Interactive + Gaming

Working as trusted sounding boards and business advisors, our attorneys in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami work seamlessly with firms and attorneys around the world to provide a full suite of services and experienced counsel to our clients.

Providing a Full Suite of Service and Capabilities

We take a strategic approach to providing a holistic range of services for developers, publishers, financiers, and other companies in the gaming ecosystem. At each stage of a games industry client’s lifecycle, Pryor Cashman attorneys offer leading legal advice across our interconnected practice groups. We negotiate development and publishing agreements to help clients produce, distribute, and monetize their games; create IP portfolio growth and protection strategies; and provide privacy and compliance counsel.

Every client has access to our tax, immigration, real estate, banking and finance attorneys, ensuring the best outcomes so you can focus on creating the best games and experiences for your audiences.

Turning Games Into Transmedia Brands

Pryor Cashman’s attorney teams help videogame rightsholders expand their intellectual property into major entertainment brands. We are industry leaders in sophisticated “transmedia” deals for film, television, and podcast adaptations of games, and regularly structure complex rights deals to help videogame rightsholders maintain creative input and participation in upside.

As one of the few firms with established expertise across both traditional and interactive entertainment, we help videogame companies use their most valuable IP to segue into entertainment and help identify IP that can be built out into exciting and innovative games. We are also highly experienced in licensing and merchandising deals to help clients extend and monetize their brands across a suite of products.

Financing and Investing in Gaming Companies

For developers and publishers, Pryor Cashman helps clients obtain funding, negotiate agreements, and facilitate initial and secondary public offerings. We counsel investment banks and other institutional lenders on financing startups and funding mature companies, conducting due diligence, reviewing technology and vendor contracts, and preparing offering and disclosure documents.

Conducting Legal Review and Risk Analysis

Today’s video games are complex endeavors that incorporate thousands of assets and elements, and may include real-life names and likenesses, third-party materials, and user-generated content. As a result, legal review is of paramount importance to assess and mitigate risk prior to launch.

Our legal review team is among the strongest in the nation, with decades of experience in vetting media and entertainment content. We are regularly retained by companies seeking to evaluate risk and minimize exposure as they assess the insurability of potential projects, and we partner with clients to help develop effective strategies to identify and pursue viable opportunities.

Providing Litigation Support

The legal challenges for video game developers, publishers, and other stakeholders are as plentiful and diverse as both the content that they create and the interests and agendas at the center of their disputes. These challenges only increase as the media used to create and exploit content expands.

With one of the most comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and vertically integrated IP ligation practices in the country, Pryor Cashman has been at the forefront of transformative litigation in the media and entertainment industry for more than 50 years. We have achieved major victories in both state and federal trial courts, have won some of the most significant appeals of the past few decades, and have helped to shape intellectual property law as it evolves in the digital and streaming age, leading to top-tier recognition by Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500.

Maximizing and Protecting IP

Pryor Cashman’s renowned Intellectual Property Group knows the vital importance of IP to our clients. We work with video game developers and publishers from the inception of their projects in order to preserve and protect their valuable intellectual property by registering trademarks and copyrights, and negotiating appropriate third-party agreements. We help clients negotiate the purchase and sale of mature technology companies, as well as portfolios of trademarks, patents, and other valuable IP assets.

Our team also has experience advising senior executives and boards of directors on the development and implementation of innovative strategies for the monetization of proprietary technologies and related intellectual property.

Guiding Cross-Border Transactions

Doing business internationally requires staying compliant with national laws and regulations, knowing the markets, and accommodating cultural differences that impact negotiations and effective management. In an array of sophisticated cross-border engagements, Pryor Cashman lawyers evaluate and negotiate transactions for international companies pursuing foreign direct investment in the U.S., and U.S. clients expanding their operations and distribution into new markets. Our familiarity with both the cultural and legal barriers that may arise for foreign investors enables us to offer clients insight regarding investment opportunities and to foresee potential opportunities, hurdles, or pitfalls that others cannot.

We counsel clients as they secure capital, grow/extend their businesses across national boundaries, and enter global markets. Analyzing both the legal and economic aspects of transactions, we help companies, individuals, and funds evaluate both inbound and outbound investment opportunities, adhere to complex U.S. regulations and laws, and negotiate mergers and acquisitions. Additionally, we advise on joint ventures and licensing agreements, assist with intellectual property portfolio valuation and optimization, conduct due diligence, and provide clients guidance with respect to the extraterritorial application of U.S. law, in particular of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and U.S. international sanction regime.

Facilitating Immigration Services for Top Talent

Gaming is a global business, and our immigration and global mobility attorneys work with companies and individuals to ensure that international creators, designers, engineers, and executives can travel and work in the United States and abroad. From visa options to quick-turnaround passport renewals, our team’s contacts and know-how can make sure your people are where they need to be when they need to be there.