Rostyslav Zagornov blamed 11 bit studios and the freelance artist Steven Stone in direct theft of one of his old works to build up Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice. (shitty mobile game) official concept arts. It's obvious, that at least for this flying ship Steven used a copy of what Rostyslav created for his An-Laenort visual novel.

Within the game, several stolen pieces are shown as backgrounds on loading screens.

#Theft@GameDEV
#2DArt@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV

Tencent removes directors from Epic Games after Justice Dept. inspection. The Justice Department voiced concerns that Tencent was being anti-competitive by appointing its own directors to Epic, which it only has a minority stake in.

VIA

#Legal@GameDEV
#Tencent@GameDEV
#EpicGames@GameDEV

This fella made the game run at 60FPS on PS5. For free. And got DMCA-ed by SONY.

#Legal@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV

Yeah, Copywrite laws sux, never use what you don't own as commercial projects (and probably free ones too), and always do your homework on all the assets, names, and terms:

Even for a small indie game you should hold a spreadsheet of all works, their respective creators and owners, and so on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSncDVr-J7A

#Laws@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV

Nintendo have tried to make other Palworld-like games imposable by making restrictive patents in the US.

And you know what? 22/23 were rejected!

#Nintendo@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV

The most unpleasant scam indie game developers can face:

Random people were able to literally republish a game from Steam to consoles without any consent from the original studio. And they are doing such things for years.

It's even worse for browser games on ItchIO — they are getting wrapped in WebView and sold as games on all platforms by dozens of similar companies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvpLrBpmmX0
#IndieGames@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV
#Nintendo@GameDEV

Epic Games is trying to end copyright violation madness on its community platform UEFN and marketplace FAB. Unlike Roblox, that often requires manual DMCA strikes, Epic is going to use mass-research, similar to YouTube algorithm.

#Legal@GameDEV
#EpicGames@GameDEV
#UEFN@GameDEV

Figma is mad: they sent a legal request to stop using Dev Mode, cause it's not a common term in other software and services, but THEIR TRADEMARK!

#Legal@GameDEV
#WTF@GameDEV

— We don't need a contract! — We do! — Don't you TRUST me? — I trust no one!

This should be your ONLY way of doing things in any commercial game development. Unless you want to end up like this.

#Legal@GameDEV

Can we appreciate for a second that legal HTTP code is 451?

#Legal@GameDEV

Epic Games announced that Apple lost again, this time in the United States.

#EpicGames@GameDEV
#Apple@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV

Apple is freaking out after their payments became legally optional in Europe and North America. They are losing billions every month on third party services with lower fees.

To counter that they are now showing this glorious WARNING to scare off the casual audience from using apps who implemented external payment systems.

#Apple@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV

Hype-as-a-Service (HaaS) Builder AI faked their sale figures by transferring money between related companies.

#AI@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV

Dark and Darker was killed again by Nexon. The company fought IRONMACE for some time and apparently won.

#Legal@GameDEV
#EpicStore@GameDEV

You still have a chance to participate in Europe and the UK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIfRLujXtUo
#Legal@GameDEV
#Europe@GameDEV

Vice President of the European Parliament Nicolae Ștefănuță has signed the petition for Stop Killing Games

“I stand with the people who started this citizen initiative. I signed and will continue to help them. A game, once sold, belongs to the customer, not the company.”

#Europe@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV

OOF is back to Roblox, so watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0twDETh6QaI
#SoundDesign@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV

Here's the official statement

#ItchIO@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV

If you are a UK resident, you may sign the petition to take down "Safety act" that in its current form will cut the country from tens of thousands of websites:

• Any interactive website has to make ID system to verify age (either a huge upfront investment to make one or ~$1.5 per visitor from commercial solutions).
• The legal relief budget government expects is way over the whole monthly budget for the majority of websites.
• There are huge fines and other legal actions against website owners.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
#Legal@GameDEV