Tom Buscaglia: The Game Attorney

Tom Buscaglia, The Game Attorney, is a principal in the law firm The Game Attorney PC and is the President of Dev-Biz, Inc., with offices in the Seattle, Washington, area. Tom is admitted to practice in Washington State, Florida and the District of Columbia, as well as in Federal Trial and Appellate Courts, including the United States Supreme Court. In addition to obtaining his Law degree, with honors, from Georgetown University in 1985, Tom holds a B.A. in Philosophy from S.U.N.Y., Buffalo, with honors.

Since 1991, Tom has assisted game developers in all aspects of business and legal matters. He frequently speaks on the game industry business and legal matters and the things that developers should and should not do in order to have a solid business foundation for their studios. He is a perennial presenter at the Game Developers Conference and the Indie Games Con and also speaks regularly to the Simulation and Modeling industry on the value of Game technologies for beneficial interactive multimedia applications outside of the entertainment sector. Tom is listed in the prestigious Legal 500 as one of a select group of attorneys dedicated to representing companies that create video games.

Tom is a Director of the International Game Developers Association, Chairs the IGDA charitable Foundation and heads the IGDA Employment Contract Quality of Life Certification task force. Tom authors a series of articles on Game Law for Gamasutra.com and Game Developer Magazine. He also wrote the chapter entitled “Effective Developer Agreements” for the book, The Secrets of the Game Business. Committed to helping independent game developers get the right start in business, He recently released the Game Dev Kit, a start up developer’s business and legal kit with information and contracts that every start up developer needs.

As FaTe[F8S] Tom is a founder and Supreme Warlord of FaTe’s Minions, an online gaming "clan" that has been competing in various online competitions since January, 1998. As a "hard-core" gamer, Tom plays online on a regular basis and has a gamer's appreciation and understanding of the game industry.