MMO Business Roundup: ESAs tariff statement, the LA wildfires, and EAs Battlefield Labs [Video]

Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news. Business business business.

LA wildfires: If you followed the LA wildfires closely last month, you might remember the story about a Canadian firefighting plane that was grounded after somebody ran a drone into its wing. It’s extremely illegal to run drones over emergency areas like that, for obvious reasons. Well, the story is back because not only did officials find the dude responsible, he’s from our neck of the woods: The perpetrator was Peter Akemann, known to the gaming industry as the co-founder of Treyarch (the Call of Dutycompany bought out by Activision decades ago) and most recently the president of Skydance Interactive. Akemann pleaded guilty to one count of unsafe operation of a drone, though he’s avoided prison with 150 hours of community service and the cost of the damage to the plane (around $66,000). (For what it’s worth, it doesn’t sound like Akemann intended any of this; it seems …