On January 19, 2024, Palworld launched into early access on Xbox and Windows. To say it was an overnight success is an understatement. By only a month in, Palworld had been played by over 25 million players.To put this in...more
Did Nintendo finally release a Pokémon videogame with guns? Oh, wait, it’s not Pokémon at all – it’s Palworld, a game released by Pocket Pair, a different Japanese videogame company. If you missed it, Palworld was released...more
In the Pokémon franchise of role-playing video games, players travel the world in search of hidden Pokémon. In recent litigation, the Pokémon Company International, Inc. (the Pokémon Company) undertook a similar quest: to...more
Claims for an Interactive 3D Virtual Environment Found Patent Ineligible - In the field of computer gaming, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California recently granted Defendants' Rule 12 motion...more
In case you don’t know, William Gibson is the prescient science fiction author who effectively coined the terms “the matrix” and “cyberspace” as we currently use them, way back in the early 1980s. He also predicted augmented...more
Online platforms battle the trolls (and ad blockers); Pokemon GO! creator Niantic promises to watch things a bit more closely; blockchain is not as “unhackable” as many think; and more …...more
Today, when we think of trespass, our minds might go to a fenced yard with a prominent “No Trespassing” sign. Or, we think of the sit-ins of the 1960’s civil rights movement, when people of color were arrested after they...more
In This Issue: - Affiliate Links on Social Media - Class Action Says Baby Bump Isn’t Showing (Disclosures) - DOJ to Fraudsters: Get Off Our Lawn! - Pokémon Go Producers Attacked by Strange Plaintiff-Beasts - It’s Not...more
The future has arrived, and it has a strange sense of humor. Pokémon Go — an “augmented reality” game that requires players to travel to real world locations to capture imaginary monsters through apps on their mobile devices...more
Well before Pokémon Go burst onto the mobile gaming scene in July, we had written about some of the pitfalls associated with AR gaming. When the game netted some 45 million daily users in just a few weeks, we talked about...more
We are thrilled to bring you the third installment of Stinson Leonard Street's Emerging Trends newsletter. We are proud of the depth and breadth of experience and knowledge across our firm's 13 offices nationwide and are...more
Tongue-in-cheek references to Pokémon Go as a health App aside, maybe the tech industry is on to something. In the U.S., seven out of every ten deaths are due to chronic diseases, such as diabetes or heart disease. Perhaps...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: As OSHA’s enforcement relating to employee cell phone use gains more notoriety, it can be expected that it will have a significant collateral impact on law enforcement at all levels to address this hazard....more
Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law that requires employers to prove they are not paying workers differently because of their race or ethnicity. This new requirement builds on California’s Equal Pay Act,...more
In my previous blog, I discussed the perverse role new safe-driving technology plays in vehicles on the road today. In this blog, I discuss the dangers associated with what I call GWD (Gaming While Driving), specifically the...more
On June 27, 2016, in National Federation of Independent Business et al. v. Perez, et al., the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Lubbock Division) granted Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary ...more
Could 2016 be the year when augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) finally take off? The launch of Pokémon Go in July took the world by storm, with downloads of the AR game reaching more than 100 million within...more
There is something a little bit different about going back to school this year: your school is filled with Pokémon, awaiting capture by your students, employees, and visitors. By now, you are probably familiar with Pokémon...more
For years, we have been lamenting that our young people spend too much time indoors playing computer games and not enough time outside or connecting with others. Yet, those same critics now condemn young Pokémon Go players...more
Even as the initial furor surrounding the release of developer Niantic’s Pokémon-themed ap has subsided, the issues raised by the mass embrace of the augmented reality-flavored game continue to merit attention from lawmakers,...more
The new smartphone app, Pokémon Go, has taken the world by storm. This increasingly popular free game uses the GPS feature and camera of the player’s smartphone to capture creatures called “Pokémon” who appear on the user’s...more
Welcome to Sheppard Mullin’s Weekly Web Wrap-Up, a quick list of the past week’s top news in the social media, gaming, and virtual goods and currencies industries curated by Social Media & Games Team. Here are some of the...more
Some interesting links we found across the web this week: - Department of Commerce Now Accepting Privacy Shield - Self-Certifications: A Primer for Compliance and Self-Certification We’ve mentioned many times...more
There’s no denying it: Pokémon GO is a phenomenon. The smartphone game, in which players use their mobile device camera and GPS to capture, battle, and train virtual creatures, was released in the United States on July...more
Pokémon Go is a location-based augmented reality game in which players use their mobile device to catch Pokémon in the players’ real-world surroundings by utilizing the camera, GPS, and gyroscope features of the mobile...more