NFT headaches, legal trouble, and work woes.
Since you’ve probably been absorbed with Pokemon Legends: Arceus all day, you might be wondering what’s going on in the world of gaming right about now. Well, you’re in luck. You can find all the biggest stories from January 29, 2022 in one convenient place. I mean of course right here. We heard a lot of ridiculous stories about NFTs today in addition to a bunch of legal wrangling. We also got a glimpse into the remarkably tough life of a streamer. Without any further ado, here’s the biggest gaming news of the day.
Fans were up in arms after some pictures featuring Killjoy from Valorant surfaced that showed the character enjoying the work of German artist and NFT seller Martin Houra. This of course led to speculation that Killjoy would be used to push NFTs. Riot quickly put these fears to rest with a reassuring “whoopsie!” The company said that “we’re always trying to give you new experiences and interesting facts on our local channels including a look into Killjoy and her hometown of Berlin. Since Killjoy loves programming, we wanted to introduce you to computer-generated art from around the world. However, we were not aware that the selected work was an NFT. In no way did we intend to include NFTs as part of Killjoy’s work and hobbies.” Whoopsie, indeed.
Another day, another scandal about NFTs. This time it was former footballer and current coach John Terry who made the headlines. Terry has been promoting the Ape Kids Club line of NFTs which are basically offshoots of the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection. These all feature zoomorphized versions of popular footballers. The trick is that Terry included images of the Premiere League trophy in his NFT. When they found out about this, the Premiere League was of course incensed and immediately sent Terry a takedown letter. How this all turns out remains to be seen.
An artist in Ukraine by the name of KuttySark was recently attacked by the lawyers over at Riot because she used the word “arcane.” The work in question was apparently produced years before the show. Riot has declared the takedown to have been “made in error,” but the artist has come away from the experience pretty shaken up. "Riot Games claimed that my original artwork is their intellectual property,” KuttySark said. "I'm just some girl from Ukraine and have no voice if such a big company as Riot Games claims that my work belongs to them even if all facts prove them wrong." Riot only walked things back when fans of KuttySark flooded them with complaints.
Ivy Silberstein has been in legal limbo for well over 20 years. The artist came up with the character Scrat after seeing a hybrid animal of some kind in a park that she assumed was a cross between a squirrel and a rat. Silberstein pitched the character to Twentieth Century Fox. She was turned down at the time, but Silberstein was shocked to see Scrat in the movie Ice Age a couple of years later. The artist of course filed suit against the company for copyright infringement. While she lost the first round, Silberstein kept on fighting. The artist finally obtained restitution from Disney on January 28, 2022. Disney acquired Twentieth Century Fox in 2019. “It’s been 20 years since March 2, 2002 — the premiere date of the first film,” she said. “It has been a struggle! I won!” The outcome is a big victory for independent artists everywhere.
Streamers really don’t have it easy. Some for example have been known to stream for days, weeks, or even months at a time, leading to burnout at best and poor mental health at worst. And the biggest streaming platform, Twitch, has done very little to improve their working conditions. This led Labour Member of Parliament Alexander Sobel to call on Twitch to change its ways. "The platform really needs to think about its mechanics and changing the financial model to protect the health of streamers," he said." They're set up to encourage people to be on there as long as possible to keep viewers.” Twitch allows content creators to be online for a maximum of 48 hours during a single session and Sobel thinks the platform "needs to look at that" in order to "better protect the health of streamers.”
Will fans hop on over to her new platform?
Justin is an archaeologist specializing in architecture, urbanism and spatial theory. He also happens to be a pilot. But you probably know him as a columnist at Unwinnable and an editor at TheGamer where he writes articles and publishes news about games. You can find some of his work in EGM, Vice, Heterotopias and more.
