Marvel Strike Force and Shadowgun Legends honored at 2019 Google Play Awards
- Windows Solitaire inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame
- Mortal Kombat, Microsoft Solitaire, and more join World Video Game Hall of Fame
- Microsoft Solitaire, three others join World Video Game Hall of Fame: Super Mario Kart, Mortal Kombat, Colossal Cave Adventure also among Strong Museum’s 2019 inductees
- Take a look at some of the earliest designs for Plants vs. Zombies
Jon
News of the Week; May 1, 2019
DIGITAL
- Can we ever regulate online spaces? (Andres Guadamuz)
- Inside the Team at Facebook That Dealt with the Christchurch Shooting
- PewDiePie Addresses Christchurch Massacre, Urges Fans To Stop Using “Subscribe To PewDiePie”
- Facebook Files Questionable Lawsuit Over Fake Followers And Likes
- Austrian Government Wants To Outlaw Online Anonymity
- Smoking, depression apps sell your data to Google and Facebook, study finds
- How a Google Street View image of your house predicts your risk of a car accident
- Behind The Scenes Look At How Facebook Dealt With Christchurch Shooting Demonstrates The Impossible Task Of Content Moderation
- Regulating Facebook will be one of the greatest challenges in human history
- Facebook’s Zuckerberg announces privacy overhaul: ‘We don’t have the strongest reputation’
- Insights: Will We Still Like Instagram If We Don’t Know Who Likes What?
- Instagram Enlists Kim Kardashian, Kathleen Lights, And More To Roll Out Shoppable Posts
- Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: Some Republican Politicians Are Indistinguishable From Neo Nazis
- Impossible Content Moderation Dilemmas: Talking About Racism Blocked As Hate Speech
- Samsung Made A Vertical TV To Display Instagram Stories, TikToks, And Snapchats
- The Wisconsin Supreme Court Gets Section 230 Right
- Ninth Circuit Chunks Another Section 230 Ruling – HomeAway v. Santa Monica
- Supreme Court Asks White House To Weigh In On Copyrightability Of APIs
- As Brand Safety Concerns Mount, Vice Denounces Keyword Blacklists For Restricting Diversity
- Vodafone Found Hidden Backdoors in Huawei Equipment
- Bloomberg alleges Huawei routers and network gear are backdoored
- Bloomberg Appears To Flub Another China Story, Insists Telnet Is A Nefarious Huawei Backdoor
- Silicon Valley is awash in Chinese and Saudi cash — and no one is paying attention (except Trump): A tough, new enforcement regime is becoming a geopolitical minefield for venture capitalists and startups.
- Judge blasts Assange for jumping bail, sentences him to almost one year
- Putin signs law to create an independent Russian internet
- Why Won’t Twitter Treat White Supremacy Like ISIS? Because It Would Mean Banning Some Republican Politicians Too.: A proactive, algorithmic solution to white supremacy would also catch Republican politicians.
- How The Alt-Right Infiltrated Architecture Twitter – And Turned Notre-Dame Into A Political Lightning Rod: Why are online white nationalists obsessed with modern architecture? It’s all a cover to push a racist agenda
- After White House stop, Twitter CEO calls congresswoman about death threats
- Texas Senator Pushing A Bill That Would Allow The State To Sue Twitter For Banning Conservatives
- Why Your Holiday Photos And Videos Of The Restored Notre Dame Cathedral Could Be Blocked By The EU’s Upload Filters
- Elon Musk reaches settlement in SEC tweet battle
- Disinformation Threatens 2020 Election
- Was Russia’s 2016 intervention for Trump a strategic failure?: Putin won the political battle, but the war’s outcome is still uncertain.
- HootSuite cuts jobs in reorganization at social media management business
- At NewFronts, Twitter Pitches Programming Pacts With Wall Street Journal, Live Nation, Univision
- Twitter Expands Live-Streaming Video Lineup, Sets Content Deals With Viacom, ESPN, Live Nation, Univision, and More
- YouTube Is Communicating Directly With Creators And Viewers More Than Ever – Through Its Twitter Account
- YouTube CEO addresses top creator issues including copyright claims and trending section
- YouTube Swings For The Fences In First-Ever Exclusive Deal With Major League Baseball
- YouTube Scores MLB 13-Game Package With Exclusive Rights in U.S., Canada
- Following Shane Dawson Summit, YouTube’s Tweaking Its ‘Trending’ Tab To Be 50% Native Creators
- Taylor Swift’s “Me!” Shatters YouTube Record For Most-Viewed Solo Female Debut
- Microsoft is now a $1 trillion company: Strong earnings push Microsoft toward a new milestone
- Microsoft market cap reaches $1 trillion: Company value edges over milestone this morning for the first time, making it most valuable US publicly traded company
- Apple sets sights on services as iPhone revenue continues to fall
- iPad and services on the rise at Apple as iPhone sales continue to fall
- Robotics company Anki lays off entire workforce ahead of closure
- Security Experts Unite Over the Right to Repair
- Minnesota May Be First State To Pass A Right To Repair Law
- SiriusXM financials reveal continued decline in Pandora users
- Post-Ticketfly, Pandora Integrates Ticketmaster Shows Into Its Artist Streams
- The Next Step In The Podcast Wars: Two Companies Looking To Be The Netflix Of Podcasts Start Fighting
- Despite Spielberg’s ‘Get Off My Lawn’ Moment, The Oscars Won’t Ban Netflix
- Now more expensive to sue multiple online infringers
- Don’t let industry write the rules for AI: Technology companies are running a campaign to bend research and regulation for their benefit; society must fight back (Yochai Benkler)
- World Economic Forum’s AI head on how to protect human rights without stifling innovation
- Is Artificial Intelligence Good for Our Health?
- Can algorithms themselves be biased?
- Google’s poetry algorithm automates teen angst: Give it a word and it’ll give you a masterpiece (of sorts).
- Why Congress Needs The Office Of Technology Assessment More Than Ever
- Google’s VP Of Agency And Brand Solutions Wants Facebook Watch To Get Bigger
- GroupM’s Global Head Of Social Says Marketers Must Practice Non-Linear Storytelling
- The Age Of The Influencer Has Peaked. It’s Time For The Slacker To Rise Again
- Amazon Posts Record Profit in Q1 of $3.6 Billion, Plans to Upgrade Prime to Free One-Day Shipping
- How Amazon automatically tracks and fires warehouse workers for ‘productivity’: Documents show how the company tracks and terminates workers
- A doorbell company owned by Amazon wants to start producing “crime news”
- Amazon Spent $1.7 Billion on Content in Q1, but Original Video Investments Still Unknown
- Amazon plans to make Prime shipping one-day by default
- Amazon Takes Direct Aim At Jay-Z’s Tidal
- BBC Expanding News Coverage With Interactive Video, Audio Articles, And New Verticals
- Hulu Greenlights Two New Marvel Series, Inks Two-Year Programming Pact With Chrissy Teigen
- Hulu tops 28 million customers, unveils new shows and a ‘binge watch’ ad experience
- Vudu Announces ‘Blue’s Clues’ Remake, Studio71 Film ‘Adventure Force 5’
- Technological Warnings from the Inside
- MIT finally gives a name to the sum of all AI fears
- The AI Group Elon Musk Quit Just Released An Amazing Music AI
- Spotify Now Has Over 100 Million Subscribers, Narrows Q1 Losses
- Layer and Nio’s intelligent Pal scooter learns your favourite routes
- The Vast Majority of All Futures Trading Is Now Automated
- Amazing AI Generates Entire Bodies of People Who Don’t Exist: The algorithm whips up photorealistic models and outfits from scratch.
- The Role of Professional Norms in AI Governance: Some Observations and Outline of a Framework (Urs Gasser)
- Beyond Bias: Re-imagining the Terms of “Ethical AI” in Criminal Law (Chelsea Barabas)
- Do You Know the Origin of your Website Content? . . . and Why You Should.
- Condé Nast Entertainment Says It Has 100 Pilots In The Works
- Condé Nast Taps Joe Sugg For New YouTube Series, To Launch Sports-Themed ‘GQ’ Channel
- Vice to Relaunch Main Site, Bring Noisey Under Flagship Umbrella: Exclusive
- Viacom’s Kelly Day Wants To ‘Build Digital Worlds’ Around Its Biggest TV Hits
- Viacom is launching Pluto TV channels for Comedy Central, MTV and more
- Viacom Taps Eva Gutowski, Tana Mongeau, And Jason Nash For Latest YouTube Series Slate
- Billboard Music Awards Pacts With Nascent Stories-Editing App ‘Unfold’
- Slack plans to go public after hitting 10 million daily users
- Shoddy Software Is Eating The World, And People Are Dying As A Result
- In Its Race to Be First, Samsung Screwed Itself
- Samsung puts the screws to iFixit, makes it remove the Galaxy Fold teardown
- UWinnipeg receives $2.4 million to grow digital agriculture
- The leading “stablecoin” is no longer backed by $1 for every coin
COMMUNICATIONS
- SCC decision could focus on CRTC’s reach
- Anti-spam laws are overreaching, say lawyers
- Of Course Wireless Carriers Are Fighting a Bill That Stops Them From Throttling Firefighters’ Data
- Verizon Media Unveils Augmented Reality News Partner Program, 5G Tech At NewFronts
- AT&T Settles Lawsuit Over ‘Fake 5G,’ Won’t Change A Thing
- Ajit Pai-proposed upgrade to 25Mbps starts paying off for rural ISPs
- Ajit Pai says he’s fixed giant FCC error that exaggerated broadband growth
- Comcast usage soars 34% to 200GB a month, pushing users closer to data cap
- Charter Spectrum Won’t Get Kicked Out Of New York State After ISP Promises To Suck Less
- Charter data use “rising rapidly” as cord cutters average 400GB a month
PRIVACY
- Canada Says Facebook Broke Privacy Laws With ‘Superficial’ Safeguards
- Facebook data leak: Province-by-province breakdown of affected Canadians
- Zero-day attackers deliver a double dose of ransomware – no clicking required: High-severity hole in Oracle WebLogic under active exploit for 9 days.
- At Long Last, NSA Finally Recommends Its Bulk Phone Collection Program Be Put Out Of Its Misery
- Vulture with GPS tracker held in Yemen on suspicion it was used for spying
- Probable Russian Navy covert camera whale discovered by Norwegians
- Massachusetts’ Top Court Says Warrants Are Needed For Real-Time Cell Site Location Info
- Coercive and Non-Coercive Surveillance Authorities
- Fear the Man in the Middle? This company wants to sell quantum key distribution
- Appeals Court: Chalking Tires For Parking Enforcement Violates The Fourth Amendment
CREATIVITY
- Myths and Reality About Canadian Copyright Law, Fair Dealing and Educational Copying (Michael Geist)
- The Copyright Board’s “New Leaf”? Not So Much and Not at All (Howard Knopf)
- The Toronto Real Estate Board is Back in the Copyright News (Howard Knopf)
- Can the taste of a cheese be copyrighted? (Eleonora Rosati)
- Today In Bananas Copyright Law: Court Urged To Rule That A Banana Costume Is Not Infringing
- Second Circuit Judges Brawl Over the Meaning of “Volition” in Copyright Cases–BWP v. Polyvore
- Announcing: The Public Domain Song Anthology
- Watch: The Latest Avengers Movie Is Already On Torrent Sites, But That Won’t Stop A Torrent Of Sold Theater Tickets
- Picture this: no direct infringement but no fair use either
- FanX, Previously Salt Lake Comic Con, Ordered To Pay $4 Million For San Diego’s Con’s Attorney’s Fees, Barred From Calling Itself A Comic-Con
- How Queer Is Star Trek?
- First teaser for Veronica Mars revival is everything we loved about the series
- Encyclopedia Brown And The Case Of The Mysterious Author: Donald J. Sobol created a mystery icon and sold millions of books. But who was he?
- Oxford Professor Argues Invisible Aliens Are Interbreeding With Humans
- The world is sadder and angrier than ever, major study finds
- A theory of style: We can analyse how fashion works by breaking it down into networks of style elements. What role, then, for human creativity?
GAMES
- Report: Talks of developer walkouts prompt conversation inside Riot Games
- Citing arbitration clauses, Riot Games moves to block employee lawsuits
- Riot Files Motions To Block Current Employees From Taking Legal Action
- Riot employees threaten walkout over forced arbitration: League of Legends developer’s attempt to keep workers’ gender discrimination claims out of court draws backlash
- Riot says women waived right to sue when they were hired: League of Legends maker wants to enforce private arbitration clauses for gender discrimination claims
- The heavy toll of making games in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Swery’s White Owls is building a better work culture for Japan: Hidetaka Suehiro says his new studio’s treatment of employees is, “inspired by foreign game companies”
- New York Saxophonist Latest To Sue Fortnite Developers For Supposedly Ripping Off His… ‘Likeness’
- Musician Leo Pellegrino sues Epic Games over alleged misappropriation of his identity: Pellegrino’s “trademark moves have become inseparable from his persona and his life story” argues filing
- Epic Games acquires Rocket League dev Psyonix
- Epic acquires Rocket League studio, bringing game to Epic’s store this year: Steam sales will continue for now; Steam “support” will continue indefinitely.
- If Epic Vs Steam Is To Be A PR War, Epic’s Boss Just Issued A Brilliant Retaliatory Strike
- Steam crosses 1 billion registered accounts
- NCSoft Has A Great Opportunity To Be Awesome And Human To ‘City Of Heroes’ Enthusiasts
- The streaming service that wants to save the retro gaming biz from piracy
- Cox Internet now charges $15 extra for faster access to online game servers
- Google removes Do Global Games from Play Store: Developer with over 100 apps and 600m installs banned following reports of concealing ownership info, ad fraud
- Google CEO: Publishers “want to see our commitment” to Stadia – But Sundar Pichai says giving games execs hands on time with streaming service “completely wins people over”
- Publishers see Stadia as an ‘opportunity for a shift,’ says Google CEO
- Google Stadia will support “a variety of business models”
- Coming Facebook Gaming features focus on discovery and engagement
- Banned Republican politician restored to EVE Online council following investigation: “We made a mistake here and we offer our formal apologies,” says CCP Games
- EA lays out Apex Legends community tournament guidelines: This is what you need to know if you want to hold a local tournament without fear of EA’s legal department.
- Apex Legends updates less to maintain dev quality of life: Respawn’s Vince Zampella says studio is wary of overworking the team and reducing quality of work in the process
- BioWare delays multiple Anthem features: “There is a long way to go before Anthem becomes the game we all want it to be,” says BioWare
- Epic Removed A Popular Fortnite Mechanic Because It Made People Play Less
- Epic Games Boss Says They’ll Stop Doing Exclusives If Steam Gives Developers More Money
- Tim Sweeney: Epic would stop pursuing exclusives if Steam improved its revenue share – Epic CEO says Steam committing to permanent 88% revenue share would be “a glorious moment in the history of PC gaming”
- Phoenix Labs’ undaunted quest for cross-platform play: Founder Jesse Houston on choosing the Epic Games store over Steam, and how that choice is helping to realise its cross-platform vision for Dauntless
- Epic Games acquires Psyonix: Epic seems to leave door open for game to continue to be sold on Steam after Epic Games store release
- Snap’s big plan to turn Snapchat into a gaming platform
- Watch the Borderlands 3 gameplay reveal streams and you might win in-game loot: A new Echocast plugin will also enable viewers to look at streamers’ loadouts, inventories, and skill trees.
