Bristows at the Games Industry Law Summit: On Tour II

Last week, two of our associates, Charlie Purdie and Alice Esuola-Grant, attended the 2024 edition of the Games Industry Law Summit: On Tour in Limassol, Cyprus. Here’s their round-up of the conference:

The conference, organised to the highest standard by Sergei Klimov of Charlie Oscar, brings together (mostly) lawyers from across the globe who are working in, and passionate about, the interactive entertainment sector, including in-house counsel at games companies, sector professionals and private practice lawyers. With the promise of an endless supply of Cyprus coffee, bananas from Paphos, as well as an industry dinner and drinks on the Saturday evening, the conference was set to be a real treat – and it didn’t disappoint.

Day one kicked off a series of insightful panels. A notable highlight was a presentation on the games industry in Cyprus, with a guest appearance from the Minister of the Interior of Cyprus, Konstantinos Ioannou. It’s clear that Cyprus is doing all it can to attract and keep talent in this space and it will be interesting to see how the scene evolves in the coming years. Following a packed day of excellent presentations, we attended an exceptional industry dinner and networking drinks, with great company and lengthy chats about our favourite video games (Charlie remains deeply jealous of the in-house counsel sat next to him who had an Elden Ring platinum trophy).

Day two’s highlight was a fascinating panel on Litigating Clones in different jurisdictions, although there was agreement from the panel that the term “clone” may not be appropriate to describe copycat games. The presenters took us on a global tour through different approaches taken by the courts in the USA, China, India, France, and the UK. It was great to see a couple of Bristows’ cases mentioned too!

Some of our key takeaways from the 2024 Games Industry Law Summit: On Tour II include:

• Germany is the land of privacy!
• In the UK we’re light on copyright cases in the games industry and could do with more jurisprudence to provide some certainty on the law – lots of laughter from the audience following a plea from one of the panellists to the in-house lawyers not to settle these cases for this reason!
• We spend more on subscriptions per month than most people think – and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill in the UK is going to have a real impact on current rolling subscription practices.
• What is permitted in the advertising of (and in) games has changed over the years… a lot! 
• Cyprus is a great place to be if you’re making games.
• If you work in video games law and you haven’t attended the Games Industry Law Summit, you should sign up to go next year!

Read more about our experience, and expertise, in the Interactive Entertainment sector here.