No, really, we're video game lawyers.

We help some of the biggest video game companies in the world handle their IP, platform, licensing, and other technical matters. We teach video game law at leading law schools in the U.S. and publish scholarship on video game creativity, esports, in-game purchases, and adjacent issues. Serious legal problems. Fun subject matter.

Past Work The Legal Boss Fights Books & Talks

Representative Past Work

We've helped video games stay fun.

Studios should be building worlds, not burning energy on copycats, technical disputes, or preventable IP problems. We've helped some of the best game studios and biggest games in the world handle many of those issues.

Halo 2

RuneScape

RUST

Cyberpunk 2077

Guild Wars II

World of Warships

World of Tanks

Crazy Taxi

The Witcher

Gwent

Microsoft Flight Simulator

World of Warplanes

Palworld

Metal Hellsinger

Dying Light

Perfect Dark: Zero

Encounter

The Legal Boss Fights

Video games' inherent combination of interactivity, art, music, and other creative efforts can make them surprisingly legally complex. We regularly battle some pretty complex legal monsters that are unique to video games.

BossCopyright Concern Troll

BossPatent Problem-Maker

BossTerms Troll

BossSecretive Sam

What is the protectable expression?

Games combine art, music, code, user interfaces, animation, story, and player-created content. Does copyright extend to just those items individually? Or is there more? We discussed this in an amicus brief, and Kirk wrote on the topic in a Cardozo Law Review article.

What is actually patent-eligible?

The USPTO often argues that game rules, standing alone, are not patent-eligible. But not all inventions are directed to game rules, even if they involve video gaming. We've discussed this issue in various books, such as the Legal Guide to Video Game Development and the Research Handbook on Interactive Entertainment Law.

How should games be sold and operated?

Live-service models, marketplaces, game mods, virtual goods, user safety, and platform rules all make game licenses, contracts, and user agreements very, very complicated. We discuss topics like this in the Legal Guide to Video Game Development and the book Computer Games and Immersive Entertainment.

What player data should be collected, and who owns it?

User data is valuable - but who gets to keep it? We've explored this in lots of writing: for example, Scott and Kirk's Interactive Entertainment Law Review paper The Key to Key Presses and Kirk's Georgetown Technology Law Review paper Pay to Play.

We write and lecture about game law issues.

Books, scholarship, and conferences that map the rule set for modern interactive entertainment.

Book

The Legal Guide to Video Game Development

A practical guide to the business and legal realities of making and releasing games, from IP and finance to insurance, licensing, and EULAs.

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Book

Research Handbook on Interactive Entertainment Law

Deeper doctrinal and policy analysis covering game patents, AI and video games, player community control, EULAs, and adjacent issues.

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Law Review Article

Nerds v. Nintendo: Video Game Decompilations Versus Rights-Holder Interests

An argument that some decompilations, though technically infringing, should qualify as fair use when they preserve games threatened by technological obsolescence.

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Conference

More than Just a Game

One of the leading international conferences focused on the legal and commercial issues shaping the gaming industry.

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