- Borderlands 3 is about more bullets, not new bullet points: Gearbox developers say the latest entry was about broadening the familiar, share thoughts on collaboration, crassness, and crunch
- Adult gaming portal Nutaku launches Android storefront: Restrictions on Google Play and App Store demanded new measures to “improve accessibility” for mobile users
- In-depth: Portfolio-scale machine learning at Zynga
- Zynga’s Q1 revenues, losses top expectations: Publisher credits “outstanding performances” from Empires & Puzzles and Merge Dragons for helping top line and hurting bottom line
- Record-breaking year for Jagex with revenues of £92.8m: Launch of Old School RuneScape on mobile drives fourth consecutive year of growth
- Original Earthworm Jim team reunites for new, Intellivision Amico-exclusive entry: Ten of the game’s original developers participating in creation of new title for upcoming, exclusive-heavy console
- There’s a 1 percent chance Valve announces a Half-Life VR game this week
- Valve Index is a 120Hz-plus ‘fidelity first’ VR headset, and it isn’t cheap
- Valve Index VR headset ships June 28 for $499-$999
- Hands-on: Valve’s Index Headset Sets an Impressive New Bar for VR Fidelity
- Oculus Rift S and Oculus Quest launch May 21 for $399 each
- Oculus Quest Review – The First Great Standalone VR Headset
- A VR game is helping researchers learn about and potentially detect Alzheimer’s
- Japanese mobile operator Docomo sinks $280 million into Magic Leap
- Magic Leap gets $280m investment from Docomo: Japanese telecomms deal pushes lifetime funding above $2.6 billion
- ‘Super Mario Odyssey’ & ‘Zelda Breath of the Wild’ Updated with Switch VR Support
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate driving new Switch sales for Nintendo
- Nintendo Slays The Threat From Modded Nintendo Games For The Commodore 64
- Over 9.8 million people are using Nintendo’s premium Switch Online service
- Nintendo saw over $1 billion in digital sales this year, a company first
- Game with hidden Ruby interpreter pulled from Nintendo Switch eShop
- Nintendo’s VR Upgrade for Zelda Messed Me Up
- The Switch is closing in on 35 million lifetime sales
- Software driving growth at Nintendo as Switch falls just short of sales goal
- Nintendo remains the industry’s best long-term bet | Opinion: With Switch soaring and clear space ahead as competitors prepare next-gen offerings, Nintendo is back on top – and the long-term outlook is even more rosy
- Nintendo Switch had 23 million-selling games in the last fiscal year: Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa says there will be no new hardware announcement at E3 this year
- Nintendo Switch Online reaches 9.8m subscribers in six months: Just under one third of Switch owners are paid members of the online service
- Nintendo pulls A Dark Room from eShop over secret code editor
- Nintendo shares drop 5% after conservative Switch forecasts: But platform holder’s share price has still risen 29% since the start of the year
- A Dark Room pulled from Switch eShop for including code editor: Developer added Ruby editor at the “last second” without publisher’s knowledge
- Mario Kart Tour steps closer to launch with closed beta test: Nintendo’s upcoming mobile game was delayed from March 2019 launch due to concerns over its quality
- Xbox should absolutely team up with Nintendo at E3 | Opinion: This could be the quietest E3 yet, making it the ideal time for Microsoft and Nintendo to call a truce
- Microsoft is using the Xbox Adaptive Controller to support U.S. veterans
- Sega keen to improve profitability of digital titles after disappointing year
- Don’t Miss: A postmortem of the original Sonic the Hedgehog
- Mojang has released the ‘biggest Minecraft update yet’
- Microsoft continues to distance itself from Minecraft creator: Citing “his comments and opinions,” Mojang parent explains why Marcus “Notch” Persson won’t be involved in anniversary event
- Minecraft creator Notch unwelcome at 10th anniversary due to online conduct: Transphobia, homophobia, and racism aren’t Microsoft’s core values.
- Mojang donates $100k to water charity after Minecraftplayers rally to the cause
- PlayStation Now has 700,000 subscribers
- PlayStation Now downloads get double the play time of streamed games: Sony’s on-demand service has 700k subscribers, and many of them are choosing downloads over streams
- Rising PS4 game sales drive Sony to $78.1bn full-year revenues: Game segment’s operating income to take a $278.3 million hit as investment increases in PlayStation 5
- PS4 software sales up at Sony as hardware decline continues
- UK Charts: Days Gone defeats Mortal Kombat 11 to claim No.1 – PS4 exclusive scores decent debut in UK Top 40
- Slightly Mad Studios withdraws trademark for Mad Box console: Withdrawal follows opposition from French casual games firm called Madbox
- Project Cars dev fails to secure ‘Mad Box’ trademark for new console
- St. Jude’s PLAY LIVE Gamer Fundraising Summit Kicks Off In Memphis With Tons Of Twitch Stars
- Fans Can Now Buy Their Own Ninja Headbands For $22, Exclusively At Walmart
- Capcom restructures esports and media licensing business units: Company forms Capcom Media Ventures to manage global esports projects
- Denmark creates ‘national esports strategy’ to nurture competitive gaming
- Fnatic Secures $19m Funding, Announces Management Changes
- YouTube Millionaires: ProPepper’s YouTube Channel Is All ‘Fortnite,’ All The Time — And That’s What Drives His 10+ Million Monthly Views
- The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: The slow journey to killing crunch
- Ex-NetherRealm devs: crunch and exploiting contractors was the studio norm
- Codemasters moves F1 team into new Birmingham studio: Studio head Ian Flatt says new premises allows developer to “recruit even further to expand the franchise”
- Starbreeze sells 10 Crowns publishing rights back to developer Mohawk Games
- Starbreeze sells publishing rights for 10 Crowns back to developer: Marks third such deal in just over a year, but still holds on to Psychonauts 2
- Snapchat is launching an SDK to let devs use Bitmoji avatars in their own games
- Four years after launch, Angry Birds 2 is still Rovio’s top-earning game
- Dino Patti: “If you get what you expected, it always gets boring”
- Blog: Approaching player choice in video games
- Blizzard will skip Gamescom this year to ‘focus on development’
- Bloodborne board game adaptation raises $1.6m in two days: Tabletop adaptation of FromSoftware’s nightmarish monster-fest breaks funding goal in 17 minutes
- AbleGamers reveals plan to get accessibility experts into AAA studios: “We’ve found that once we embed champions within the studio space, accessibility becomes a really cheap thing to add,” says CEO
- This Video Game Detects Alzheimer’s Earlier Than Lab Tests
- Ubisoft is rewarding players for reporting reproducible bugs in Rainbow Six Siege
- Mobile VR game Sea Hero Quest generates 1,700 hours of research into Alzheimer’s: Researchers claim every two minutes of gameplay is equal to five hours of lab-based studies
- Valve Index reveal: The best of VR’s first generation—but is it worth $999?
- Valve has a ‘flagship’ game headed to SteamVR headsets
- Oculus Quest review: 2019’s best new gaming system is wireless, affordable VR
- UK government awards £12m funding for innovation projects based on homegrown IP: Augmented and virtual reality games in development for Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit, and BAFTA-winning Peaky Blinders
- Mass Effect-inspired porn game is now one of the biggest gaming Kickstarters of all time: Subverse, a “kinky sci-fi RPG,” will likely break $2 million, putting it in an exclusive crowdfunding club.
- The Indie Guide To Marketing: Freelance marketer Bee Wakefield offers devs advice on how to promote their game – and why it takes more than just social media
- Understanding Inkle’s approach to making unique game settings
- Knockin’ on Heaven’s Vault: How Inkle designed its first 3D game
- A brief history of 3D texturing in video games
- Don’t Miss: The making of the N64 classic, GoldenEye 007
- Deux Ex: The game you can’t win – Why I Love – Bow to Blood developer Matthew Hoesterey says the immersive sim was everything he hoped for, but not what he expected
- Did a vigilante ROM leaker go too far to “preserve” a lost Atari ROM?
- Don’t Miss: How the developer of Dig Dog learned to make games without using his hands
- Coding without a keystroke: The hands-free creation of a full video game
Jon
News of the Week; April 24, 2019
DIGITAL
- Twitter shuts down 5,000 pro-Trump bots retweeting anti-Mueller report invective: Bots were tied to account formerly used for pro-Saudi messaging.
- In meeting with Twitter chief, Trump complains about lost followers
- Eleventh Lawsuit Against Social Media Providers for “Materially Supporting Terrorists” Fails–Palmucci v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- How Twitter Has to Change
- Twitter Is Not America: A new Pew study finds a gulf between the general population and Twitter users.
- Sixth Circuit Court Dumps Lawsuit Seeking To Hold Twitter Responsible For The Pulse Nightclub Shooting
- Another Attempt To Tie Twitter To Terrorist Acts And Another Dismissal With Prejudice
- Twitter Permanently Suspends (Then Unsuspends) Lawyer For Telling NRA Supporters To ‘F— Off’ And ‘Own The Death’
- Sri Lanka Temporarily Bans Social Media Following Terror Attacks: The government hopes to stem the spread of fake news about the bombings.
- Sri Lanka’s social media ban enters its second day
- When a Country Bans Social Media – Sri Lanka’s ban on social media forces a question nobody wants to ask: What if a global media network is impossible?
- Sri Lanka attacks: government’s social media ban is an assault on free speech and ethnic harmony
- Sri Lanka Shut Down Social Media. My First Thought Was ‘Good.’
- Like Clockwork After A Big Tragedy, People Rush In To Blame… Social Media
- Facebook fights to “shield Zuckerberg” from punishment in US privacy probe
- In new gaffe, Facebook improperly collects email contacts for 1.5 million
- Facebook Expects Record Fine Up to $5 Billion From FTC for Privacy Violations
- Facebook while black: Users call it getting ‘Zucked,’ say talking about racism is censored as hate speech
- Facebook’s privacy issues could impact usage of its forthcoming voice assistant
- Facebook’s flood of languages leave it struggling to monitor content
- Facebook’s auto-captions for a recent launch video are hilariously bad
- Facebook is working on an AI voice assistant similar to Alexa, Google Assistant
- China Bans the Word ‘Leica’ on Social Media
- China censors ban Leica name over Tiananmen Square video
- NIH, FBI accuse scientists in US of sending IP to China, running shadow labs
- Russian court fines Internet user hundreds of dollars for calling Vladimir Putin an ‘unbelievable f—wit’
- Russians Will Soon Lose Uncensored Access to the Internet: A new law allows the Kremlin to spy on, filter, and control the country’s online activity, alarming human-rights watchdogs.
- A mystery agent is doxing Iran’s hackers and dumping their code
- Disinformation Is Drowning Democracy: In the new age of lies, law, not tech, is the answer.
- How Cambridge Analytica breached all the privacy laws
- My TED talk: how I took on the tech titans in their lair
- Photographer Sues for Failure to Provide Creative Commons-Required Attribution–Philpot v. WOS (Eric Goldman)
- New Paper: Why Section 230 Is Better Than The First Amendment
- New Paper: “Why Section 230 Is Better Than the First Amendment” (Eric Goldman)
- Forming an Online Contract May Be Harder Than Tough Mudder’s Salmon Ladder (Eric Goldman)
- Universal And Warner Block Time Live Streaming Its Time 100 Event Because Copyright Censors
- Platforms Want Centralized Censorship. That Should Scare You
- Scribd taking down the Mueller Report is the future the EU has voted for
- Scribd’s Takedown Of The Public Domain Mueller Report Is A Preview Of The EU’s Future Under The Copyright Directive
- Another Week, Another Hollywood Company Files A Takedown Against TorrentFreak
- Don’t Regulate The Internet Like Every Company Is The Same
- The UK’s Dubious Plan For Age-Based Porn Filters Begins On July 15
- Digitas Creative Chief Scott Donaton Says Brands Must Redress Broken Trust Across Digital
- Google Walkout Organizers Say They’re Facing Retaliation
- Google, YouTube and Alphabet Shake Off COPPA-Related Complaint
- YouTube Rolls Out Tools To Curb Misinformation Ahead Of EU Elections
- YouTube will label videos to help European users avoid fake news: The aim is to limit misinformation during the EU elections.
- Google, Verizon Pact To Bring YouTube TV To More Mobile Users
- Amazon and Google settle feud, bring YouTube back to Fire TV devices
- YouTube Returning To Fire TV After Amazon And Google Find Friendly Ground
- Here Are the Winners of the 2019 YouTube Works Awards
- Malala Yousafzai’s Nonprofit Debuts YouTube Series ‘Roll Call’ Spotlighting Girls Around The World
- YouTube Spotlights Eco-Minded Creators Krystn Keller, Justine LeConte, Others On Earth Day
- LeBlanc Family Cookoff Series ‘Annie Vs. Hayley’ Debuts On Nickelodeon’s YouTube Channel
- Susan Wojcicki Has “Tea Sessions” With Shane Dawson And James Charles To Discuss Creator Concerns
- Viewership On Twitch And YouTube Live Was Booming In Record-Breaking First Quarter
- Vimeo Bows ‘Showcase’ Toolkit To Help Creators Make Custom Websites, Smart TV Channels
- E*Trade Sued for Creating ‘Clone’ of Instagram Influencer
- Tag Two Friends but Please Don’t Sue – A Guide to Instagram Contest Rules
- Allegedly Defamatory Tweet About Non-Resident Insufficient to Confer Jurisdiction (Eric Goldman)
- HBO Objects to the President’s “Game of Thrones”-Themed Tweet
- Willful Copyright Infringement Requires Proof of Intent in the Ninth Circuit
- Snapchat Gains 4 Million Users in Q1 as Snap Beats Earnings Estimates
- How publishers are using Snapchat’s curated stories tool for breaking news and more
- How to Avoid Copyright Infringement of Online Image
- Emilio Estevez Uses Some Public Domain Footage In Film, So Universal Studios Forces Original Public Domain Footage Offline
- Amazon will no longer sell Chinese goods in China
- Amazon demands selfies from delivery drivers to combat fraud
- If You Care About Privacy, Throw Your Amazon Alexa Devices Into the Sea
- Insights: What Netflix Says You’re Watching When You’re Not Watching Netflix, And Why It Matters
- Netflix To Grow New York City Footprint With Production Hub, Expanded Corporate HQ
- Netflix Further Experimenting With Episode Order In Test Randomizing ‘The Office,’ Our Planet,’ More
- Beyoncé Inks Three-Project Deal With Netflix Worth A Reported $60 Million
- Netflix offers $2 billion more in debt to fund its content spending
- All Your Favorite Shows Are Probably Leaving Netflix
- The Oscars decides Netflix is OK after all, following DOJ warning
- The Netflix-Twitter Complex
- Jumprope Is A New Social Network Where Users Create How-To Videos — And Then Post Them Everywhere
- Pinterest Shares Up 26% on IPO Day
- New Developments in Ongoing Website Accessibility Litigation
- The Worst Thing About Instagram Might Be Going Away
- The Second-Most Instagrammed Car in the World Is the Honda Civic
- The CIA is joining Instagram: ‘Our team worked with the CIA, as they do with many partners,’ says Instagram
- ‘It’s not play if you’re making money’: how Instagram and YouTube disrupted child labor laws – ‘Kidfluencers’ are earning millions on social media, but who owns that money?
