Perhaps missed in the September issue of the International Game Developer's Association's monthly "Perspectives" newsletter, lies an interesting analysis of the legal issues surrounding the #gamergate debacle. Written by Suzanne Jackiw, a 3L at Chicago-Kent University of Law, "The Legal Issues of #GamerGate" delves into the questions of cyberbullying, harassment, and defamation that have been so closely associated with the GamerGate "movement".

Riot Games has deployed a new update that puts in place a method for better controlling "toxic" League of Legends players from ranked matches, Eurogamer reports.

YouTube's most popular personality PewDiePie has decided that, going forward, he will turn off comments on all of his videos. In his latest video he explains in great detail why he thinks comments on his videos are mostly useless and an aggravation to deal with.

"I go to the comments, and it's mainly spam, it's people self-advertising, people that are trying to provoke, people who reply to all these...just all this stuff that, to me, it doesn't mean anything," he says in the video.

Last night a founding member of the popular YouTube channel The Creatures was the victim of swatting, and the entire incident was caught on his live stream. Jordan "Kootra" Mathewson was playing Counter-Strike on a live-stream when a SWAT team showed up and took him to the floor of his office at gunpoint.

"Uh oh, this isn't good," Kootra said during the live stream. "They're clearing rooms - what in the world? I think we're getting swatted."

Twitch profiles for the official PlayStation, Xbox, and eSports League (ESL) channels were compromised or hacked by an unknown third-party yesterday, according to this Polygon report. That unknown person or persons altered highlights in all the channels with various messages - some of which were racist and homophobic.

Riot Games is cracking down on League of Legends players who think it is cool to use slurs and those who engage in "unsportsmanlike behavior" by handing out 14-day or permanent bans.

In a thread on Reddit, Riot's Jeffrey Lin provided some more clarity, and explained that manual reviews of complaints are present to ensure people are not unfairly banned.

In last week's poll we asked our readers, "Has a Video Game Ever Made You So Mad You Broke the Controller?" The majority of votes seemed to indicate that almost half of respondents have enough control not to break a controller either because it is defective or because the game someone is playing becomes too frustrating.

A new survey released by Gamasutra reveals a disturbing fact about YouTube gaming personalities; of those who participated in a survey, around 26 percent admitted that they had taken money directly or indirectly to promote a game or brand from a publisher.

A requirement for Finland's Assembly Summer 2014 Hearthstone competition has outraged the gaming community. According to this PC Gamer report, an announcement page for the Hearthstone qualifier reveals that "The participation is open only to Finnish male players." The qualifier's organizers, the Finnish eSports Federation, are taking a lot of heat for this requirement and for their explanation why they have decided to separate and/or exclude players based on gender.

According to this Huffington Post report, a sore (and unidentified) loser who lost a game of Call of Duty match sent a police SWAT team to his opponent's house. According to the report, which is based on reporting from the New York Post, a police SWAT team was dispatched to a Long Island, N.Y.

Respawn's website for Titanfall introduces a new section explaining what happens to players who are flagged as cheaters. According to the information on the site, if you are flagged as a cheater, you will be banned from normal servers and corralled into a special "cheater's only" category that limits your online play to matchmaking with your own kind.

On the question of "what happens" when you get banned, Respawn offers the following answer:

A Chicago man is being held on $1,000 bond after being arrested for allegedly continuing to play a video game for more than two hours while his two-year-old stepson suffered with a broken leg. According to the Chicago Tribune, 19-year-old Luis Matienzo would not stop playing Grand Theft Auto V - even as his stepson sat crying in a playpen because he was suffering from a broken leg.

A Tulsa, Oklahoma man and his wife have been arrested by police after a maintenance man found their four year-old daughter locked in a closet. The man, 26-year-old Darren Nashburn, said that he locked his daughter in the closet because she was throwing things and because he didn't want to be distracted while playing video games.

Way back in October of 2012 we asked our readers in a poll "How Many Unplayed Games Do You Own?" With Steam Early Access, Humble Bundle sales and sales on digital and retail console games, many of our readers admitted that they had a shameful backlog of titles that they had yet to play or install.

A 22-year-old Tennessee mother has been charged with abuse and neglect in connection with the March 2013 death of her three-year-old daughter, according to an Associated Press report republished on The Times Free Press.

A Van Buren County grand jury indicted Samantha Brymer-Armstrong on Tuesday related to the March death of her daughter, Kayleigh Armstrong, who was found unresponsive in a swimming pool at their home in Spencer, Tennessee. She died the next day.

Does an abusive and abrasive community scare away game development talent? That depends on how far individuals in such a community are willing to go in order to express their disdain for what a game developer is doing. When members of a community think that it is acceptable to wish death or a sexual assault on someone, it has a very real affect on game developers - or anyone else in the public eye.

A wheelchair-bound gamer who regularly appeared on Twitch.tv has been accused of faking his disability after he stood up and walked while on camera. No, he was not broadcasting live from a faith healers temple - he just sort of did it while his camera was on. Now he is facing the outrage and wrath of the gaming community and the punitive verdict of Twitch.tv, according to Eurogamer.

