Exploring the World of Video Game Law
11.17.2025
Over the past few decades, the video game industry has grown to a point where its revenue is larger than the music and film industries combined – and as such, lawyers practicing in this field have a lot to consider.
A recent New York State Bar Association program reviewed many of the legal issues surrounding video games, including protecting privacy, safeguarding minors and incorporating artificial intelligence.
The speakers were:
- Brendan Palfreyman, partner at Harris Beach Murtha.
- Alan Winchester, partner at Harris Beach Murtha.
- Mark Lemley, director of the Stanford Law School Program in Law, Science & Technology.
- Layla Maurer, staff attorney for Library Futures at NYU School of Law’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy, and former in-house counsel at Wizards of the Coast.
Barry Skidelsky, past chair of the New York State Bar Association’s Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Section, moderated the discussion.
“There is no such thing as video game law,” said Skidelsky. “We practice in various areas of law. It starts with the corporate world, finance, employment, then you get to IP, copyright, trademark, patent, and related stuff from there.”
Incorporating AI
Video game companies already have to account for multiple possibilities and scenarios in-game. As more games incorporate artificial intelligence, these possibilities become infinite and customized to each player.
“Non-playable characters often have a very limited kind of vocabulary,” said Lemley. “We were already seeing artificial intelligence basically give those characters little lives where they interact with each other in ways that are not scripted, and I think that’s great from a game perspective. And it makes it more realistic and more immersive. But it also does mean that we don’t actually know what our game is going to do in response to a particular input, and that could scare a lot of people.”
In addition, fans can generate AI content based on existing video games. While some companies, like Blizzard, will tolerate it for non-commercial use, others, like Nintendo, are much stricter about the use of their characters and hardware.
Safeguarding Minors
Many of the people who play video games are underage and companies are expected to take extra precautions to protect them on their platforms. Roblox – which allows users to create their own games and communicate with others – has come under scrutiny.
Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas have sued Roblox, arguing that the company has not sufficiently protected minors from sexual abuse, exploitation, and inappropriate content. There are also several individual lawsuits pending.
The panelists spoke about how companies could find themselves liable for allowing children under 13 to play video games, and possible actions they might take in response.
“I think there’s going to be a significant push to try to restrict or limit the ability of kids to play video games,” said Lemley. “Interestingly, the place where we saw that happen in most significance was China. China imposed a very strict [rule that] kids can only play video games on this one night, and only for this limited period of time. They have subsequently backed off from that, in part because it hurt their video game industry, in part because it also turned out that if 1.2 billion people all had to play a video game at the same time, we had real congestion issues.”
Data Privacy
Video game companies often acquire massive amounts of personal data about their users – including biometrics, finances, and location. Since they operate internationally, they are also subject to international data protection laws. So a company based in the United States will be subject to the European Union’s data protection laws.
“The territory that is in the agreements with whoever your distributors are can cover any territory they want to go into, wherever they have a market,” said Maurer. “You’re getting players from Indonesia, from India, from Germany, from Switzerland, from anywhere, and their data is then coming to your server. So this is all something that is extraordinarily important – you have to understand where that data actually lives, how it’s being transferred, what type of data you’re receiving, and how you’re treating that data when it comes to you.”
The program was sponsored by the New York State Bar Association’s Entertainment, Arts & Sports Law Section.