- NFL Taps Instagram to Feature Photos of 2019 Draftees and Let Fans Shop for Their Draft Hats
- The Criterion Channel Should Be My Favorite Streaming Platform
- The future of high-speed computing may be larger CPUs with optics
- Elon Musk: Brain-Computer Interface Update “Coming Soon”
- AI Could Predict Death. But What If the Algorithm Is Biased?
- Applying for Your Next Job May Be an Automated Nightmare
- Artificial Intelligence Can Detect PTSD in Your Voice: Speech analysis software could revolutionize how we diagnose mental disorders
- Speech‐based markers for posttraumatic stress disorder in US veterans
- Some AI just shouldn’t exist: Attempts to “fix” biased AI can actually harm black, gay, and transgender people.
- This YouTube Channel Streams AI-Generated Death Metal 24/7: Dadabots was developed by two music technologists who wanted to prove that a neural network was capable of capturing subtle stylistic differences
- Streamlabs: Twitch is still streaming king, though YouTube is gaining ground – YouTube reaches 24% of Twitch’s total streaming viewership
- The Gentle Side of Twitch
- TV Ratings Are Down For NBA Playoffs, But the League’s Worldwide Social Numbers Are Up
- Disney+ Is Betting On Quality Over Quantity With One Of Streaming Space’s Smallest Libraries
- Airbnb Delves Further Into Content Business With First Feature Film
- Facebook Watch Breakout ‘Red Table Talk’ Returns For New Batch Of Episodes May 6
- Foxconn’s Wisconsin Facility is a Ghost Town Where Workers Are Just ‘Moving Dirt Around’
- Foxconn: So, About That Factory in Wisconsin You Offered Us $4 Billion in Incentives to Build
- Samsung Galaxy Fold: Everything you need to know –
- Breaking news – Samsung responds to reported Galaxy Fold display issues
- After the Galaxy Fold breaks in the hands of reviewers, Samsung delays launch [Updated]
- Samsung Confirms It Will Delay Galaxy Fold Launch Following Early Disasters [Updated]
- The Samsung Galaxy Fold Is a Flawed Start to Something Amazing
- iFixit’s Samsung Galaxy Fold teardown reveals how the phone is dying
- Microsoft 3Q19 revenue up 14% on the back of strong cloud and, uh, Windows?: The PC market declined, but the Windows market did not.
- Microsoft engineer complains that company is biased against white men
- Thriller in Manhattan – NY Regulator and Declined BitLicense Applicant Engage in Extraordinary Public Brawl in Media Blog
- The Airbnb Invasion of Barcelona: In the tourist-clogged city, some locals see the service as a pestilence.
- Why are Canadian universities so slow to adopt digital learning?: Online courses are popular with students who juggle tough workloads. But only one in five institutions has a significant number of ‘blended’ options.
- New Paper: “Why Section 230 Is Better Than the First Amendment” (Eric Goldman)
- Dirty Data, Bad Predictions: How Civil Rights Violations Impact Police Data, Predictive Policing Systems, and Justice (Rashida Richardson, Jason M. Schultz & Kate Crawford)
COMMUNICATIONS
- Millimeter-wave 5G will never scale beyond dense urban areas, T-Mobile says
- The DOJ Isn’t Buying T-Mobile’s Nonsensical Merger Benefit Claims
- AT&T’s fake 5G icons aren’t going away despite settlement with Sprint
- AT&T says 5G will be priced like home Internet—pay more for faster speeds
- Exit of AT&T’s WarnerMedia could spell trouble for OpenAP
- AT&T Misses Q1 Revenue Target as Premium TV, DirecTV Now Lose Subscribers
- White House Won’t Share Data On Whether It Interfered In AT&T Merger Review
- Disney Makes Big Play to Stay in NFL’s TV-Football Game
- FCC Under Fire For Putting ALEC Rep On ‘Consumer’ Advisory Board
- Ajit Pai proposes blocking China-owned telecom from US phone market
PRIVACY
- How one country blocks the world on data privacy: The GDPR is the world’s toughest standard for data privacy. But its chief enforcer has yet to take a single action against major tech firms like Facebook and Google.
- Facebook’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Privacy Week
- No expectation of privacy in child-luring cases on the Internet, SCC rules
- Japanese Taxis Are Using Facial Recognition to Target Ads to Riders: Cameras in the back seat guess your age and gender – and then use them to serve you with ads.
- A Seamless Journey Awaits You On The Outbound Flights: All You Have To Give Up Is Your Face
- John McAfee Vows to Reveal Bitcoin’s Creator
- Shocker: John Mcafee Suspends Plan To Unmask Bitcoin’s Creator
- Marcus Hutchins, slayer of WannaCry worm, pleads guilty to malware charges
- Marcus Hutchins — The Guy Who Stopped Wannacry — Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy Charges
- The US wants to scan the faces of all air passengers leaving the country
- When License-Plate Surveillance Goes Horribly Wrong: The pitfalls of automated policing, where one piece of bad information can lead to a guns-drawn confrontation.
- State Investigator Granted Immunity For Hours-Long Detention Of Doctor At Gunpoint During A Search For Medical Records
- Marcus Hutchins, Security Researcher Who Stopped WannaCry, Pleads Guilty to Malware Charges
- Court Rules Chelsea Manning Must Stay in Jail for Refusing to Provide Testimony in WikiLeaks Case
- Cybercrime for dummies: cracking internet passwords is as easy as 123456 – GCHQ survey finds millions using most obvious passwords – including ‘password’, ‘qwerty’ and superhero names
- How Social Media, Technology and Privacy Laws Are Changing the E-Discovery Landscape
- Moving the Goalposts for Canadian Data: Federal Privacy Commissioner Changes Position on Cross-Border Transfers
- Guidelines to protect client information on phones, laptops released: Tips on what to do when border officers request your password
- Bug in French government’s WhatsApp replacement let anyone join Élysée chats
- The French Govt’s Hand-Rolled Encrypted Messaging Service (Briefly) Allowed Anyone To Pretend They Were A Government Official
CREATIVITY
- Esplanade Productions, Inc. v. The Walt Disney Company: 9th Cir. dismisses copyright claim alleging Disney film Zootopia infringed materials for contemplated “Zootopia” franchise.
- Batiste v. Lewis: In copyright infringement lawsuit against Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, court finds no probative evidence that defendants copied any of Plaintiffs musical compositions or sound recordings.
- Copyright Lawsuits Over Product Shots Are Stupid–eTrailer v. Automatic Equipment (Eric Goldman)
- Mercedes Goes To Court To Get Background Use Of Public Murals In Promotional Pics Deemed Fair Use
- Werner Herzog Joins Plenty Of Other Artists In Recognizing Piracy Isn’t The Problem
- McQueen Estate Wants to Unravel a Tom Ford Sweater
- Dallas Mavericks Fail To Get Trademark For Its Star Player’s Nickname
- Why celebrities try to trademark their catchphrases and baby names: Taylor Swift wanted to own “This sick beat.” Kylie Jenner wants the name of her 1-year-old’s birthday party. Tim Tebow does own his prayer pose.
- The 50 Best Music Documentaries of All Time
GAMES
- Iraq bans PUBG, Fortnite: Country joins Nepal and some parts of India in forbidding Bluehole’s shooter, citing impact on youth and addictive qualities
- Nepal lifts short-lived ban on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
- Fortnite and PUBG are now banned in Iraq: The Iraqi government is concerned about the negative effect the games have on youth.
- Iraq parliament votes to ban Fortnite and Battlegrounds
- Don’t Miss: How working on gross, violent games can mess with developers
- Nintendo issues DMCA takedown for Super Mario Bros.Commodore 64 port
- Super Mario Bros. Commodore 64 fan port hit with DMCA takedowns
- Nepal Supreme Court suspends ban on PUBG: Government ordered to show cause for its prohibition on popular survival shooter
- Over 200 Fortnite World Cup prize winners caught cheating: Over 1,200 total cheaters caught in first week of competition, most for circumventing region locks
- Supercell partners with Internet Matters to improve child safety online
- Constant development means a perpetual push to crunch at Epic, say Fortnite devs
- Epic devs speak out on Fortnite crunch: “I was working at least 12-hour days, seven days a week, for at least four or five months” after survival shooter became a mainstream phenomenon
- Apex Legends is on the decline with streamers after a record-setting month
- Overwatch lets players create custom modes with in-game scripting tools
- Respawn CEO: Sticking to seasonal updates better for Apex Legends devs
- 996.ICU accuses NetEase, Tencent and Chinese devs of overworking staff: Chinese tech workers use GitHub to highlight intensive overtime schedules, Microsoft employees petition to keep list uncensored
- China’s game approval rules will soon apply to HTML5 and WeChat mini-games
- China’s new gaming rules to ban poker, blood and imperial schemes
- China introduces new game approval process, limiting total approvals per year: HTML5 games now require approval, anti-addiction system policy expanded to mobile titles
- Tencent raises minimum age for “digital lock” to 16: New measure will be trialled in upcoming game, limiting gamers aged 15 and under to two hours a day
- Chinese streaming platform DouYu files for $500m IPO: Tencent-backed Twitch rival could be one of the largest Chinese floatations in the US so far this year
- Amnesia dev makes the case for why lying to players is sometimes good game design
- Nintendo and Tencent gain approval to bring the Switch to China
- Tencent cleared to distribute Nintendo Switch in China: Government of Guangdong province offers provisional go ahead for sale of the Switch in China
- Report: Cheaper Switch model will focus on portability
- Google coy with new Stadia details, pushes the promise of discoverability
- PUBG Corp sees $920 million in 2018 revenue: PC accounted for $790 million of total revenue; over half of total earnings came from Asia
- South Korean FTC to review in-game purchase policies
- South Korean FTC examining consumer regulations surrounding in-game purchases: Government body currently investigating issues surrounding minors making purchases and “unfair” limitations on refunds
- Assassin’s Creed Unity hit by review bombers intent on spreading positivity
- Burnout Paradise’s online servers are shutting down after 11 years
- Disney reportedly offered controlling stake in Nexon: Search for a buyer continues as Korean publisher’s founder meets with high-ranking Disney exec
- Welcome to The New Era of High Fashion and Video Game Collaborations: Inside Moschino and The Sims Partnership
- Mortal Kombat 11: Critical Consensus – Reviewers applaud the meat and bones of NetherRealm’s latest, but question the method for unlocking skins
- World War Z has surpassed 1 million sales in first week
- Frostpunk has surpassed 1.4 million sales in first year
- Persona 5 has sold over 2.7 million copies worldwide
- Nintendo stock leaps following Switch approval in China: 17% rise on Tokyo exchange is company’s largest percentage gain since Pokemon Go’s summer of 2016
- More powerful Nintendo Switch reportedly still in experimental stages: Other, smaller Switch version also rumored may be dockable after all, could launch this fall
- NPD: Nintendo Switch continues strong sales in quarter of hardware declines
- Report: Cheaper “Switch Lite” will be dockable, come in the fall
- Report: Cheaper Switch coming by June
- Happy 30th B-Day, Game Boy: Here are six reasons why you’re #1
- GB Studio offers a free Game Boy-inspired way to create 2D games
- Video: The making of the Xbox Adaptive Controller
- Sagging Xbox hardware sales offset by software, services growth: Microsoft says gaming revenues were up 5% in its third quarter thanks to third-party games’ monetization and subscription growth
- Xbox revenue held up by software and services as hardware sales fall
- GAME and GameStop shrug off Xbox One S All-Digital Edition threat: GaneStop survey finds around half of consumers are less likely to purchase console without disc drive
- Game Informer Australia closed down in wake of GameStop cuts
- The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: PlayStation 5 vs disc-less Xbox: Will the future of consoles be defined by Sony’s SSD, Microsoft’s digital focus, or Capcom’s corporate branded arcade panel?
- Contributing devs up in arms over Capcom’s use of the FB Alpha emulator
- Sony promises “appealing” price for new PlayStation console: Wired releases more interview material after hardware’s high-spec prompts speculation over price
- Sony Brings Social VR Theater App to PSVR Users in Japan
- Linden Lab CEO: ‘We’re Pitching ‘Sansar’ Less as a VR Platform Now’
- Oculus Explains Why It Doesn’t Think the Time is Right for ‘Rift 2’ or ‘Rift Pro’
- The Simple Guide to Four Major VR Headsets Launching This Spring
- Iron Man VR preview makes me want to put on nerdy headgear again
- Nintendo’s past VR research laid the foundation for Labo VR
- Epic Games Store exclusivity helps Phoenix Point achieve 191% return: “Cash advance” from engine provider will be shared with Fig backers as part of game’s revenue
- Here’s why the Epic Games Store takes a 12 percent revenue cut from devs
- Gearbox CEO: Both devs and players benefit from Epic and Steam competition
- Gearbox’s Pitchford: Steam may be “a dying store” in 5 to 10 years
- Diverging paths: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo’s radically different visions | Opinion: After decades of platform holders releasing similar hardware, we should celebrate their new, wildly different visions of gaming’s future
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s new Stage Builder mode is recommending inappropriate content: Stages with inappropriate images, names are being listed as “Recommended” and do not disappear
- Spectator Throws Dead Crab At Super Smash Bros. Tournament Winner
- European Esports Federation to be formed with 12 countries: Organization to serve as a “moderating partner” rather than a governing body for the industry
- Player Safeguarding, Welfare and Education in Esports – A Pragmatic Approach for Tournament Organizers
- Actor Will Smith joins $46m investment into esports organisation Gen.G: Smith joined by investment partner and Japanese soccer star Keisuke Honda
- Branded for success | Opinion: Game Dragons’ Philip Oliver offers advice on how to licence IP, and how to identify IP that is now in the public domain
- AbleGamers launches new accessibility website: Accessible.Games provides means to connect developers and players with disability to help design more accessible games
- Kitfox: People are more important than projects – Co-founder Tanya X. Short says she’s reconsidering putting gameplay and quality on equal footing with respect and personal development
- Amy Hennig: Streaming must be more than “just an invisible console” – Real-time streaming will start a revolution in storytelling, Hennig said at Reboot Develop – but new kinds of content will be required
- Neo Cab: Staying human in a world where an algorithm is your boss – “We’re building these systems without thinking about the human costs… we only do it as numbers and aggregate”
- Warren Spector: “If immersive sims disappear, I disappear” – System Shock developer explains why the struggles of Dishonored and Deus Ex won’t deter him from his chosen genre
- Frostpunk sells 1.4m units in first year: Publishing director Paweł Feldman unpacks some of the lessons learned in building 11 Bit Studios’ latest hit
- SuperData: Sekiro sells 1.4m digital units in March, beating Dark Souls III launch – Battle royales continue to drive growth alongside console games as premium PC digital sales decline
- World War Z sells 1m copies in first week: Co-op zombie shooter saw 70k concurrent players during launch
- CCP Games: EVE Online’s tech is “absolutely at its breaking edge” – At Reboot Develop, Hilmar Petursson detailed CCP’s plans to keep pace with the huge battles staged by EVE’s remarkable community
- Life after EVE Online: From intergalactic warfare to “elegant, cosy” card games: CCP Games co-founder Ívar Kristjánsson talks starting a new studio with his brother to fill a niche in the digital card game market
- Blog: What makes a game prologue gripping?
