Steve Goldstein

Steve Goldstein is a Partner of the Firm and Chair of the Interactive Entertainment and Video Games practice group. Steve served as an associate of the Firm from 2003 to 2005, and rejoined the Firm in 2009. Prior to rejoining the Firm, Steve acted as Director of Business Development and General Counsel for Flagship Studios, Inc. from 2005 until 2008.

Steve’s practice concentrates on advising clients within the video game industry on legal issues across all aspects of their business, including negotiation of video game publishing agreements, merchandizing agreements, co-marketing agreements and other inbound and outbound licenses regarding the exploitation of video game intellectual property, Internet best practices, drafting of online game privacy policies and terms of use, alternative financing, global corporate structuring, and legal issues related to the use and trade of virtual goods.

Steve’s clients include independent video game developers and publishers in the console, social, casual and massively multiplayer markets, online game operators, and media and technology companies related to the video game industry.

In his role at Flagship, Steve negotiated all of its publishing, co-marketing and ancillary properties agreements, including agreements with Namco Bandai Games America, Inc., Hanbitsoft, Inc., The9 Limited, Massive, Inc., LiveGamer, Inc., Microsoft, Nvidia, Creative Labs, Alienware, Weta Workshop, TOKYOPOP!, Dark Horse Comics and Simon & Schuster, among others. Steve also spearheaded the creation of a multimillion dollar line of credit for Flagship with Comerica Bank based on Flagship’s video game properties. In his capacity with Flagship, Steve co-founded and served as President, Americas & Europe for, Ping0 LLC, a digital publishing and online operations subsidiary of Flagship Studios. Additionally, Steve managed the founding of the Ping0, LLC affiliate, Ping0 Interactive Limited, an Ireland company.

Steve has spoken at a variety of video game related conferences, including Game Developers Conference, Game:: Business:: Law Summit, San Diego Comic-Con, Austin Game Developers Conference, Online Game Developers Conference, Consumer Electronics Show and Law Seminars International’s Gamer Technology Law panel and acts as an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School where he teaches a course on the law of video games and virtual worlds.