Metaverse & Games

The Metaverse represents new challenges and opportunities for businesses. The vision constructed in books and films at the end of the 20th century of a world capable of mixing fiction and reality is becoming ever closer thanks to the development of technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality or mixed reality, as well as 5G and in the near future 6G.

Futura supports companies that want to invest or be present in the Metaverse mainly in 3 areas:

  • Working in the Metaverse: The new working spaces in the Metaverse require legal protection in sensitive areas such as: people analytics, i.e. the monitoring of employee data during working hours, the proper implementation of the right to disconnect and other issues arising from the development of working activities in a new technological environment.
  • Shopping in the Metaverse: Fashion and retail companies have a great new opportunity to transform their physical products into digital products to be marketed in the Metaverse or to be used in a traditional digital environment, such as Twitter. Futura supports these companies throughout the entire legal customer journeyto realise the opportunity to sell these products with the help of new technologies such as Extended Reality (XR), blockchain and artificial intelligence.
  • Entertainment in the Metaverse: The Metaverse opens the window to endless new experiences such as playing new video games, travelling, attending music concerts, visiting museums, participating in sporting events or events that do not require physical mobility and are based on the use of certain hardware and technologies that help us to live these experiences at a distance as if they were real. All this entails the need to adapt these business models and these new digital assets to certain compliance rules necessary to carry out the activity in a highly innovative and complex environment that requires the support of lawyers specialised in these matters.

Videogames

The video game industry has become a major player in the global economy. It is an incredibly expanding industry that, year after year, breaks records in turnover, even surpassing well-established entertainment sectors such as music and cinema.

Developers and publishers of video games find themselves moving in a rapidly expanding market of great economic interest where the first challenges consist in understanding how to manage the legal aspects of a given project. The path leading to the publication of a video game is, however, only one of the many faces of a sector where, on the one hand, we observe the emergence of new models, also through hybridisation with other new technologies (e.g. play-to-earn), and on the other hand, we observe the emergence of a real parallel industry, that of e-sports.

Driven by our childhood passion for video games, we provide consultancy in the following areas:

Game development and publishing: we assist players involved in the process of bringing a video game to the market, from the establishment of companies operating in the sector, through B2B contracts (contracts between developers and publishers, protection of intellectual property, middleware licensing, etc.), to B2C issues, including the drafting of legal texts addressed to consumers (terms of service, privacy policy, etc.) and the verification of legal compliance of the product (e.g. implementation of microtransactions and loot-boxes);

Play-to-earn,NFT and Blockchain: in this emerging sector, in addition to the above, we apply our blockchain expertise to provide assistance to players involved in the creation of video games implementing blockchain and NFT and oriented to the play-to-earn model. In particular, we perform legal compliance verification of the video game, the native token, the NFT exchange marketplace, the white paper, the token economy, the website, as well as other promotional materials related to the video game, and provide assistance in the drafting of B2B and B2C legal texts. We also provide legal assistance to communities, guilds or similar groups wishing to structure themselves to play and earn money in an organised way in play-to-earn games, including through incorporation of companies or DAOs, adoption and offering of tokens and creation of liquidity pools.

e-Sports: where sports law embraces the world of video games, so begins the world of e-Sports, a sector in turmoil.

 

Sport & Tech

We provide legal assistance to sports clubs, players, companies and startups that are part of the sports innovation ecosystem in matters such as:

  • Digital Marketing & Image Rights in the world of sport. We support athletes and clubs in the management and correct assignment of image rights in an ecosystem that is increasingly complex from a technological point of view, but which offers new opportunities for economic exploitation.
  • Blockchain in the world of sport. We provide legal advice for the adoption of blockchain technology in sports such as the creation of the so-called Fan Token or NFT.
  • AI in the world of sport. We provide legal assistance in the adoption of artificial intelligence in sports, such as negotiating sports contracts with the help of an artificial intelligence expert.
  • Data economy in the world of sport. We help, from a legal point of view, football clubs and players to manage, protect and exploit their intangible assets - data - in compliance with the law.
  • Go to Market of products or services of innovative start-ups in the sports sector. We provide legal support to the development and commercialisation process of new innovative services or products in the field of sport, through a comprehensive legal service in the field of company law, contract law and the management and protection of innovative assets.