- Blog: Three lessons for narrative game design students
- Blog: Referencing objects—Names vs GUIDs
- Blog: Discussing the ins and outs of composing for games at the Library of Congress
- Blog: What happens when game artists design a mural
- Blog: Evolving difficulty modes in survival horror – Resident Evil 2
- Blog: 10 important Kickstarter hacks from an expert
- Street Fighter II designer walks through the creation of the game’s stranger fighters
- Don’t Miss: Making debugging into a mechanic inBeglitched
- Video: Why you should put your name on your indie game
- Boldly she rode: How Heaven’s Vault reinvents adventure games
- Mojang sets March 2022 date for Minecraft movie premiere: Long in development project has a new director, and plenty of time to get ready for release
- Eight ways the UK games industry can work better with education
- Finnish games industry employed over 3,000, brought in over $2b in 2018
- Artificial Intelligence Is Helping Old Video Games Look Like New: Modders are taking advantage of AI tools to update old graphics
- Code to Inspire is creating “Afghan Hero Girls” through education
- The ethics of smurfing: Why players smurf, and what developers are doing about it.
- Keywords nabs Japanese HTML5 developer Wizcorp for $1.1 million
- A Kickstarter for a game that’s basically hentai Mass Effect has raised over a million dollars
- GTA 6 showed up on a Rockstar artist’s resume: With Red Dead Redemption 2 out presumably Grand Theft Auto 6 will follow, but is this confirmation?
- Don’t Miss: Devs reflect on the impact and legacy ofBurnout Paradise
- Spider-Man Developer Reveals Undiscovered Easter Egg That Only Happens On Saturdays
- Video: Procedurally creating Manhattan for Marvel’s Spider-Man
- The imperfect science of Falcon Age’s baby bird-based social media marketing
- You can now download the source code for all Infocom text adventure classics
- Reverse review bomb? AC: Unity draws praise for Notre Dame preservation: Average Steam user score shifts from “Mixed” to “Very Positive” in recent days.
- Top 10 Best-Selling Video Games Of All Time: Minecraft and GTA V have dominated the last decade, but where do they rank among the all-time bestsellers?
Jon
News of the Week; April 17, 2019
DIGITAL
- Facebook’s role in Brexit – and the threat to democracy
- Mark Zuckerberg leveraged Facebook user data to fight rivals and help friends, leaked documents show: Facebook’s leaders seriously discussed selling access to user data – and privacy was an afterthought.
- 15 Months Of Fresh Hell Inside Facebook
- Facebook v. Sullivan: Building Constitutional Law for Online Speech (Thomas Kadri & Kate Klonick)
- TED offers Mark Zuckerberg a stage to explain himself once and for all
- British investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr sticks it to the gods of Silicon Valley in Vancouver TED talk
- Carole Cadwalladr blasts tech titans at TED: Your technology is “a crime scene”
- Ethics Alone Can’t Fix Big Tech
- Grandstanding GOP Senators Continue To Mislead About Social Media Bias, Demand A ‘Fairness Doctrine’ For The Internet
- No, Section 230 Does Not Require Platforms to Be “Neutral”
- Platform Liability Doesn’t — And Shouldn’t — Depend On Content Moderation Practices
- Nancy Pelosi Joins Ted Cruz And Louis Gohmert In Attacking CDA 230
- Section 230 Applies to ADA Closed Captioning Claims–National Federation of the Deaf v. Harvard (Eric Goldman)
- Stop Saying That Section 230 Was A ‘Gift To Internet Companies’
- Wherein The Copia Institute Updates The Copyright Office On The First Amendment Problems With The DMCA
- Apple and Qualcomm settle patent fight after one day in court
- Intel quits 5G modem business hours after Apple settles with Qualcomm
- New laws to block election meddling miss the mark, claims journalist who uncovered Facebook’s role in Brexit
- Another Government Impermissibly Censors Constituents on Facebook–Robinson v. Hunt County
- Facebook’s reckoning? The global battle to regulate social media: After fake news scandals, suicides and the Christchurch massacre, internet groups face a profound change in mood
- No, YouTube Cannot Reasonably Moderate All Content On Its Platform
- AI Won’t Save Us From Fake News: YouTube’s Fact Checking Tool Thinks Notre Dame Fire Is About 9/11
- Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp back up after widespread outages
- A cognitive scientist explains why humans are so susceptible to fake news and misinformation: “We might like to think of our memory as an archivist that carefully preserves events, but sometimes it’s more like a storyteller.”
- EU Tells Internet Archive That Much Of Its Site Is ‘Terrorist Content’
- EU Parliament Takes Up Its Next Attempt To Wipe Out An Open Internet: Terrorist Content Regulation Vote On Wednesday
- EU Parliament Votes To Require Internet Sites To Delete ‘Terrorist Content’ In One Hour (By 3 Votes)
- What Will Happen When Governments Disagree Over Who Is A Terrorist Organization… And Who Needs To Be Blocked Online?
- Netflix CEO Reed Hastings To Leave Facebook Board In May
- DOJ to academy: don’t cancel Netflix
- Netflix’s Next Bid To Charm Awards Voters Is Its Own Magazine, Coming In June
- Netflix Is Close To Buying Hollywood’s Historic Egyptian Theatre — But Won’t Use It To Lure Film Awards
- Foxconn’s Wisconsin ‘Factory’ Is An Even Bigger Joke Than Everybody Thought
- Film, TV studios filing lawsuits against Canadian BitTorrent users
- T-Series Court Order Sees “Abusive, Vulgar, Racist” PewDiePie Diss Tracks Blocked In India
- Porn sites must age-verify British users starting July 15: Sites that don’t verify age could get blocked by British ISPs.
- Online harms white paper misses the mark (Andres Guadamuz)
- UK: online harms white paper – potential new regulatory framework for social media
- UK Seeks to Establish Internet Watchdog
- An Internet Regulator For The UK: 10 Things You Need To Know
- The future of free speech: The panic button and social media regulation – The special internet standard and its independent arbitration system
- German competition authority pushes the boundaries of abuse of dominance with infringement finding on online data collection
- EU Council Officially Approves European Copyright Law Reforms: A New Digital Age Is Born
- European Parliament Approves Controversial EU Copyright Directive
- The EU Copyright Directive – Filtering the Internet
- As Expected, EU Nations Rubber Stamp EU Copyright Directive
- As the EU Copyright Directive was approved, Germany admitted it requires copyright filters, putting it on a collision course with the EU-Canada trade deal
- DSM Directive Series #4: Article 17 obligations … in a chart (Eleonora Rosati)
- The Phantom Menace: Office Depot Settles with FTC Over Fake Virus Scans
- COPPA Safe Harbor Hit by Storm
- N.D. California Straightens Out Competitor’s Use of Infringing Hashtags: #newdevelopments in Using Trademarks as Hashtags
- An Email Inbox Isn’t a “Place” for Purposes of Florida Privacy Law–Hall v. Sargeant (Eric Goldman)
- Ian McEwan: ‘Who’s going to write the algorithm for the little white lie?’
- AI Robot paints its own moonscapes in traditional Chinese style
- AKQA says it used AI to invent a new sport called Speedgate
- Notes on AI Bias
- AI’s white guy problem isn’t going away: A new report says current initiatives to fix the field’s diversity crisis are too narrow and shallow to be effective.
- We’ve Been Warned About AI And Music For Over 50 Years, But No One’s Prepared
- People Are Horrified When They Have to Torture a Virtual Person: Even in a VR simulation, the Milgram Shock Experiment continues to traumatize.
- Participant concerns for the Learner in a Virtual Reality replication of the Milgram obedience study (Mar Gonzalez-Franco, Mel Slater, Megan E. Birney, David Swapp, S. Alexander Haslam & Stephen D. Reicher)
- Microsoft overhauling HR complaint process: After employees trade harassment stories, CEO Satya Nadella promises consistent, transparent enforcement of company policy
- HQ Trivia replaces Quiz Daddy Scott Rogowsky
- Longtime HQ Trivia Host Scott Rogowsky Exits Company
- Over half of HQ Trivia staff tried to oust CEO: Co-founder Rus Yusupov survived demands for his removal, but the search for a replacement chief has begun
- Another Appellate Court Rejects “Material Support for Terrorist” Claims Against Social Media Platforms–Crosby v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Marvel Set to Launch Live-Streaming Twitter Fan Show, Hosted by ‘Agent M’ and Angélique Roché
- Twitter Doesn’t Want You Sharing This Link About TV Piracy
- Twitter blocks EFF tweet that criticized bogus takedown of a previous tweet
- How Jack Dorsey plans to change Twitter
- A healthier Twitter: Progress and more to do
- Nichification
- AMC Networks boss Josh Sapan wants the people who make TV to look at the data – but not too much: There’s no algorithm for creativity yet, Sapan says on the latest Recode Media.
- Vimeo Breaks Into Shortform Space With Acquisition Of Video Creation Service Magisto
- Girls Who Code Helps Draft ‘Landmark’ Legislation Aimed at Closing the Gender Gap
- Google+ is back! Meet the enterprise-focused “Google Currents”
- Susan Wojcicki On YouTube’s Fight Against Grotesque Content: “I Own This Problem, And I’m Going To Fix It”
- YouTube tries a new metric to answer critics: Responsibility
- YouTube Is Plotting A New Metric That Would Reward ‘Quality Watch Time’
- YouTube Axes Four More Series As It Overhauls Original Programming Strategy
- YouTube Millionaires: Top ‘Madden NFL’ Gamer YoBoy Pizza Takes On Real-Life NFL Stars In New YouTube Series
- YouTube Teams Up With Enterprise For ‘Cobra Kai’ Campaign
- Horror Vloggers Sam And Colby Sign With CAA Amid YouTube Hiatus Announcement
- Korean Boy Band BTS Annihilates Record For Biggest 24-Hour YouTube Debut
- Clevver News, Style Channels Return To YouTube With Original Hosts After Defy’s Collapse
- YouTube Names New Head Of Unscripted; Says Upcoming Originals Slate Will Center On Music, Education, And Creators
- YouTube TV adds channels and raises price—you can’t opt out of either change
- Awesomeness Co-Heads Elucidate Vision For Gen Z Purveyor After Viacom Acquisition
- Top Scandinavian MCN ‘United Screens’, Which RTL Bought For $15 Million, Names New CEO
- Logan Paul’s Latest Podcast Guest Is Banned Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones
- Here’s Why Simply Nailogical, With 7 Million Subscribers, Still Maintains Day Job At Canadian Government
- Gaining Followers: Use of social media by Canadian public companies while navigating Canadian securities laws
- Viceland To End Nightly Series ‘Vice Live’ Weeks After Show’s Premiere
- Creator Of Silk Road 2.0 Did Double The Business, Sentenced To Only Five Years In Prison
- Bendgate 2.0: Samsung’s $2,000 foldable phone is already breaking [Update]
- AT&T is selling its stake in Hulu
- AT&T Sells Back Its 10% Stake In Hulu, Valuing Streamer At $15 Billion
- Hulu, Netflix May Face Subpoena Over Fyre Documentaries
- Starz Really, Really Doesn’t Want You To Know That TorrentFreak Wrote About Leaked Shows, Or That Anyone Tweeted About It
- Starz Issues Laughably Unbelievable Excuse And Apology For Taking Down Tweets
- Legacy Music Industry Shouldn’t Get To Watch Over The Royalties Of Independent Songwriters
- Insights: As Video Streamers Turn Over Some Cards, Can They Avoid The Real Flop?
- Apple News+ Is a Total Mess
- Here’s the Weirdest Apple Bug I’ve Ever Heard Of
- The Incredible Old-School iTunes Feature I Hope Apple Doesn’t Kill
- Amazon reportedly set to launch a free music streaming tier: It could be available as soon as this week
- Another Federal Court Ruling Strengthens Brands’ Approach to Reduce Gray Market Sales on Amazon
- TikTok Hiring “Talent Ambassadors” At 17 Colleges To Help Rake In Older Users
- Insights: Snap Reaction To New Initiatives Is Great, But Can Spiegel Sustain This Win Streak?
- Peyton Manning Hosting NFL History Docu-Series for ESPN+ Streaming Service
- Conde Nast now has 28 shows on Snapchat, with plans for more
- Instagram Launches Moody Camera Effects For Coachella, Billie Eilish
- Disney Streaming Service To Launch In November At $6.99 Per Month
- Disney+ launches on November 12 for $6.99/mo, plus new Marvel, Star Wars series
- Disney confirms it will ‘likely’ bundle Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu for one price
- How Vevo Is Boosting Views by Optimizing Video Thumbnails
- DVD and Blu-ray sales nearly halved over five years, MPAA report says
- Leaked Avengers: Endgame Footage Has Hit the Internet
- In A First, VidCon Will Host Panels, Meet-And-Greets With Internet-Famous Pets
- New York State Department of Financial Services Revokes Crypto Exchange’s Safe Harbor to Operate Without BitLicense
- How Far We Haven’t Come: SEC Resistance to Blockchain Securities Continues?
- Keeping it real: Implications of blockchain technology on privacy obligations
- Strong corporate desktop sales limit the decline of the PC market
- Fortunately, There Are Incredible 3D Scans of Notre Dame – The good news: we have a highly-detailed digital template for how to rebuild.
