[Guest Book Review] Copyright, Contract, and Video Games: Terms of Use

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[Guest Book Review] Copyright, Contract, and Video Games: Terms of Use

 Söğüt Atilla-Aydın Thursday, August 13, 2026 - Book review, contract, copyright, Sarath Ninan Mathew, video games

The IPKat has received and is pleased to host the review of “Copyright, Contract, and Video Games: Terms of Play” written by Amy Thomas. This book review has been prepared by Katfriend Sarath Ninan Mathew (University of Oxford). Here is what Sarath writes:

Amy Thomas’s Copyright, Contract, and Video Games: Terms of Play analyses the licensing agreements used by thirty popular video games and draws out three themes that these contracts appear to propagate. This book is the latest of several recent academic works on video game contracts and there is a reason for this focused attention on game contracts. The contracts operate as specialised tools through which the games’ publishers attempt to exercise total control over creative uses of their games. Conventionally, copyright laws view artistic creativity as a good thing that the law must encourage. Through mechanisms such as fair dealing, copyright laws attempt to keep open a safety valve through which even existing copyright works may be used for specified creative activities. Video game contracts confuse and obscure the application of these laws and extend the conceptual reach of the game publishers’ copyright. Consequently, video game contracts are not only of interest to video game scholars but also to researchers working on critical copyright scholarship, exceptions and limitations, and the interaction of copyright and contract law. As a dedicated monograph on copyright law and game contracts, Thomas’s work substantially advances the literature in this area. 

Chapter-wise analysis

This book is organised into six substantive chapters. The first three chapters are introductory.

Chapter 1 highlights competing characterisations of the video game player in copyright law. Thomas highlights case law across jurisdictions that has examined whether players may qualify as copyright authors or performers. There is decidedly more material on authorship than on performance, and the analysis in the book reflects that reality. Ultimately, the chapter determines that copyright laws view the player as the ‘user’ of a copyright work. This term is nebulous by design and capable of varied meanings depending on the context.

Chapter 2 introduces video game contracts. It is split into two parts. The first part consists of a detailed and helpful literature review on the contractual override of copyright defences and copyright overreach. This is followed by a historical analysis of video game contracts. Thomas explains how, over time, the primary identity of players in game contracts transformed from co-creator to suspected pirate and finally to a limited and conditional user of a service.

Chapter 3 discusses the methodological choices adopted in analysing the thirty video game contracts. The analysis is premised on Critical Discourse Analysis, a qualitative research methodology that studies reality as constructed through discourse. Using this methodology, Thomas reimagines contracts as speech. Rather than simply explaining contract terms, Thomas opens a window through which readers can hear games publishers speak. This tonal shift, that converts dry contractual text into active speech that displays the speakers’ ideological biases, is at the heart of what makes the book engaging to read.

Chapters 4-6 describe the three themes that the book identifies from the video game contracts: authority, access, and artifice. Under authority (discussed in Chapter 4), Thomas shows how video game contracts, through both their tone and their content, seek to reinforce the authority of the publisher over the player. Notably, Thomas explains how independent game developers differ from established AAA studios in their approach to authority. There is greater willingness amongst independent developers to view the player as an equal stakeholder and to present contractual terms in a playful rather than authoritative manner.

Chapter 5 discusses the theme of access. As highlighted in the book, this is a theme with almost no variance. All contracts, regardless of the studio behind the game or distribution channels, provide that players have no ownership rights over either the game or even a copy of the game that they purchased. The players are only granted a limited and conditional right of access. The contractual language goes to great lengths to portray resale (which is generally a right afforded to consumers) as both a contractual violation and morally reprehensible conduct. Thomas highlights the contradictions and hypocrisy inherent in this stance as game studios routinely adopt the language of ‘sale’ to describe their relationship with the player in anti-piracy statements and other contexts where it benefits them to present the player as a consumer. This protean identity ascribed to players to suit the interests of publishers is a major finding that is repeatedly explored across the book.

Chapter 6 discusses the artifice underlying how game publishers approach player creativity. Player creativity in various forms, such as esports, is highly beneficial to the video game publisher in sustaining interest in their games. Consequently, studios employ separate policies and social media announcements using friendly language that purports to value the creative labour provided by the players. Thomas characterises this as an instance of artifice as the base contract that governs the players are drafted in a wholly one-sided fashion wherein the publisher retains the right to use user-generated works in any capacity including for commercial gain; while the player is prohibited from commercial gain except in highly circumscribed scenarios.

Closing thoughts

A Kat enjoying his new book before jumping into his favourite game...

This book suffers from one limitation that has been common to all the recent video game contract studies. There is little consideration of how these contracts are perceived by players. The book offers a sustained analysis on the distribution channels through which the contracts are presented, but this does not clarify whether players follow the contracts. This could ordinarily be seen as an area for further research rather than a weakness. However, the book repeatedly characterises game contracts as instances of publishers exercising power over players. The question then becomes where that power lies. One cannot be sure that the power comes from contract law as it is not clear whether these terms would withstand scrutiny under consumer protection law and contract law. The power could lie in community norms if we knew that players, by and large, considered themselves bound by the contract. Analysis on this aspect would have provided further nuance to the claim about publisher power advanced in the book. 

Overall, the book remains a valuable and accessible contribution to both copyright law and games studies. Previous studies that conducted empirical analyses of video game contracts stopped at the level of highlighting the clauses commonly found in such contracts. This book goes a step further and ties these common clauses to three identifiable themes which in turn provides an appropriate framework from which to critique the contracts.

Details

Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2026

Extent: 208 pages

Format: Hardback and e-book

ISBN: 978 1 50998 806 8

Image credit: ChatGPT  

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