Game Blotter - A roundup of crimes, legal cases, and when "the law" gets involved with gamesPolice responding to reports of anguished screams coming from an apartment in Oslo found only a man upset at losing games of Chess to his computer.

Police responding to a domestic disturbance in New Hampshire arrested a woman for slapping her boyfriend in an argument over a game of Monopoly.

A more serious argument took place in Utah, where a father accusing his daughter at cheating on a game of Battleship did so at the point of a rifle.

A board member of the Icelandic Scrabble Society resigned in disagreement with the other board members over the rules for compound words.

When a Brooklyn Nets fan tweeted that he’d miss part of their game because of Scrabble Club, the team tweeted back, calling him a nerd. Oops!

Political unrest in Yemen forced the last-minute relocation of the Asian Junior Chess Championship.

Political unrest in Hong Kong has been turned in to a board game—the Umbrella Revolution in to a version of Snakes & Ladders.

Unrest and civil war is the subject of a board game being developed in Ukraine. This one’s more of a miniatures combat game.

In Spain, it’s government corruption they’re turning in to a board game, appropriately called Corruptopolis.

In Cook County they’re using games in the service of politics. To break a tie in the election for the Cook County Board, two candidates were going to draw Scrabble tiles, with the first to pull the “Z” declared the winner. However, election judges were afraid that the candidates would be able to feel the letters on the tiles. So instead, they rolled dice.

The Neptune Beach City Council election tie was broken by the draw of numbered Ping Pong balls.

Poland’s National Remembrance Institute is using a board game, Regulation: The Coupons Game, to educate younger audiences about communist-era rationing.

After allegedly playing Mahjong when he should have been participating in a police drug raid, a government official in Talisay City, Cebu province, Philippines is himself under arrest.

A European Union court has upheld a trademark for the shape of a Rubik’s Cube. A competing toymaker had argued that the puzzle’s mechanical features made a patent more appropriate.

Police in Dublin were called to a store where customers were fighting over a Frozen Elsa doll. In Nottinghamshire, Frozen dolls, umbrellas, watches, backpacks, and blankets determined to be counterfeit were seized by the County Council.

A website that published 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons material shut down after being sent a cease and desist letter from Wizards of the Coast.

A Hasbro complaint against Imperial Toy has been rejected by the California court. Hasbro claimed that Imperial failed to follow a contract-mandated out-0f-court conflict resolution process when the latter sued it for unpaid NERF royalties.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has cleared Hasbro of extorting children for money via in-app purchases that are part of the Littlest Pet Shop mobile game.

A 7 year-old in the UK made a board game about his heroes, the police. Then he got to meet them.

Police in Livermore, California are warning parents about the dangers posed by teenagers playing Assassin. The principal of the local high school has threatened to suspend any student caught with a toy gun on school grounds.

A student in the Czech Republic designed a roll-and-move trivia game, Konečně Doma (Finally Home), to teach seniors how to avoid falling victim to scams. The charitable organization, Krása Pomoci (Beauty of Help), is publishing the game.

When someone in a car started shooting at a group of people playing dice on the street in Miami, the dice players shot back. Still, one of them died later at the hospital.

In Thailand, a man who felt mistreated by the operator of a home-based high-low dice game went back to his own home, dug up a buried assault-rifle, returned to the site of the game, and shot it up, killing two and wounding 10.

A New Jersey man accused of driving the getaway car in a 2012 dice game murder will face trial after rejecting a plea deal. Meanwhile, a Mississippi man pleaded no-contest to manslaughter charges for killing someone in Lincoln, Nebraska over a $20 dice game.

Two people inside a Louisiana home were shot by someone outside because of a mid-afternoon “unresolved dice game“.

A shooting death after a game of Dominoes in Belton, Texas was declared self-defense.