- The Images That Could Help Rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral: And the young, brilliant professor who made them before he died
COMMUNICATIONS
- Wind, Sleet, and Dead Zones: My Quest to Map Chicago’s Spotty 5G
- What will journalism do with 5G’s speed and capacity? Here are some ideas, from ‘The New York Times’ and elsewhere
- T-Mobile/Sprint merger is in danger of being rejected by DOJ
- T-Mobile’s ‘Revolutionary’ New TV Service Looks Like The Same Old Crap
- FCC Seeks Comments on Proposal to Allow All-Digital AM Radio Transmission
- FCC Releases Notices on Radio License Renewal Process – New Form, New Database and More Scrutiny of the Public File
- FCC “consumer advisory” panel includes ALEC, big foe of municipal broadband
- Very Little In Trump’s ‘Bold’ New Rural Broadband Plan Is Actually New
- FCC Warns Marketers of Video Streaming Devices to Comply with Device Authorization Rules
- Telecoms: clarification on neighbouring landowners’ rights to require removal of apparatus
- Landlord owners vs telecoms operators – The cat has got the cream
- Google Fiber exits Louisville, pays city $3.8M to clean up the mess it left
- Google Pays $3.8 Million To Clean Up Its Fiber Mess In Louisville
- House Passes Net Neutrality Bill, McConnell Promises It Won’t Survive Senate
- Investor Lawsuit Accuses AT&T Of Downplaying Streaming Video Losses
PRIVACY
- Julian Assange arrested, charged with conspiracy to hack US computers
- Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password
- There Are Many Reasons To Be Concerned About The Impact On Press Freedoms In The Assange Indictment
- Federal Privacy Commissioner Proposes A Complete Reversal Of Its Longstanding Approach To Data Transfers, Including Cross-Border Transfers
- Rewriting Canadian Privacy Law: Commissioner Signals Major Change on Cross-Border Data Transfers (Michael Geist)
- UK Government Issues Report on Huawei Vulnerabilities
- An Email Inbox Isn’t a “Place” for Purposes of Florida Privacy Law–Hall v. Sargeant (Eric Goldman)
- The FBI Wanted A Backdoor To The iPhone. Tim Cook Said No
- Motel 6 To Pay Out Another $12 Million For Handing Guest Info To ICE
- Court Says Headphone App Not Eavesdropping, But May Be Deceptive
- Why the US still won’t require SS7 fixes that could secure your phone
- Illinois bill banning eavesdropping by IoT devices defanged by tech lobby
- 5 Times Jeff Bezos Tried to Warn Us Amazon Is Listening
- Virtual Cupids Hit With $3 Million CAN SPAM Judgment
- The many lessons of the Equifax data breach
- The California Consumer Privacy Act
- The ePrivacy Regulation: The Next European Initiative in Data Protection
- Cops Are Trying to Stop San Francisco From Banning Face Recognition Surveillance
- FBI Cyber Crimes Division Not So Great About Passing Info To Victims Of Cyberattacks
- Why You Can No Longer Get Lost in the Crowd: Once, it was easy to be obscure. Technology has ended that. (Woodrow Hartzog & Evan Selinger)
- A security researcher with a grudge is dropping Web 0days on innocent users
- Hackers could read non-corporate Outlook.com, Hotmail for six months
- The wave of domain hijackings besetting the Internet is worse than we thought
- An Oxford philosopher who’s inspired Elon Musk thinks mass surveillance might be the only way to save humanity from doom
- The Vulnerable World Hypothesis (Nick Bostrom)
CREATIVITY
- My ADA Keynote: What the Canadian Experience Teaches About the Future of Copyright Reform (Michael Geist)
- Access Copyright Proposed Tariffs: Is the Copyright Board Turning Over New Leaves? (Howard Knopf)
- Trump Campaign Uses ‘Dark Knight’ Music In Campaign Ad, Warner Bros. Says It’s Looking At Legal Options
- Devin Nunes Admits That His Bogus Defamation Lawsuits Are Really About Phishing For Journalists’ Sources
- U.S. copyright: numerous works enter public domain for First Time in over two decades
- Changing the Cycle: Peloton Removes Songs at Heart of Copyright Infringement Suit
- Conan O’Brien joke-theft trial begins next month with testimony from Patton Oswalt
- How Private Equity Ate Hollywood – and Why Writers Are Fighting Back: Now largely owned by private equity firms, the big talent agencies have turned to producing films and shows—both representing and employing writers. That, say the writers, doesn’t work.
- The End Of The Absurdity: Iceland, The Country, Successfully Invalidates The Trademark Of Iceland Foods, The Grocerer
- AB/InBev, Jealous Protectors Of Trademark, Pretty Blatantly Committing Trademark Infringement
- Pepsi Moves for Summary Judgement in 2016 Super Bowl Ad Suit
- F.A. Panel Says Wayne Hennessey Is Too Stupid To Have Done Nazi Salute
- False Advertising: The Theory of Necessary Implication and the Presumption that Runs with It
- How Kevin Feige Super-Charged Marvel Studios Into Hollywood’s Biggest Hit Machine
- In China, tattoos border on illegal – and they’re his life’s work
- Parody and abuse
GAMES
- ISFE calls on European gambling authorities to tackle online skin betting: Comments come following move by Danish Gambling Authority to block 15 skin betting websites
- Rocket League halts loot box use in Belgium and the Netherlands
- The Native American Quinault Nation has filed a lawsuit against Valve over gambling
- Native American nation files lawsuit against Valve over skins gambling: “Valve has profited handsomely for years from illegal online gambling, and has made only token efforts to stop it,” says Quinault Nation
- Game Exclusivity Wars Are Upon Us And Valve’s Anti-Review-Bombing Process Is Without A Rip-Cord
- The legal dispute between Take-Two, Rockstar, and Pinkerton has ended
- Take-Two, Rockstar complaint against Pinkerton dismissed: Suit dropped as defendant withdraws cease and desist claim against Red Dead Redemption 2 publisher and developer
- Take-Two Dismisses Its Lawsuit Against Pinkerton Agency As The Latter Runs From Its Own Cease And Desist
- Nepal bans PUBG over addiction concerns in children
- Nepal bans PUBG: Battle royale shooter prohibited over concerns about violence, addiction, and distraction from school work
- AbleGamers opens Accessible.Games, a dev portal for accessibility info
- Sony Reveals PlayStation 5 Details
- Sony teases next-gen PlayStation specs in new interview
- Sony Teases the World With First Details About the PS5, and The Wait Is Going to Be Excruciating
- Sony’s PS4 successor sports 3D audio tech, faster SSD storage
- Exclusive: What To Expect From Sony’s Next-Gen PlayStation
- Sony Reveals First PlayStation 5 Details
- Next PlayStation will have discs, backward compatibility: System won’t launch until 2020 at the earliest, will feature a solid-state hard drive, PSVR compatibility, 8K support
- PS5 Price Will Be ‘Appealing To Gamers In Light Of Its Advanced Feature Set’: A little hint, but not much more.
- Sony will start replacing offensive PSN IDs with temporary placeholders
- Sony is now auto-changing offensive PlayStation Network IDs: User IDs found to be offensive will be switched to a placeholder
- Sony has internal policies in place to reduce sexual content in PS4 games
- A now-fixed Origin vulnerability potentially opened the client to hackers
- The Sims 4 is getting mouse and keyboard support on consoles
- Capcom debuts its own classic system, a $260 plug-n-play home arcade
- Capcom rolling out its own retro system: Capcom Home Arcade dual joystick set-up launches in October with 16 built-in games, €230 price tag
- Report: Apple willing to spend over $500 million bringing games to Arcade
- Apple invested a reported $500 million in Arcade partnerships: Financial Times’ sources reveal the high price of Apple Arcade subscription service
- Becoming part of the furniture: eSports in the mainstream
- Football clubs and eSports: A natural pairing?
- Esports teams and players to get revenue from new Rocket League Esports Shop
- OpenAI’s machine learning bots defeat Dota 2 champion team
- Machine learning bots beat DOTA 2 world champions in best-of-three: After millions of learning matches, OpenAI Five readily best world champs
- OpenAI bot crushes Dota 2 champions, and now anyone can play against it
- Ninja named to Time 100: Popular streamer represents gaming on magazine’s annual list of influential people
- Epic can’t stop pissing off Fortnite pros
- In lieu of Store-hosted forums, Epic wants devs to link to external communities
- Hajime Tabata’s first post-Square Enix project is a licensed Paralympics game
- Hajime Tabata to lead development of first ever Paralympics game: Final Fantasy XV director’s new studio will help to build a young audience for the 2020 Paralympic Games
- Red Dead Redemption 2 named Game of the Year at Italian Video Game Awards
- Ubisoft pledges over $500,000 to Notre-Dame restoration efforts
- Ubisoft donates €500K to help restore Notre-Dame, gives away Assassin’s Creed Unity for free
- Ubisoft Pledges More Than $500,000 To The Notre-Dame Cathedral Restoration Effort
- Video: Creating a living open world for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
- Ubisoft patches art containing homophobic slur out of The Division 2
- Ubisoft removes slur from The Division 2: Publisher apologizes for in-game street art image depicting police officer with a slur in ‘leetspeak’
- YouTube, Facebook put up ad roadblocks for Weedcraft, Inc.business sim
- Weedcraft Inc meets advertising, video blocks: Tycoon game about growing and selling marijuana has Facebook page restricted, YouTube videos demonetized
- Devolver: Publishing Weedcraft Inc “has been a nightmare” – Co-founder Mike Wilson says US marijuana tycoon title has been the hardest to bring to market due to industry resistance
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice sold 2 million copies in under 2 weeks
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice sells 2m in less than ten days
- “Accessibility” and “difficulty” aren’t the same thing | Opinion: The debate about Sekiro rapidly descended into straw-man bashing over “easy modes” – differently abled gamers’ needs are being lost in this mess
- Don’t Miss: Totally Accurate Battle Simulator and finding the fun in physics engines
- Google opens its Indie Games Accelerator to mobile devs across 37 countries
- Amy Hennig thinks game streaming could spark a creative revolution
- Xbox exec: Game streaming competitors like Stadia lack content
- Xbox: Stadia has the infrastructure, but doesn’t have the content – Platform holder suggests recently announced streaming service will struggle without more leading developers and publishers on board
- Aiming for affordability, Xbox announces the Xbox One S All Digital Edition
- Report: Fresh disc-less Xbox One S leaks suggests pricing shake up
- Student sues CEO of Minecraft Education Edition’s Chinese publisher: Minneapolis woman claims Richard Liu forced himself on a woman at her apartment following a company-funded networking event
- Xbox merges Live Gold and Game Pass under Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
- How a mobile game is reopening a hidden chapter in Taiwan’s history
- Disc-less Xbox One leaks ahead of expected reveal
- Digital-only console will be priced at €229.99, comes bundled with Minecraft, Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 3
- Xbox One S All-Digital Edition Console Reveal Trailer
- Report: “All Digital” Xbox One coming May 7, for €229 in Europe
- Why $249 is an unsustainable price for the first all-digital Xbox [Updated]
- Everything we know about the first discless Xbox One, coming May 7 for $249
- Forza goes free-to-play with Forza Street: Microsoft rebrands and reboots Miami Street, out now for Windows with mobile versions to follow
- The Nintendo Switch’s Labo VR Kit Is Cheap VR That Doesn’t Suck
- Nintendo Labo VR Kit Review: Well, would you look at that.
- Nintendo Labo VR review: There’s no “Nintendo magic” inside these lenses
- HD emulation mod makes “Mode 7” SNES games look like new
- Clash of Clans season pass drives 145% revenue spike
- What the Breakout Success of ‘Apex Legends’ Could Mean for Respawn’s Upcoming VR Game
- Apex Legends patch nerfs Wingman, gives Gibraltar and Caustic damage reduction: Gibraltar and Caustic are too easy to hit, so Respawn is making them a little tougher instead.
- Dark Slope thinking bigger with warehouse-scale VR
- Superhot VR has out-earned the original Superhot
- Superhot VR sells 800k: Superhot Team’s FPS has now made more in revenue across VR releases than it has in non-VR
- Telltale’s The Walking Dead “made Skybound what it is”: Skybound Stories CEO Dan Murray says episodic game had more impact on the company than the TV show
- How Clone Wars and Rebels influenced Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
- Animoca Brands acquires majority stake in Trilliona dev Skytree for $850k
- Revealed: The most successful UK game developers
- Here is every boxed game to sell over 1m copies in the UK
- UK Charts: The Division 2 holds No. 1 in another week without big releases – Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, God of War, Spider-Man see increases due to spring, Easter sales
- CCP: China will be EVE Online’s biggest market in two years – At Reboot Develop, CCP’s Hilmar Petursson discussed the importance of China and Korea to the future of EVE Online
- Twitch launches first game, Twitch Sings: Free karaoke game developed in conjunction with Harmonix, designed for streaming
- Gayming Magazine to launch in June: New online gaming magazine to present LGBTQ+-focused news, reviews, features
- The Witcher Netflix series is coming in late 2019
- Halo Tv Series Casts Pablo Schreiber As Master Chief
- Activision Blizzard pays employees for health tracking
- NetEase investment is bringing indies East
- Kickstarter’s games category surpasses $1 billion in pledges
- Miyazaki vs Ueda: The path to compelling fantasy – Renowned Japanese developers discussed their differences at Reboot Develop, including opposing philosophies on animation and setting
- Amy Hennig: AAA industry is at “an interesting crossroads” with storytelling – At Reboot Develop, the revered creator confessed to feeling “overwhelmed” by the scale of AAA games, which are now too big for their own stories
- How Inkle developed its own ancient language forHeaven’s Vault
- Don’t Miss: Alien: Isolation and the evolution of horror sims
- Blog: How punishment systems can hurt gameplay
- Blog: Motivating players for better engagement and retention
- Blog: Some thoughts on difficulty in games
- Blog: Turning your community into an extension of your team
- Video: Steps for building a game’s community from scratch
- Blog: Orchestrating game worlds using Event SuperVision
- Blog: Exploring the ‘what’ of bittersweet game design
- The source code for Infocom’s classic text adventures is now on Github
- “The bankers are actually much more metal than publishers”: Headbang Club’s David Elahee talks about Double Kick Heroes’ path from Ludum Dare prototype to multiplatform launch
- Trion Worlds is shutting down Atlas Reactor this summer
- Gamigo shuts down Atlas Reactor: Trion Worlds’ F2P tactics title closes after two years, “can no longer sustain itself”
- Even Konami Code Couldn’t Rescue Its Slot-machine Game-related Patents from being Invalidated under Alice
- U.S. Patent No. 9,687,733: Game apparatus, storage medium, game controlling method and game system
- Managing your game dev career, from early to late stages
- Video: Practical advice for saving video game history before it’s too late
- The new grammar of television (and games): Lessons from an avocado
Jon
News of the Week; April 10, 2019
DIGITAL
- The Sky Is Rising: The Entertainment Industry Is Thriving, Almost Entirely Because Of The Internet
- The UK Has Released Its Plan for Cracking Down on Social Media Content
- UK government proposes sweeping new regulations of online content
- Online Harms
- UK Now Proposes Ridiculous Plan To Fine Internet Companies For Vaguely Defined ‘Harmful Content’
- Aussie Senate Rushes Thru Bill That Would Fine Social Media Companies For Not Taking Down ‘Abhorrent’ Content Fast Enough
- European Parliament Adopts the Copyright Directive
- Techdirt Podcast Episode 207: MEP Julia Reda Explains What’s Next With The EU Copyright Directive
- Canadian ISPs Call For Standardization And Fines For Copyright Trolls Ignoring Changes To Copyright Law
- Copyright Enforcement Service Claims $600 Billion-Worth Of Images Are ‘Stolen’ Every Day
- Include a ‘Creative Commons’ Argument in Your IP Defense
- The death of Section 230
- Singapore Government Pushes Fake News Law Which Will Give It More Options To Shut Down Critics
- German Publishing Giant Claims Blocking Ads Is Copyright Infringement, In Yet Another Lawsuit Against The Industry Leader
- German Government’s Bullying Of FOI Group Provides A Warning Of How EU’s New Upload Filters Will Be Used For Censorship
- UK Government Misses Another Ship Date On Its Porn Filter
- Be Cautious About Big Internet Platforms Bearing Plans For Global Censorship
- Devin Nunes Has Filed A Second B.S. Defamation Lawsuit Telling You All About A News Article He Doesn’t Want You To Read
- It’s Fun To Laugh About Congressional Reps Suing A Satirical Internet Cow, But It’s A Real Attack On Free Speech
- Email chain prompts Microsoft to investigate reports of sexual harassment ignored by HR
- Leaked Microsoft Email Chain Reportedly Describes Hellish Workplace for Women
- Microsoft investigating more sexual harassment claims
- Microsoft responds to sexual harassment allegations within company
- Microsoft’s eBook store: When this closes, your books disappear too
- Amazon will launch thousands of satellites to provide internet around the world: 3,236 satellites will provide internet from low Earth orbit
- Amazon plans satellite broadband for “tens of millions” of people
- Amazon admits that employees review “small sample” of Alexa audio
- Yahoo tries to settle 3-billion-account data breach with $118 million payout
- Researchers unearth 74 Facebook cybercrime groups with 385,000 members
- Facebook Will Stop Suggesting You Invite Dead People to Events
- I Can’t Believe This Dopey, Busted-Ass Website Is What Messed Up Our Lives
- Where to Find Evidence on Facebook
- Facebook Issues Additional Transparency Rules for Political Advertising
- Facebook’s AI Helps Block Or Remove 1 Million Accounts Each Day
- China is reportedly trialing attention-detecting bands in schools
- Chinese government proposes ban on bitcoin mining
- Teens ‘not damaged by screen time’, study finds
- Canada may regulate social media companies to avoid election meddling: Firms are not doing enough to combat potential interference, minister said after report found foreign meddling is ‘very likely’
- DOJ Warns Academy That Being An Anti-Streaming Luddite Could Violate Antitrust
- Marketers see progress in Twitter’s efforts to stamp out hate
- Twitter blocks Trump 2020 video over Dark Knight Risesmusic
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Twitter Temporarily Bans ‘Get Out The Vote’ Ads To Comply With ‘Fake News’ Law
- Children’s Advertising Review Unit Findings Should Not Be Ignored by App Developers
- The rise of the killer robots – and the two women fighting back
- You call that EDM? Moritz Simon Geist’s robots make the most technical techno
- The basics of modern AI—how does it work and will it destroy society this year?
