Name for Papers – Firm Law Points in Gaming

Like many industries pushed by technological innovation, the online game business has seen speedy development and transformation over the previous a number of many years. It is an business that straddles technical improvement, creative creativity and a for-profit industrial goal. Video video games may be distinguished from different industries by their excessive diploma of group engagement and interactivity, with players participating each with the sport and with one another globally in both choose or massively multi-player capacities. Through these multi-player interactions, players turn out to be each customers in addition to a part of the product itself by impacting the broader gaming expertise for others — an impact labelled within the analysis as ‘network effects’. In distinction to different conventional video games or sports activities, video video games additionally function with a comparatively short-life span, usually requiring enlargement by means of downloadable content material (DLC) or updating to take care of an energetic buyer base. For instance, DLCs present publishers with further income alternative and, whereas customers might ‘demand’ such content material, they might create perverse incentives to go away a sport’s story unfinished and divide it into a number of DLC releases. At the identical time, the creation and upkeep of those video games is useful resource and labour intensive, which creates vital upfront prices and incentives for unfair labour situations, towards an unsure industrial efficiency that’s reliant on precisely predicting shopper style.

Given the above non-exhaustive points that come up within the online game business, we purpose to discover how firms working inside this business utilise key options of the corporate legislation framework and the way they navigate the particular company governance points which they might face inside their operations. Contributions might look at doctrinal firm legislation, company governance, company financing and capital construction, company M&A, company insolvency, or another surrounding space which may be utilized to the gaming business usually. We additionally welcome case research, each jurisdiction and non-jurisdiction particular, which discover broader themes of company legislation idea inside the gaming business.

As the primary stage in a broader venture, we purpose to collate these contributions right into a journal version which primarily focuses on firm legislation within the gaming business. This shall be supported by an preliminary workshop the place drafts of the papers shall be introduced.

Below is an indicative view of the themes which we wish to discover:

• Corporate Purpose and Gaming.
• Creative Conflict and Profit-Generation in Gaming.
• Corporate Form and Capital Structuring in Gaming.
• The Insolvency of Gaming Companies.
• Free-to-Play Gaming – Consumer Data and Profit Generation.
• Online Gaming Culture and Corporate Responsibility for Player Toxicity.
• M&A in Gaming (eg The Acquisition of Activision-Blizzard).
• Corporate DEI within the Gaming Industry.

Deadline for Abstracts: twenty fifth May 2026 (200-250 phrases).

Expected Paper Submission: twentieth November 2026 (10,000 phrases together with footnotes).

Please electronic mail abstracts and any queries to [email protected] & [email protected]

Philip Gavin is a Lecturer in Corporate and Financial Law, UCL.

Claudia Paduano is a Lecturer in Commercial Law, University of Glasgow.