Bethesda files suit against Warner Bros, says ‘Westworld’ game infringes its copyright

Bethesda Softworks is suing Warner Bros. and Fallout Shelter co-developer Behaviour Interactive over the recently released Westworld mobile game. Bethesda claims it’s a “blatant rip-off” of Fallout Shelter. The game developer is suing for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and misappropriating trade secrets and it’s seeking a jury trial and damages. As elaborated in a suit filed in a Maryland U.S. District Court, Bethesda claims the game based on the popular HBO TV series “has the same or highly similar game design, art style, animations, features and other gameplay elements” as Fallout Shelter. And that Behaviour used “the same copyrighted computer code created for Fallout Shelter in Westworld” down to a bug seen in an early version of Fallout Shelter.

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Facebook Messenger Kids app comes to Canada and Peru

Facebook’s controversial chat app Messenger Kids is making its way out of the US and into Canada and Peru. It’ll also now be available in French and Spanish. The app, which is designed for kids under 13, has been met by criticism from advocacy groups for being harmful to kids as they shouldn’t be exposed to social media accounts at such young ages. Facebook has said the app complies with the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act but advocacy groups like the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood saying in an open letter that “young children are simply not ready to have social media accounts” and are “not old enough to navigate the complexities of online relationships.”

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Nintendo and Microsoft play nice in new ‘Minecraft’ cross-play trailer, leaves Sony out of it

The words “Survive Together” appear alongside the logos of Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Switch in a new trailer promoting cross-platform play for Minecraft on the two consoles. It seems jarring at first but a rather fitting image of how playing nice works not just for the manufacturers and developers but for the gamers, too. The trailer shows two players using their respective consoles to play Minecraft. And Sony’s refusal to be part of this collaboration is highlighted even more. 

Sony continues to keep everything close to its own chest. According to Polygon, one former Sony executive said the company’s refusal to allow cross-platform gaming comes down to not wanting items bought on other platforms to be used on the PlayStation 4. And if they continue down this path, they run the risk of being left behind by competition. Here’s to hoping they change their minds in the future.

Shopify Ping is a new one-stop work chat app for businesses

Shopify recently announced Ping, its onestop work chat app for businesses. 

With almost half of Shopify’s 600K merchants running their stores on mobile, we are always developing ways for them to work on-the-go. Shopify Ping is a free iOS app available to all Shopify merchants that brings customer conversations, marketing workflows, and more together in a single app powered by a messaging-style interface like the ones merchants already use to stay in touch with friends and family.

“Shopify merchants are conducting many business conversations across multiple apps every day, not only to run their day-to-day operations, but also to manage customer inquiries. Shopify Ping was created to make all of this easier to manage,” said Michael Perry, Director of Product at Shopify. “It’s a one-stop messaging app that lets them spend more time on what matters most - running their businesses seamlessly and deepening customer relationships.”

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