- AI pioneer: ‘The dangers of abuse are very real’ – Yoshua Bengio, winner of the prestigious Turing award for his work on deep learning, is establishing international guidelines for the ethical use of AI.
- Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI (European Commission)
- Google Gives Up on AI Ethics (Board)
- Exclusive: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry – The controversial panel lasted just a little over a week.
- Hey Google, sorry you lost your ethics council, so we made one for you
- Watch Google’s AI Make Trump Sing Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams”
- Android TV update puts home-screen ads on multi-thousand-dollar Sony Smart TVs [Update]
- Netflix: Coming Up Next… Emerging competitors and legal implications of the changing TV and film industry
- Netflix ends AirPlay support on iOS in an ongoing souring of its Apple relationship
- Ironically, Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy
- YouTube to develop interactive content like Netflix’s Bandersnatch
- YouTube wants to make choose-your-own-adventure shows
- YouTube creating interactive narratives: Video service establishes new unit to produce original Bandersnatch-style content
- YouTube is planning its own interactive Choose Your Own Adventure-style content: It’s looking to compete with Netflix
- YouTube Exec Ben Relles Named Head Of Innovation, Will Lead Platform’s Push Into Interactive Content
- YouTube Forced To Disable Comments On Livestreams Of White Nationalism Hearing In Congress
- YouTube TV Hikes Monthly Price To $50 As It Strikes Carriage Deal With Discovery
- YouTube Millionaires: Danielle Cohn Got Her Start On Musical.ly — Now, Her YouTube Music Videos Are Viewed By Millions
- Jennifer Lopez Revamps Her YouTube Channel To Give Viewers More Personal Content
- YouTuber Charlie Ross Arrested For Impersonating Police Officer In April Fools’ Prank
- K-Pop Phenoms Blackpink Snatch Biggest YouTube Music Video Premiere Of All Time
- YouTube Will Livestream Blackpink’s Coachella Performance In Times Square
- YouTube Photographer Peter McKinnon Gets Photo Minted On Canadian Currency
- PewDiePie Signs Deal To Livestream Exclusively On Blockchain-Based Platform DLive
- Brittany Furlan Launches ‘Worst Firsts’ Podcast With Studio71
- The LaBrants Apologize For Prank On 6-Year-Old Daughter: “We Think We’re Awesome Parents”
- Disclosing Endorsements on Social Media: General Considerations for FTC Compliance by Brands and Influencers
- Why influencers need to use the right #hashtag
- Jeffree Star Says “Major Player” Was Arrested After $2.5 Million Makeup Burglary
- Cyber Group, YoBoHo team up on co-pro deal
- FTC Emphasizes that Providing Free Products Can Bias Reviews
- Shiseido is increasing its influencer marketing spending by 50% in 2019
- Here’s How The Warp Zone Survived Defy Media’s Collapse — And Regained Control Of Its Content
- Snacks for Props: FTC Says No
- Fullscreen Signs 10 Clients to Talent Management Roster, Including Mikaela Hoover
- Fullscreen’s Talent Unit Signs 10 Creators, Including Sierra Schultzzie, Josh Ovalle
- Digital Vets Launch ‘UNCMMN’ Talent Management Upstart, Repping Jay Versace, Jc Caylen
- Someone Hacks Defy Media’s Twitter Account, Promptly Uses It To Troll Everyone (Including Defy)
- Research analyst predicts Snapchat’s user base in the US will decrease in 2019
- Snapchat Announces 10 New Originals From BuzzFeed, New Form and Others
- Beyoncé Is Dropping A Netflix Documentary Next Week (Trailer)
- Netflix in Italy: Emerging competitors and legal implications of the changing TV and film industry
- Netflix’s DVD Rental Service Brought In $212 Million Last Year From 2.7 Million Subscribers
- Movie Theaters Don’t Like Netflix. Netflix’s Solution: Buy Its Own Movie Theater Chain.
- ‘Netflix Is a Joke’ Comedy Channel Sets SiriusXM Launch
- MicTurn takes the idea of open-mic concerts online
- More people pay for Apple Music than Spotify in the US now
- Will Apple Just Kill iTunes Already?
- Why Would Anyone Buy an iPad Mini in 2019?
- Apple slashes HomePod price and introduces Powerbeats Pro
- 3-year-old locks parents out of iPad for 25,536,442 minutes
- Hello world: Shining a light onto the culture of computer programmers
- Shani Hilton Departs BuzzFeed To Take Over As The Los Angeles Times’ Deputy Managing Editor Of News
- I Was Ready to Dunk on the Bose Frames… But I Actually Like Them?
- How Have Section 512(f) Cases Fared Since 2017? (Spoiler: Not Well) (Eric Goldman)
- Online Marketplace Defeats Trademark Suit Because It’s Not the “Seller”–OSU v. Redbubble (Eric Goldman)
- Somebody forgot to upgrade: Flights delayed, cancelled by GPS rollover
- Area Man Takes Over the Onion and Gizmodo Group in Private Equity Deal
- Is It Time for a Blockchain Brexit?
- New Quantum Device Can “Generate All Possible Futures”
- Interfering trajectories in experimental quantum-enhanced stochastic simulation (Farzad Ghafari, Nora Tischler, Carlo Di Franco, Jayne Thompson, Mile Gu & Geoff J. Pryde)
- When Twitter Fingers Turn to Trigger Fingers: A Qualitative Study of Social Media-Related Gang Violence (Desmond U. Patton, David Pryooz, Scott Decker, William R. Frey & Patrick Leonard)
CREATIVITY
- A Thousand Words: Getty Images Trigger Class Action
- Former Intelligence Officials Sue The Government Over Its Unconstitutional Pre-Publication Review Process
- Horse Race Announcer Sues Over Bill Murray Film That Included His Trademarked Tagline
- Kobe Bryant Every Bit As Useless As His Lawyers Predicted In Trademark Opposition
- Tennessee Senate Unanimously Passes Actual Anti-SLAPP Bill
- Battle of the Beers—Can Anheuser’s Bud Light Ads Be Literally True but Legally False?
- Are Vulgar Trademarks Protected Free Speech? Recent First Amendment Cases are Changing the Contours of Trademark Law
- The Emmys Are Still Going After A Pet Products Company Despite All The Concessions They’ve Been Given
- Legislator Irritated By A Journalist Decides State’s Government Should Start Regulating Journalism
- News organizations have all but abandoned their archives
- Alex Jones switches up defense in Sandy hook case
- When Asked About Marvel LGBTQ Heroes, Kevin Feige Says He Wants All Fans to ‘See Themselves Reflected’
- Viacom Prepares for Content Arms Race: ‘We’re Looking Beyond Our Own Networks’
- 20 years on, The Matrix remains influential
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Supporting a More Competitive Canadian Wireless Market: Speak Out on Navdeep Bains’ Proposed CRTC Policy Direction (Michael Geist)
- FCC Proposes Protections for 5G Infrastructure Hub and Relay Antennas to Spur Deployment
- In Verizon 5G launch city, reviewers have trouble even finding a signal
- Verizon’s ‘World First’ 5G Launch Was A Bit of a Dud
- New FCC Commissioner: Hey, Maybe Somebody In Government Could Address These Wireless Location Data Scandals?
- Just $6,790 Of $208 Million In Robocall Fines Have Been Collected By The FCC
- Not All Customers Are the Same: Top Court Rules Business Customers Cannot Join Consumer Class Action
- House Democrats Pass Bill to Restore Net Neutrality
- House Democrats refuse to weaken net neutrality bill, defeat GOP amendments
- House votes to restore net neutrality as White House threatens Trump veto
- Colorado Net Neutrality Bill Heads To Governor’s Desk For Signing
- Telecom Lobbyists Crushed San Francisco’s Quest For Better Broadband
- Pai FCC Tours The Country Promising Better Rural Broadband, But His Policies Routinely Undermine That Goal
- Lawsuit: AT&T’s DirecTV Now is a flop and AT&T lied to investors about it
- The robocall crisis will never totally be fixed
- More jails replace in-person visits with awful video chat products
- Rupert Murdoch, the NFL, and the Negotiation That Remade TV
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Canadian Privacy Commissioner Signals Major Shift in Approach on Cross-Border Data Transfers (Michael Geist)
- Court Says Government Can Continue To Withhold Six ‘Significant’ FISA Court Opinions In Their Entirety
- Polish Supervisory Authority issues GDPR fine for data scraping without informing individuals
- Samsung Galaxy S10 fingerprint sensor defeated by a $450 3D printer
- Ongoing DNS hijackings target Gmail, PayPal, Netflix, banks and more [Updated]
- ACLU Asks CBP Why It’s Threatening US Citizens With Arrest For Refusing Invasive Device Searches
- Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa: A global team reviews audio clips in an effort to help the voice-activated assistant respond to commands.
- Oversight Report Says DEA Ran Multiple Bulk Data Collection Programs With Zero Legal Clearance
- Chicago’s Ankle Monitors Can Call and Record Kids Without Their Consent
- Well-funded surveillance operation infected both iOS and Android devices
- Counting the Countless: Why data science is a profound threat for queer people
- Yahoo tries to settle 3-billion-account data breach with $118 million payout
- Thumb drive carried by Mar-a-Lago intruder immediately installed files on a PC
- USB Drive Found on Jailed Mar-a-Lago Party-Crasher Contained Self-Executing Code
- Chapter 19: Glossary – Unlocking the EU General Data Protection Regulation
- Court Says California’s Anti-Spam Statute Doesn’t Regulate Affiliate Networks–Bank v. Hydra
- Airbnb guest found hidden surveillance camera by scanning Wi-Fi network
- Court Says Virginia PD’s Use Of Automatic Plate Readers Violates State’s Data Privacy Law
- New variants of Mirai botnet detected, targeting more IoT devices
- Mysterious safety-tampering malware infects a second critical infrastructure site
- DHS, FBI say election systems in all 50 states were targeted in 2016
GAMES
- MIT Prof: It’s More Likely We’re Living In A Simulation Than Not
- Are we living in a computer simulation? I don’t know. Probably.: Why this computer scientist thinks reality might be a video game.
- Are we living in a simulation? This MIT scientist says it’s more likely than not
- Google Could Learn a Lot About You From Its New Gaming Platform: Stadia sounds great, but don’t forget that Google is a research company
- Google Play hosting inappropriate games with kid-friendly ratings: Free-to-play games featuring violent content and gambling routinely hit the platform thanks to reliance on developers to rate their own titles
- Snap Inc announces Snap Games, launching with six titles
- Snapchat Unveils Gaming Platform, New User Features, 10 Upcoming Originals At First Partner Summit
- Snapchat’s new Snap Games platform includes games from Zynga, Spry Fox
- Snapchat Unveils Gaming Platform, New User Features, 10 Upcoming Originals At First Partner Summit
- EU Commission accuses six game companies of illegal geo-blocking
- EU investigating Valve and 5 major publishers for illegal geo-blocking
- Valve argues it should be excluded from EU geo-blocking accusations
- PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch online services face UK investigation
- Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo under investigation for consumer rights violation
- PSN name change feature goes into effect today
- PSN name changes launch today
- Starting Today, You Can Finally Change Your PSN Name
- PlayStation launches PSN ID change option, though not all games are supported
- You Can Now Change Your PSN Online ID—But There Are a Few Things You Need to Know
- BioWare Boss Addresses Studio Issues, Vows To ‘Continue Working To Solve Them’
- Charting the missteps that led to the decline of Telltale Games
- IGDA executive director Jen MacLean has stepped down
- FTC Loot Box Workshop Announced
- FTC to Hold Public Workshop on Video Game Loot Boxes
- The FTC is holding a public workshop in August to discuss loot boxes
- What’s In the Box? FTC Solicits Public Comments Regarding Video Game Loot Boxes Amidst Uncertainty
- FTC sets date for loot box workshop: Date set for August 7 on gathering of stakeholders, industry representatives, consumer advocates, and others to discuss consumer concerns
- The failure of the Russian global license proposal and the future of alternative remuneration systems (Gaetano Dimita & Ruslan Nurullaev)
- Fallout 76 Repair Kits raise new “pay-to-win” concerns
- How Fallout almost didn’t ship with its key SPECIAL system
- The complicated process of making licensed video games
- Pre-order refunds could force publishers to shift priorities | Opinion
- Survey: More teenagers are getting into video games because of Fortnite
- Prince Harry Wants ‘Fortnite’ Banned
- Prince Harry Says Fortnite “Shouldn’t Be Allowed,” Calls Social Media “More Addictive Than Alcohol”
- Fortnite un-features community build containing inappropriate imagery
- Google Play is still struggling with inappropriate children’s games
- Why Valve actually gets less than 30 percent of Steam game sales
- Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney addresses Chinese spyware rumor
- Epic to continue signing exclusivity deals regardless of Steam plans
- Valve silences Borderlands review bombers with ‘off-topic’ fix
- Borderlands review bomb triggers Steam’s “off topic” fix [Updated]
- Steam users review bomb Borderlands in response to Epic exclusivity deal
- Valve finally tackles review bombing as Borderlands 2 attacked over Epic exclusivity: Last week’s work of user scores discounted under Steam’s new ‘off-topic review activity’ system
- A deep dive into Steam’s discovery queue
- Sold Out and Epic offering up to $500,000 in The Unreal Box Offer: UK publisher seeking games that “feel fresh in a genre that isn’t overcrowded” as it teams up with engine provider
- Retro streaming platform picks up Arc System Works, SNK, others
- Tencent launches early access WeGame X storefront internationally
- Tencent stealth launches international version of WeGame storefront: WeGame X platform is available but still in “testing” phase, the Chinese publisher confirmed
- Tencent raises nearly $6bn in bond sale: Funds marked for general corporate use despite having $20 billion cash on hand
- Weaker currency could encourage foreign investment post-Brexit: Tencent Europe’s senior manager Li Ma also says Brexit will be damaging, but Britain will bounce back
- Microsoft increases Xbox Live Gold price in the UK: 12-month subscription goes from £39.99 to £49.99 to “address changing market conditions”
- Game Pass “Ultimate” and Game Pass for PC rumored to be coming soon
- The difficulties of researching gaming disorder and addiction: Dr Pete Etchells says there is an endemic problem with psychological research, as confirmation bias shapes the literature
- Battlefield V: Firestorm Review – A solid battle royale that doesn’t pack quite enough punch to get to the final circle.
