For developers of online multiplayer games, a game is only as strong as its community. The problem is that publisher’s can’t fully control the social aspects of their games. So how does a game company foster the type of online community that provides the most value to players?
Monday, July 28, 2008
Virtual property is a topic that gets lots of attention from legal scholars. There is something intriguing about the lawlessness of virtual worlds. Second Life and World of Warcraft create places where people from every legal jurisdiction in the world can connect and share one virtual space. Most of the legal writing in this area focuses on which laws apply and whether traditional legal principles can be transfigured to apply to virtual worlds. As I have mentioned in earlier posts in this series, the focus of these articles is not the theoretical, but practical information for people who make games.
Monday, July 21, 2008
This article covers the first and second parts in a series about Video Game Law. There is a wealth of academic information on the topic of game law on the Internet, but my hope is to provide more practical legal insight in a way that could actually help a game developer or startup tackle some of these issues in practice and understand the lay of the land. As much fun as it is for lawyers like me to contemplate hypothetical issues like whether there is such a thing as rape in a virtual world like Second Life, these issues don't generally help people make games. The goal of this series is to give game makers a practical look at the legal issues that they should consider when running a game company. My clients don't pay me to wax philosophic about laws that don't exist yet, but I do spend a lot of time answering real questions that game makers face. This series of articles will share that insight with you.
Friday, July 18, 2008
I was in the Bay Area Tuesday to give a talk at WSGR’s Palo Alto office on recent developments in interactive entertainment law. My practice focuses in large part on helping game companies develop and commercialize products, and the legal issues involved in making games are part of what makes me love my job. Since I [...]
Saturday, September 6, 2008
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