Legal

A group of Russian deputies appealed to the government with a proposal to create an analogue of The Sims, which will correspond to the values important for Russia. This is reported by "TASS", who got acquainted with the materials of the initiative.

The owners of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II — The Sith Lords version for Nintendo Switch sued Aspyr Media and Saber Interactive. Gamers are unhappy that companies have changed their minds about releasing DLC with cut content.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has released a new statement on its probe into Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The $68.7 billion deal is now as close to approval as possible.

Despite the difficulties of recent years, game studios continue to open and operate in Russia. An overview of the current state of regulation, primarily tax, for such companies was prepared by Roman Motorin, a lawyer at Versus.legal.

You will have to fork out a lot for the expansion of the Game Pass library. Microsoft management came to such conclusions, according to a leaked internal correspondence that appeared on the website of the District Court of Northern California.

The new Unity collection is called Runtime Fee. It got its name in honor of the Unity Runtime library set. The company believes that since libraries are installed on users’ devices along with the game, the developer must pay for it. We talked about Unity Runtime with Kirill Shabordin, the founder of Yerevan Cowboys Games, and Alexey Pechenin, the founder of Infinite Art Solutions.

Unity has announced a new pricing policy. Starting next year, if a number of conditions are met, the company will charge for each installation. Important: the installation will also be considered a reinstall (maybe it won’t be considered).

The Russian authorities continue to talk about the need to support esports. The State Duma Committee on Physical Culture and Sports proposed to legislate the term “esports athlete”, and then discuss special benefits.

A court in Japan has sentenced 53-year-old Shinobu Yoshida, who posted a video on YouTube with the passage of the visual novel STEINS;GATE: My Darling’s Embrace. He was given two years in prison with a five-year suspended sentence.

Google is ready to sign a settlement agreement with the attorneys general of 37 US states who accused the corporation of abusing power in the Android mobile store market. The legal conflict between them lasts more than two years.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has opened up about the use of AI tools in game development. He also threw shade at Steam, saying that the EGS doesn’t ban titles for “using new technologies.”

Erik Peterson, responsible for business development at Valve, has shared some insights into visibility and discovery mechanisms on Steam. Here is how the company helps devs reach players and connect users to games.

Discoverability expert Simon Carless has shared some interesting insights into why some games, even quality ones, fail commercially in today’s market. It might be due to the oversaturation of certain genres, but the issue seems to be much more complex.

Indian gamers will soon be able to download Free Fire again. Garena announced that on September 5 it will release a new version of the game in the country with a number of special changes.

Blackbird Interactive is another game studio that has been recently hit with job cuts. It appears that the Homeworld 3 developer has laid off dozens of people, including some senior staff.

On August 22, a Dutch court declared the indie studio Ronimo Games bankrupt. Emerce writes about this.

Earlier this year, Motorsport Games was accused by dozens of employees at its Russian office of not paying them for months. At least two of them have won their lawsuits against the company.

Recall that in January 2023 it became known that the American company Motorsport Games had not paid salaries to three dozen Russian employees since October 2022. In response, part of the team threatened the company with court.

The Day Before, an upcoming multiplayer survival game developed by Fntastic and published by Mytona, is still the subject of a trademark dispute. However, the companies could use the new registered brand to eventually bring the title back on Steam.

In early August, the New Zealand legal entity Mytona Fntastic Limited registered the Dayworld trademark. According to the document, we are talking about a downloadable game product.

The situation around Dark and Darker has taken an unexpected turn. Although the legal fight between Ironmace Games and publisher Nexon is not yet over, PUBG maker Krafton is now considering creating a mobile game based on this IP.

BioWare has announced a team restructuring, which includes job cuts. Although the studio ensures that this move won’t affect the development of Dragon Age and Mass Effect, some of its most experienced devs have been laid off.

A London court ruled that 18-year-old hacker Arion Kurtaj was involved in hacking the internal network of Rockstar Games and leaking fragments of GTA VI. The hacker attack was carried out in September 2022.

Developers of anti-tamper solution Denuvo have announced a new feature that would prevent users from manipulating files in games made with Unreal Engine. Branded as another way of fighting against pirates and fraudsters, it poses a real threat to modding.

Magic shooter Immortals of Aveum has just been released globally. The initial metrics for the AAA game, developed by Ascendant Studios and published under the EA Originals program, don’t look promising.

Microsoft used rumors about its plans to close the deal with Activision Blizzard without the approval of the British regulator to force the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to sue it in a hurry. This is reported by Bloomberg.

Microsoft is now trying to restructure its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard to finally get approval from the UK regulator. That’s why the company has announced a new cloud gaming agreement with Ubisoft.

Microsoft has signed an agreement with Ubisoft allowing it to distribute Activision Blizzard games through the cloud. As the corporation hopes, it will convince the British regulator to approve the deal with Activision Blizzard.

Lithuanian Game Insight has agreed to repay a debt of € 1.92 million to the Russian Game Insight. Alexander Masgutov, a representative of the company, said this in a comment to Kommersant.

The Seattle court rejected the lawsuit of the South Korean publisher Nexon, filed against the Ironmace studio in April 2023. The company accused the developers of the PvPvE action Dark and Darker of stealing the code and assets of the unreleased P3 shooter.

Wargaming took the second place in the top IT companies in Lithuania in terms of tax deductions in the first half of 2023. In January-June, she paid taxes in Lithuania in the amount of €8.2 million. Only €0.3 million less than in the whole of 2022.

Ironmace Games has suddenly launched its upcoming PvPvE dungeon crawler Dark and Darker into Early Access. Still unavailable on Steam due to a legal battle with publisher Nexon, the game is now being sold through another platform.

The antimonopoly regulator of New Zealand announced that it does not object to the sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft.

China is preparing new restrictions for minors. China’s Central Commission for Cyberspace Affairs (CAC) has published draft rules setting limits on the time that children can spend on mobile applications.

An arrest warrant was recently requested for the head of South Korean developer Ironmace Games. This happened amid the legal battle between the studio and publisher Nexon over Dark and Darker.

The district court of the South Korean city of Suwon refused to issue an arrest warrant for Choi Ju-hyun, the managing director of the Ironmace studio. It was requested by the police as part of the proceedings with Nexon.

The European Commission has supported the proposal of the Belgian government to create a tax haven in the country for companies that invest money in game studios.

What are hybrid-casual games and how are their monetization loos different from hyper-casual? Voodoo head of publishing Thibault de Vésinne-Larüe has opened up about the company’s approach and what metrics it looks at when launching new titles.

In the UK, a class action lawsuit was brought against Apple for £785 million, or about $ 1 billion. The subject of the claim is a high commission in the App Store.

The court proceedings in the case of the recognition of the Russian “Game Insight” bankrupt have reached a new stage. The Arbitration Court of the city of Moscow not only decided to seize the accounts of people connected with the attempt to leave Russian employees of the company without salaries, but also ordered to recover about € 2 million from the Lithuanian Game Insight.

The US agency ESRB, which issues age ratings to video games, has filed an application with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It wants the agency to approve a new age assessment method.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which assigns age ratings to video games, has asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to greenlight a new age-estimating method. According to the organization, it should avoid the collection of any personal data.

Last week, it was reported that an indirect 28% tax on companies engaged in online games and esports was approved in India. Now it turns out that it will apply only to those who trade bets for real money.

The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie) has released a new guidance for video game loot boxes, which consists of 11 principles. They are designed to be followed by developers, publishers, and other market participants.

Litigation between Microsoft and British regulators in connection with the purchase of Activision Blizzard continues unabated. In addition, they only become more confusing.

Missed the important news. We are correcting ourselves. On Friday, the complaint of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was rejected. She filed an appeal against the decision of Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, who refused to impose a preliminary injunction on the purchase of Activision Blizzard.

About the practices that investors resort to to retain the founders of IT companies – in their material for App2Top they toldAlyona Potorskaya and Ekaterina Yakoltsevich, employees of the REVERA law firm.

The FTC announced that it will appeal against the decision of Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley. The latter earlier this week refused to impose a preliminary injunction on the purchase of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has no plans to give up on its crusade to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Here are all the details about the appeal and the latest news related to the $68.7 billion deal.

Despite yesterday’s statement by the CMA about its readiness to suspend the conflict with Microsoft and discuss the terms of the deal to purchase Activision Blizzard, today the regulator issued a statement of a completely different nature.