- Gender pay gap widens in UK games industry: Women increase their representation throughout gaming, but median wages losing ground
- Meet 100 of the most influential women working in the UK games industry
- Brenda Romero’s guide to becoming a game designer
- Gaming is not a meritocracy: Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail pokes holes in the notion of cream rising to the top, explains why devs and platforms may believe in it anyway
- John Romero: “There are always people who question games that push the boundaries”
- “Games that have succeeded in Turkey are all localised — that’s hands down”: Vardiya co-founder Meriç Eryürek on the untapped opportunity in Turkey’s population of 30 million gamers
- Black Desert franchise tops $1 billion in revenues: Pearl Abyss says multiplatform MMORPG franchise has reached milestone in less than four years
- The second launch of Sea of Thieves: Rare on sustainable working ahead of its biggest game update so far
- Breach developer QC Games has shut down
- Daybreak Game Company back in control of H1Z1 battle royale spin-off
- How When Ski Lifts Go Wrong hits the right mix of blood and physics puzzles
- Buy-one-get-one-free sale helps Risk of Rain 2 attract 650,000 players in first week
- What makes a good Kickstarter campaign?: Anya Combs talks about ideal video length, the right number of .gifs, and one mistake that will keep any project from being featured
- 60% of Greater Southeast Asia gamers are “strongly drawn to esports”: New Niko Partners report finds 42% of players from the region prefer competitive arena titles, spend the most on games
- The concept of eDoping in eSports – cyber security as a safety measure, enforcement and sanctions in case of non-compliance
- Loaded, A Talent Firm For Top Gaming Stars, Signs Dakotaz, Skadoodle, and Sjokz
- Sonic The Hedgehog Footage Reveals Plot Details, Setting And Jim Carrey’s Robotnik: The adaptation of the Sega game is (largely) set in our world.
- How Lockwood pulled off giving 4.5 million festive gifts to over a million players: Sponsored article: Lockwood Leamington’s Studio Director Oliver Clarke on the seasonal gifting feature created for virtual world Avakin Life
- Ubisoft ends production of Starlink toys following poor sales
- Ubisoft cancels Starlink physical toys following game’s under performance: Development team plans to “do right by our passionate fans” with biggest update so far
- Ubisoft CEO: Live games give devs a chance to refine rather than start from scratch
- BioWare GM (internally) addresses complaints fromAnthem devs
- BioWare admits workplace, production issues: “These problems are real and it’s our top priority to continue working to solve them,” says general manager Casey Hudson
- Super Meat Boy Forever delayed, will miss April launch
- Team Meat delays Super Meat Boy Forever to maintain “healthy and sustainable pace”: Studio opts not to “run ourselves into the ground” to finish game by previously announced April release
- Nintendo adding VR modes to Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey
- VR modes coming to Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wildon Nintendo Switch
- Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 04: VR Kit Trailer
- Black Desert franchise has crossed $1 billion in gross sales
- Roblox now has over 90 million monthly active users
- Moonlighter sells 500,000 copies in less than a year
- Good Shepherd picks up majority stake in new studio, Artificer
- Disruptor Beam plans to offer a mobile live ops platform to other devs
- European gamers shows progressive streak on diversity: Ipsos MORI survey shows there is growing demand for a wider array of characters in games, although industry still faces apathy
- Future recognizes staff union: Publisher voluntarily recognizes organized employees of PC Gamer, GamesRadar and nine other publications
- How to effectively use procedural generation in games
- Don’t Miss: How devs deal with making enemies that feel ‘okay’ to kill
- Don’t Miss: A 2008 analysis of branching dialogue, fromMass Effect to Facade and beyond
- How playgrounds can inform multiplayer level design in video games
- Avalanche: “The industry is going to calm down on tech and focus on creativity”
- CVG team reunite for new games media website: Video Games Chronicle launches this month
- Video blog: Historians discuss Return of the Obra Dinn
- Watch Falcon Age’s lead dev dive into the making of this bird-tastic tale
- God of War wins big at BAFTA Game Awards 2019
- God of War takes home five BAFTAs
- God of War director: accessibility isn’t at odds with creative vision
- “Accessibility has never and will never be a compromise to my vision”: God of War director Cory Barlog’s statement becomes a rallying cry for developers in support of more accessibility options in games
Jon
News of the Week; April 3, 2019
DIGITAL
- 540 Million Facebook User Records Exposed Online, Plus Passwords, Comments, and More
- Facebook asked some users for their email passwords, because why not: And two third-party developers left the data from millions of Facebook users exposed in S3 bucket.
- Facebook’s Ad Algorithm Is A Race And Gender Stereotyping Machine, New Study Suggests
- Facebook’s Efforts ‘Not Nearly Sufficient’ in Genocide-Torn Myanmar, UN Investigator Says
- Mark Zuckerberg calls for more regulation of the internet
- Mark Zuckerberg To Congress: Okay, Fine, Please Regulate Me And Lock In My Dominant Market Position
- Mark Zuckerberg: The Internet needs new rules. Let’s start in these four areas.
- Mark Zuckerberg Is Developing The Facebook Watch Of News — With Monetization For Publications
- HUD Charges Facebook With Enabling Housing Discrimination
- Facebook Cracks Down On White Supremacist Hate Content After Christchurch Massacre
- Complete Overreaction: Professor Calls For Shutting Down Facebook Live, Post-Christchurch
- Three Lessons In Content Moderation From New Zealand And Other High-Profile Tragedies
- The Bundeskartellamt’s Facebook Decision and the intersection of competition law and data protection
- EFF Fights For Redditor Targeted By Religious Organization For Forum Posts About Its Data Collection Policies
- Elizabeth Warren Wants to Break Up Big Data – Could She Do It?
- Countries Want to Ban ‘Weaponized’ Social Media. What Would That Look Like?
- What If Google And Facebook Admitted That All This Ad Targeting Really Doesn’t Work That Well?
- Russia Expands Site Blocking To VPNs
- Government’s “porn block” roll out delayed
- Blogger’s Screenshot of a Newspaper Page Qualifies as Fair Use–Clark v. TransAlt (Eric Goldman)
- Data dividend? California governor proposes plan to have companies pay consumers for using their info
- YouTube Won’t Ban Far-Right Activist Tommy Robinson — Here’s What It’s Doing Instead
- YouTube Terminated Yeah1’s MCN Status, But Now It Looks Like They’re Working Out A Deal
- YouTube Once Proposed Overhauling Its Entire Business Model, Paying Creators Based On Video Engagement (Report)
- YouTube TV Is Now Available In Every U.S. Market
- Popular YouTube Stuntsman Was Behind The Mysterious Spacefaring Big Mac Found On A U.K. Soccer Field
- YouTube Facing Criticism After Promoting Zac Efron’s New Channel Instead Of Resident Creators
- PewDiePie concedes to T-Series in battle for YouTube’s biggest channel
- YouTube Video Essayist Lindsay Ellis Has Been Nominated For A Hugo Award
- Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” Sees Massive YouTube Spike Each April Fools’ Day
- AI Ethics: Seven Traps
- As AI Spreads, Tech Needs ‘Chief Bias Officers’
- God in the image of white men: Creation myths, power asymmetries and AI
- The Boundaries of Artificial Emotional Intelligence
- How Algorithms Can Learn to Discredit the Media: Defamation is efficient, and AIs may have already figured it out
- Why Community and Collaboration is the Key for Building Ethical AI
- Can AI be a fair judge in court? Estonia thinks so
- Researchers trick Tesla Autopilot into steering into oncoming traffic
- Google Employees Call on Company to Kick Heritage Foundation Ghoul Off AI Ethics Board
- Inside the Google employee backlash against the Heritage Foundation: ‘They think that some of our colleagues either do not or should not exist’
- Google Employees Step Up to Demand Fair Treatment for Contractors
- Here lies Google Inbox, a radical rethink of how email should work
- Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand
- Google Duplex arrives on iPhones, most Android devices
- Southern District of Indiana Rules that Property Manager is Subject to Personal Jurisdiction Based on Text Messages Sent to the Forum State
- Insights: Apple Echoes Amazon In A Rebuke Of Everything Google And Facebook Do
- Apple apologizes for failing MacBook keyboards yet again
- iFixit teardown: Apple’s AirPods are “disappointingly disposable”
- The New AirPods Are Fine
- Apple just confirmed once and for all that AirPower will never come out
- Latest iPhone Rumors: Apple Adding the Stuff Samsung Already Has
- EU Approves Controversial New Copyright Rules
- The EU’s Catastrophic Copyright Directive Can Still Be Stopped, If Governments Of Sweden And Germany Do The Right Thing
- Much ado about “Article 13” (or is it 17?)
- After Insisting That EU Copyright Directive Didn’t Require Filters, France Immediately Starts Promoting Filters
- EU Commissioner Gunther Oettinger Admits: Sites Need Filters To Comply With Article 13
- “Very Short” and Incredibly Loud: New EU Copyright Directive a Shot in the FANGs
- Here Comes The Splinternet: How The EU Is Helping Break Apart The Internet
- Free Software Foundation Comes To Its Senses After Calling For EU To Fund Open Source Upload Filters
- EU’s Never Ending Quest To Rip The Internet And Free Expression To Shreds Continues With The Terrorist Content Regulation
- Cole And Savannah LaBrant Under Fire After “Prank” Convincing Daughter They Were Giving Her Dog Away
- DSM Directive Series #1: Do Member States have to transpose the value gap provision and does the YouTube referral matter?
- DSM Directive Series #2: Is the press publishers’ right waivable? (Eleonora Rosati)
- UK cyber security officials report Huawei’s security practices are a mess
- Salesforce Sued For Sex Trafficking… Because Backpage Used Salesforce’s CRM
- 9th Circuit’s Bad AirBnB Decision Threatens Basic Internet Business Models
- The Marriage of Silicon Valley and the Pentagon Is Happening Whether You Like It or Not
- Twitter now lets users appeal violations within its app
- Think before you tweet – the perils of social media for the accountancy profession
- What’s Gimlet’s Problem?
- Office Depot rigged PC malware scans to sell unneeded $300 tech support
- Office Depot And Partner Ordered To Pay $35 Million For Tricking Consumers Into Thinking They Had Malware
- Legal experts weigh in on controversial European copyright directive: Legislation shifts responsibility onto platform holders, but won’t necessarily affect content creators
- Section 230 Holds On As Grindr Gets To Use It As A Defense
- Important Section 230 Ruling from the Second Circuit–Herrick v. Grindr (Eric Goldman)
- Welcome To The Prude Internet: No More Sex Talk Allowed
- Senator Keeps Attacking a Law Crucial to Internet Speech—Only He Can’t Seem to Read It
- Cardi B, Juice WRLD, More Inducted Into Spotify’s RapCaviar ‘Pantheon’
- Department Of Justice Warns Academy That Banning Netflix From Oscars Could Violate Antitrust Laws
- Netflix Ranked as No. 1 Fastest-Growing U.S. Brand in 2019
- Netflix’s Biggest Price Hike Is Now Rolling Out To Existing Subscribers
- iHeartMedia Files for Potential IPO
- Streaming drove 9.7% rise in global recorded-music revenues in 2018
- Nickelodeon Buys Learning App ‘Sparkler’ To Bolster Its Preschooler Streaming Service
- After 21st Century Fox Purchase, Disney Bows Out Of This Year’s NewFronts
- Hulu Is Exploring New Ad Experiences For Binge Watching: Advertisers could sponsor shows when the audience is clearly in it for the long haul
- Spielberg proposal to ban streaming from Oscars may be illegal, DOJ warns
- Sony Sells Majority Stake In Its Crackle Streaming Service To Chicken Soup For The Soul
- Sony Sells Stake in Crackle, Launches Joint Venture With Chicken Soup for the Soul
- Sony veteran Kaz Hirai has left the company after 35 years
- Kaz Hirai retires as chairman of Sony Corporation: Former CEO departs company after 35 years
- Microsoft kills off the book store you probably didn’t know it had
- Viacom Will Tout New Suite of Advertising Options as TV’s Sales Season Draws Near
- Hiring Influencers: Are You Playing With Fyre?
- Creators for Good: Karlie Kloss Inspires Young Girls in STEM
- Teacher Says She Was Fired for Not Being a ‘Role Model’ After Topless Selfie Leaks
- TikTok To Join Instagram, Snapchat In The Realm Of Geolocation Filters Following GeoGif Acquisition
- Not Quite So Sweet: POPSUGAR’s Removal of Instagram Sidebar Leads to a Loss on All Fronts
- Instagram Considers Ad Products To Compensate Stars On IGTV: Creators and publishers could share in riches from new ad opportunities on fledgling video service
- Mercedes-Benz sued four artists whose murals appeared in its Instagram posts.
- Instagram’s big bet on shopping could be worth $10 billion in 2021
- Rounding Up Three Recent Keyword Advertising Cases–Comphy v. Amazon & More (Eric Goldman)
- Google and Walmart team up to let users buy groceries with voice commands
- The First Smartwatch to Read Your Blood Pressure Is an Ugly Marvel
- The future of conveyancing – A new digital age?