GameSpot reports that Riot Games has issued bans to three European Team Solo Mebdi players for what they describe as widespread in-game verbal abuse. Riot Games has issued a lifetime ban for professional League of Legends player Khaled Abusagr of Team Solo Mebdi. Riot said that he engaged in a consistent pattern of in-game verbal abuse, racism, anti-Semitism, and threatening behavior.

Two more League of Legends professional eSports players have been permanently banned from competition, according to word from Riot Games (by way of Polygon and PC Gamer).

Ilyes 'Stephano' Satouri, a 19-year old French professional StarCraft II player found himself at the business end of a half-month suspension after joking over Battle.net during a professional competition that he had had sex with a 14-year-old girl. Stephano's comments earned him a suspension without pay for the month of October, according to a GameSpot report.

Minecraft creator and Mojang co-founder Markus 'Notch' Persson is very unhappy about an incident that happened at his PAX Minecraft party (which, to be clear, was an off-site, private party) and the way the on-site security handled the situation. The grisly details of the sexual assault are detailed by the victim, an attendee named Ky. She recounts the horrific event on her blog:

Yesterday we mentioned that Steam Greenlight was having lots of trouble dealing with smart alecks and trolls posting fictitious games in its new indie game discovery program. Today Valve has come up with a solution: anyone who wants to submit a game to the service for consideration will have to pay $100. The money will apparently go to the Child's Play charity.

If you were expecting smooth sailing with Steam Greenlight, Valve's new community initiative that lets them decide which indies should get on Steam in the timeliest manner, then you are probably delusional. While the core idea of it works, there's always going to be people that use the system to basically waste people's time and be offensive.

The official Twitter feed for the country of Sweden, @Sweden is being handled this week by Naseer Alkhouri, a game developer who describes himself as a "homeopathic swede" that "develops games for a living." Sweden has a policy of letting its citizens "guest-star" every week to speak their minds.

In episode 15 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about Harry Potter games, OUYA's Kickstarter success and pre-order, a dehydrated teen, piracy, free-to-play spending, and Nintendo and Sony's trouble getting third-party developers to love their hand-helds. Download Episode 15 here: SuperPAC Episode 15 (1 Hour, 5 Minutes).

Gamers Against Bigotry, a site that asked gamers to take a pledge promising not to use bigoted language while playing games online, announced that it has lost 1500 signatures due to repeated attacks from hackers. The site has faced some tough challenges from months of repeated attacks from hackers who have done everything from posting "grotesque images" on the website's signatures page, to making it impossible for new visitors to sign on to the pledge.

Three men attending Shinboku-con 2011 in Westlake, Ohio this weekend ended their attendance to the three-day anime/video game/culture event by going to jail. Police arrested two attendees of the anime and video game conference at about 7:15 p.m. on April 30. The two men, a 27-year-old Cleveland resident and a 21-year-old Canal Fulton man, got into an argument over how the younger gentleman was playing an undisclosed video game. The younger man was so agitated by the critique that he punched the other man in the mouth an hour after the initial argument. Police arrested the younger man for assault. The older man, proving just how stupid he is, decided to spit on an officer. Both men were released later that evening.

To quote a poignant line from Ground Hog Day, "don't drive angry!" But that is exactly what video game players do. A new study by  UK-based tire manufacturer Continental Tyres found that people who spend time playing driving games are more dangerous when behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.

The study cited Gran Turismo and Grand Theft Auto as two games that had a particularly bad influence on players. In other words, they took the virtual driving skills out into the real world. The study asked 2,000 motorists (half gamers, half non-gamers) between the ages of 17 and 39 on their driving habits. Though gamers believe they are more skilled than the average driver, many also say they take higher risks and making more claims on their insurance as a result.

"Gamers take more risks than non-gamers, possibly due to the lack of real consequences in the game," said Tim Bailey, safety expert at Continental Tyres.

Testimony in a Wichita, Kansas murder case that revolves around Madden NFL 2010 began this week in Wichita Kansas. A judge began hearing the events that lead to the death of one man at the hands of two brothers after an argument over cheating in the video game.

While playing Madden NFL 2010, 22-year-old Luke German was accused of cheating by two brothers - 26-year-old Christopher Redgate and 22-year-old Benjamin Redgate. The argument escalated, prosecutors say, into an assault with a metal pipe that lead to German's death. The brothers face second-degree murder charges for the crime. A medical examiner determined that German died of multiple blunt-force trauma injuries and strangulation.

A judge began hearing testimony about the October fight in a preliminary hearing for Christopher Redgate. His brother waived his right to a preliminary hearing in the Sedgwick County District Court.

An episode recap of the MTV's 16 and Pregnant reality show entitled "There's Nothing Wrong with Video Games" follows the trials and travails of teen parents Megan and Nathan. Nathan seems to be more preoccupied with lip rings and dungeon dwelling than being a father, while Megan hasn't grown up enough to give up rainbows and ponies.. There is also a lot of talk about a lack of tough love, but who cares? Let's get to the video game references: