Starting this Thursday, we are launching a new format — live interviews on current topics. Our first — today’s — issue is dedicated to the legal news of game dev. Together with Roman Lukyanov, Managing Partner of Semenov& Pevzner Law Firm, we analyzed two cases: a trial between Supercell and GREE, as well as a trial between Voodoo and Rollic Games.

Voodoo has won in court over competitors from Rollic, which are owned by Zynga. The French publisher accused the company of plagiarism and now hopes that this case will set a precedent in the field of hyper-casual games.Voodoo sued after Hero Games studio released an update for the Wood Shop game (Rollic is the publisher).

Japanese mobile game developer GREE has won a court case against the Finnish giant Supercell. The creators of Clash Royale were found guilty of violating several patents and ordered to pay $8.5 million.Court verdict

There is a new twist in the case of Epic Games against Apple. This time Apple has put forward counter claims to the creator of Fortnite. At the same time, she accused Epic of trying to impersonate Robin Hood, being a multibillion-dollar company.

Last Friday, Epic Games sent a new petition regarding Apple to the court. In it, the company challenges the decision of the “apple” company to remove Fortnite from the App Store during the proceedings.

Russian parliamentarians continue to attack Apple. Today it became known that Anton Gorelkin, a deputy from the United Russia party, initiated an inspection of the Apple company by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). He believes that domestic teams have difficulty accessing App Store tools.

Yesterday, on September 1, a bill was registered and sent to the Chairman of the State Duma proposing to limit the commission of all app stores to 20%. In the comments for App2Top.ru Roman Lukyanov, Managing Partner of Semenov & Pevzner law firm, spoke about the problems of the initiative.

The situation around Fortnite is heating up. First, Apple removed the game from its mobile store, now Google has also arrived. As in the first case, this was immediately followed by a lawsuit from Epic Games, which, apparently, was preparing in advance for the trial.

The Russian authorities are thinking about the abolition of zero VAT on the sale of software. This is how they want to compensate for the reduction in income tax for IT companies proposed by Vladimir Putin.

Paradox Interactive employees will be taken care of by two leading Swedish trade unions at once. The publisher will sign an agreement with Unionen and SACO organizations.

At the end of May, it became known that a set of amendments to the laws on digital financial assets and digital currency is being prepared in Russia. Due to the controversial wording, this may lead to the fact that the courts will be able to recognize in—game currencies as real digital ones,” he said in a comment for App2Top.ru Roman Lukyanov, Managing Partner of Semenov &Pevzner Law Firm.

Facebook is suing the company “Eco” from St. Petersburg. The latter has owned the Oculus brand for five years and can produce video games, medicines and other types of goods under it.

Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation related to cryptocurrencies are being prepared in Russia. In its current form, the bill puts the authors of games with in-game currency at risk. They face, among other things, criminal liability for “digital currency turnover”.

A trial is planned between the giants of the industry. Ubisoft has filed a lawsuit against Apple and Google. The reason for the quarrel was the game released by the App Store and Google Play — allegedly plagiarism from Rainbow Six: Siege.

Semenov&Pevzner Law Firm has prepared a large-scale report on the largest legal conflicts in the gaming industry over the past six months.

The authors of the mobile game Clothes Forever are suing pop star Selena Gomez. Gomez accuses LoveCrunch studio of illegally using her image to promote the title. She demands that the developers close the game and pay her compensation.

In the conditions of coronavirus, gadget manufacturers are no longer up to pre-installations of Russian software. Therefore, the Duma shifts the deadline by six months — to January 1, 2021.

Loot boxes remain an urgent topic for legislators. In Australia, it is proposed to prohibit the sale of all games with this mechanic to persons under 18 years of age. There are also plans to start checking the age of users online.

Continuation of the story with the Wargaming lawsuit against its former employees. Legal proceedings have begun in Cyprus. The defendant, an indie developer of the Blitz Team, may be banned from using his own name. From the lawsuit, Apple removed his game in European stores.