- Russia’s Shotgun-Wielding Drone Is the Flying Nightmare You Didn’t Know You Had
- Bitcoin Surges 15% Overnight Because Nobody Learned Their Lesson After the Last Crash
- As new prepaid rule takes effect, virtual currency wallet providers need to take notice
- How Automation Turns Us Into Trump Voters
- On the Early Web, People With Disabilities Found Community and Autonomy
- Taxing the sharing economy
- The Online Icons That Didn’t Survive the Web’s First 30 Years
- Old, Online, And Fed On Lies: How An Aging Population Will Reshape The Internet
- Copyright Registration, Publication on the Internet, and the Revolving “Back Door to Berne” (Eric Goldman)
- Rounding Up Three Recent Keyword Advertising Cases–Comphy v. Amazon & More (Eric Goldman)
CREATIVITY
- Alabama Court Decides Publicity Rights Trump First Amendment In S-Town Lawsuit
- Getty Images Sued Yet Again For Trying To License Public Domain Images
- Ariana Grande Demands All Photographers At Her Concerts Transfer Copyright To Her, NPPA Revolts
- Can an artist deem his own art worthy of protection?
- Ed Sheeran’s copyright woes continue
- Texas A&M Wants out of the “12th Man” Copyright Suit
- Copyright’s Memory Hole (Eric Goldman & Jessica Silbey)
- Federal Court Says Teen’s ‘F— Cheer’ Is Protected Speech
- FTC hits predatory scientific publisher with a $50 million fine
- Infringers walk the plank as the Premier League’s anti-piracy campaign scores big success
- Australian Prosecutors Trying To Throw Reporters In Jail For Accurately Reporting On Cardinal George Pell’s Conviction
- Journalist Maria Ressa Arrested Yet Again As Philippines Keeps Finding Bogus Reasons To Arrest Vocal Critic
- The Moment The Matrix Changed Everything
- At Last! Mystery of Garfield Phone Beach Solved After 35 Years
- EU to introduce anti-money laundering legislation for the art industry
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- A Netflix Crisis?: Foreign Funding Now By Far the Largest Source of Financing for Canadian Fictional English Language TV Production (Michael Geist)
- Company Ordered to Pay Woman $459K After Spamming Her With More Than 300 Robocalls
- FCC “fined” robocallers $208 million since 2015 but collected only $6,790
- FTC Shuts Down Companies Responsible for Over One Billion Robocalls
- District Court: “Ringless” voicemail is a “call” under the TCPA
- Second District Court in the Nation Holds That a Ringless Voicemail is a “Call” Under the TCPA
- The FTC Says It’s Totally Cool With Anti-Competitive Internet Fast Lanes
- Ajit Pai wants to cap spending on broadband for poor people and rural areas
- FCC Plans to Eliminate Rural “Rate Floor,” Heading Off Potential Price Hikes
- April Fool’s Day is Monday – Don’t Let the Joke Be on You by Forgetting the FCC’s Hoax Rule
- Cohen Payment Kerfuffle Forces AT&T To Be Slightly More Transparent About Lobbying
- Verizon’s Spam-Blocking Call Filter Is Now Free
- Verizon refuses to admit that its “first to 5G” commercials are misleading
- Watch a Verizon 5G phone hit speeds faster than your home Internet
- UK ISPs now automatically refund customers £8 a day for Internet outages
- Telecom Lobby Suddenly Pretends To Care About Accurate Broadband Maps
- FTC gives ISPs green light to block applications as long as they disclose it
- FTC reaches settlements with multiple operations alleged to be responsible for placing billions of robocalls
- FTC Launches Probe Into Telecom Privacy Issues. But Whether They’ll Act Is Another Matter Entirely
- FTC investigates whether ISPs sell your browsing history and location data
- The Electronic Communications Code – First Tribunal Decision on Consideration and Compensation payable by Operators
- Have You Been Sued by Manuel Hiraldo?
- Court Grants Primary Jurisdiction Stay in TCPA Case Pending FCC Clarification of ATDS
- New year, new rights for telecoms providers
- Wall Street Thinks The Cable TV Sector Could Easily ‘Unravel.’ That’s Probably A Good Thing.
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Court Documents Show Canadian Law Enforcement Operated Stingrays Indiscriminately, Sweeping Up Thousands Of Innocent Phone Owners
- Bezos rep says Saudis stole racy texts, leaked them to the Enquirer
- 7th Circuit Punts On Border Smartphone Searches; Says Riley Decision Doesn’t Affect Anything
- Seventh Circuit Wades into Big Data Case Law
- YouTube Defeats Lawsuit Over Children’s Privacy
- FTC imposes unprecedented fine for violations of children’s online privacy rules
- Ancestry-Testing Company: It’s Our ‘Moral Responsibility’ to Give The FBI Access to Your DNA
- FamilyTreeDNA Deputizes Itself, Starts Pitching DNA Matching Services To Law Enforcement
- Riding the waves of U.S. data privacy legislation
- Utah – The First State to Require a Warrant for Third-Party Data
- Woman from China, with malware in tow, illegally entered Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
- LAPD Watchdog Says Department’s Data-Based Policing Is Producing Nothing But Wasted Time And Rights Violations
- Kaspersky Lab Will Now Alert Users to ‘Stalkerware’ Used In Domestic Abuse
- Facial Recognition Tech Now Capable Of Getting You Kicked Out Of The Mall
- Facial recognition can drive business goals, but where do we draw the line?
- HTTPS Isn’t Always As Secure As It Seems
- FTC Seeks Information from ISPs on Privacy Procedures
- Washington State Pushes Forward With Comprehensive Privacy Legislation
- Will Washington Be the Next California?
- Thoughts on personal data vs non-personal data
- To catch a drug thief, hospital secretly recorded births, women’s surgeries
- Clinic Files Amicus Brief Arguing for Broader Access to Government Databases Through FOIA
- Machines Shouldn’t Have To Spy On Us To Learn (Zeynep Tufekci)
GAMES
- Oxford Researcher Blames ESA Reaction for Prolonged Gaming Addiction Crisis
- Screens, Teens, and Psychological Well-Being: Evidence From Three Time-Use-Diary Studies (Amy Orben & Andrew K. Przybylski)
- MIT Prof: If We Live In A Simulation, Are We Players Or NPCs?
- Google: We’re “committed to protecting and respecting privacy” with Stadia – Harrison assures streaming service’s users will be able to create an online persona “distinct and different” from their Google one
- Deep Silver deactivates stolen Metro Exodus Steam keys
- Sony is shutting down all Driveclub online servers
- Sony will switch off the DriveClub servers in March 2020
- Man gets 20 years for deadly “swatting” hoax
- Man responsible for fatal swatting call sentenced to 20 years
- Call Of Duty Gamer Behind Nation’s First “Swatting” Fatality Sentenced To 20 Years
- Security researcher pleads guilty to hacking into Nintendo and Microsoft
- Hacker sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for accessing Microsoft, Nintendo servers
- China’s frozen game approval process continues long thaw
- Latest batch of Chinese game approvals includes 30 foreign titles: Nearly 1,000 games have been approved since freeze was lifted in December
- Don’t Miss: A different approach to difficulty
- Event feedback leads Falcon Age devs to make combat optional
- No fooling: Reddit’s r/games goes silent for one day to call out hate, bigotry
- Ten tips for pitching from the head of ID@Xbox: Chris Charla gives developers a crash course on the dos and don’ts of selling potential partners on game ideas
- Inside look at BioWare explains exactly how fake E3 2017’s Anthem demo was
- Devs recall moments of instability, indecision, and crunch on Anthem
- How BioWare’s Anthem Went Wrong
- Blog: A short analysis of monetization in Apex Legends
- Drake invests in esports betting startup Players’ Lounge
- Video games are now a legitimate high school sport
- Players’ Lounge raises $3M for a wager-based, competitive video game platform
- Players’ Lounge raises $3m for buy-in gaming competitions: Drake, Take-Two CEO, Comcast, and former Yahoo CEO all invest in low-stakes tournament platform
- Durham College opens first-of-its-kind Esports Gaming Arena
- Blockchain: the real fuel for eSports
- F1 To Release Official Blockchain Game
- Brendan Greene: “I’m done with battle royale” – PUBG designer discusses his move to the new Special Projects team, and the privilege of now working without a deadline
- This War of Mine has topped 4.5 million sales and raised over $500k for charity
- At Ubisoft you always have a second chance”
- Apple’s Arcade can succeed – if it aims at families | Opinion: New service can avoid joining a decade of “noble failures” trying to create alternatives to F2P by focusing on children and parents
- Borderlands 3 trailer shows some of its “over one billion guns”
- Borderlands 3 Is A Six-Month Epic Store Exclusive On PC
- Borderlands 3 will be a six-month Epic Games Store exclusive on PC
- Borderlands 3 is the next big Epic Games Store exclusive
- Borderlands 3 joins list of Epic Games store PC exclusives: 2K says its goal is “to embrace new distribution platforms that will contribute to our effort to grow the audience” for Gearbox’s shooter
- Epic wants to leave the Epic Games Store exclusivity decision up to devs
- Epic: “It’s never our intent to keep people away from playing a game” – David Stelzer and Sergey Galyonkin discuss Epic Games store exclusivity backlash and attracting devs
- Romero Games partners with Paradox Interactive for upcoming project
- Video: Sean Murray reflects on No Man’s Sky and grit in game dev
- UK video game spending rose to record $7.43 billion in 2018
- What Astroneer’s devs learned while leaving Early Access
- Kenichiro Takaki departs Marvelous for Cygames: Senran Kagura producer resigns to work on new project following frustrations with restrictions on sexual content
- Today, WarCraft 1 & 2 get their first-ever digital launch—and it’s on GOG
- Is it all over for pre-owned video games?: Second-hand game sales remain significant, but the recent decline is by no means temporary
- GameStop posts massive loss as pre-owned game sales plummet
- GameStop posts $673m full-year loss: Specialty retailer acknowledges “the challenges facing our pre-owned video game business” and a need to change its business model
- GameStop: Sony pulling game cards won’t “have a material impact” on sales: Executive chairman Daniel DeMatteo believes PS4 owners will still fund digital purchases by buying currency in-store
- GameStop’s fortunes fall amid declining sales of games and consoles
- Sony updates policy to allow refunds on pre-orders: Refunds also allowed up to 14 days past purchase date if game has not yet been downloaded
- Sony tweaks PlayStation Store refund and cancelation policy in the U.S.
- Bethesda reveals “buddy pass” for Wolfenstein: Youngblood – Deluxe edition allows owner to share game with as many friends as they like for co-op play
- Microsoft scrubs Notch references from Minecraft: Platform holder distances itself from controversial creator
- Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson eradicated from splash text
- Minecraft update removes mentions of creator Notch from splash screens
- Minecraft: Java Edition surpasses 30 million lifetime sales
- Minecraft on PC surpasses 30m sales: In total, all editions of the game combined have sold over 150m
- Xenoblade developer Monolith Soft staffing up for Zeldaproject
- The case for a smaller, more portable Nintendo Switch | Opinion – Portables were said to be dead — so why would Nintendo consider releasing a smaller Switch?
- Twitch Prime users are being gifted a free year of Nintendo Switch Online
- Civilization VI update brings cross-platform cloud saves to Steam and Switch
- How Mario Kart Tour could bring Mario Kart up to speed | Opinion
- Sega Will Release The Genesis Mini On September 19
- Sega joins the mini-console revolution with Genesis Mini
- Sega Mega Drive Mini will launch September 19: Sonic, Ecco and ToeJam & Earl will be among 40 games built into the $80 retro console
- The Analogue Mega Sg answers why anyone would pay $190 for a new Sega Genesis
- Tencent opens new cloud streaming platform ‘Start’ for public testing
- Cloud streaming startup Polystream nets $12 million in funding
- CD Projekt plans to create 250 new jobs despite last year’s profit and revenue decline: Company still posts a healthy profit of €25.6 million as research and development spending hits €56.4 million
- Matchington Mansion surpasses $100m as competition sees downloads rise: Homescapes, Gardenscapes experience surge in installs despite no recent updates to either
- gamigo AG: acquisition of the game publisher WildTangent Inc. in the form of an asset deal leads to further profitable growth
- Rovio invests $3m in Play Ventures gaming fund: Fund has reached goal of $30m intended for investment in 20-25 companies
- FoxNext VP on turning Marvel: Strike Force into the Starbucks of mobile games
- Why 11 Bit Studios endeavors to put emotion and meaning first in game dev
- Designing for deck-building in video games
- Xsolla introduces new funding opportunity for indie developers
- Video: How devs can maintain their sanity for crunch and beyond
- Humble Bundle cofounders step down because ‘we’re more startup kinda guys’
- Humble Bundle co-founders stepping down after best year ever: New vice president and general manager Alan Patmore pledges to grow company as “a force for good in this industry”
- Flaregames founder launches Phoenix Games to give smaller devs a leg up
- Gameloft partners with CARE for Dragon Mania Legends charity event
- Digital Minister Margot James: “This government is committed to helping games companies” – Writing for GamesIndustry.biz, the UK Minister details how the government is supporting British games developers and more
- Record year for UK games market as spending nears £6bn: Software alone accounted for £4 billion in revenue for the first time, records broken in hardware and digital spending
- Valve teases its own VR headset, the Valve Index, for May reveal
- Valve’s long-rumored VR headset is finally real: the Valve Index, coming in May
- Valve Index to launch June 15: VR headset to be sold separately from optional base station and motion controllers
- Space Channel 5 VR hands-on: Ulala’s back, and I met her
- Social VR Hits ‘Rec Room’ and ‘VRChat’ Coming to Oculus Quest
- Virtual & Augmented Reality Through the Legal Lens
- Abrams Artists Signs 5 Gaming Creators Including Meg Turney, Matt Cobuzio
- Hyper Light Drifter dev confirms TV series is in the works
- Adi Shankar producing Hyper Light Drifter TV series: Netflix’s Castlevania producer teams up with developer Alex Preston for animated adaptation
- Into the Pixel exhibit calls for submissions of game art
- Don’t Miss: Streamlining how players deal with death in games
- Blog: A different take on Sekiro Shadows Die Twice
- Why HandCircus rebuilt the early iOS game Rolando for modern devices
- The Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset takes home GLAAD award for outstanding video game
- The Elder Scrolls Online honored with inaugural GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Video Game
- Making piracy and pre-owned games problems of the past – 10 Years Ago This Month: Gaming execs kill two birds with one server-based stone, while Konami insists Six Days in Fallujah has no message
- Blog: 20 Years of retention in EverQuest
- Gratitude for the Miracle Man: Why I Love: Pumped BMX developer Adam Hunt pays heartfelt homage to a magazine disc demo of Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX
- This Ebook Company Is Trying to Make Reading More Like Videogames
- Blockchain Games and Collectibles – Patents and Other Legal Issues
- U.S. Patent No. 9,511,292: Video game competition notifications
- Mayor Sadiq Khan opens London Games Festival 2019: Praised industry’s contributions to city’s economy and the diverse talent it is attracting
- These are Gamasutra’s favorite slides from GDC 2019
- Video: Laralyn McWilliams on staying optimistic and creative in game dev
Jon