Most people have a general idea about what programmers, artists, designers and musicians do in the industry, but I’ve seldom heard about how the law and lawyers impact game development.
I’m especially interested in knowing how lawyers can affect positive outcomes in game development, and if there are any examples of lawyers or others with legal backgrounds who have been involved in one of the more traditional game development roles.
Lawyers rarely have creative influence on the game itself. But they still fulfill two important jobs in the game industry.
The first is intellectual property (IP) law. Games and all their individual assets are IP which is protected by copyrights, trademarks and sometimes patents. Lawyers are required to advise development teams how to not violate the IP of others and how to prevent others from violating their IP. And keep in mind that games are almost always sold internationally nowadays, which means that an IP lawyer worth her money should not just know about the IP law in the state she is licensed in but also have a vague idea about how IP laws differ around the world.
The second is contract law. Many game developers are regular employees, and employment law is a whole legal can of worms in itself. But the basics of labor law are usually accessible enough to legal laypeople that lawyers aren't strictly required until there is an actual dispute. And if there is one, then there is usually not much about those cases which is gamedev-specific. But there are also a lot of game developers who don't collaborate in regular employer-employee arrangements. The game industry does a lot of freelance contracting and b2b contracting which require non-standard contracts. Especially considering that game developers sometimes form agreements which are unusual in other industries, like work-for-work or revenue share. Those contracts need to be complicated and non-standard to cover all possible situations, which makes it important to consult contract lawyers. And if those lawyers have a good idea about the realities of game development and game business, then that can be really useful.
I worked with the legal team at a Chinese game developer/publisher and one important role they played was to help with cease-and-desist and litigation, as IP theft is a pretty big problem there. One of our RPGs was copied lock, stock and barrel, with even the in-game stats were exactly the same as ours. And of course we had to keep our Western colleagues in the loop on all of this, too.
Another important thing that our legal team did handle licensing. We purchased the rights to use a very expensive game engine, with a zillion lines of code and a huge price tag, and the contract for it was fittingly enormous. So in addition to reading through it with a fine-tooth comb, they also conducted research to understand best practices, what they could and should negotiate, etc. I suppose that had something of an effect on the games we used it for.
Many politicians have backgrounds as lawyers, and sometimes the laws that they pass affect video games. For instance, the GDPR would affect how online games that operate in the EU handle their player data, and there have been a number of investigations by legislative bodies into the addictive effects of lootbox-based microtransactions with the intent of looking into legislating regulations on them. While they wouldn't be working on the behalf of any particular gaming company, they would definitely have an impact on game development through the creation of the legal regime within which the games are designed.
