A young American player is suing Nintendo for charging for the possibility of obtaining bonuses in the game. But according to him, the very slim probability of winning was not explicitly reported to players.
He will have spent more than 170 dollars (157 euros) with his father’s credit card without his permission. A month ago, an underage gamer sued Nintendo. The young plaintiff accuses the publisher of having pushed him to pay to win random rewards on Mario Kart Tour (mobile version of the famous driving game), without detailing the actual chances of players obtaining it, as informed by Gizmodo on May 22, 2023, citing a report by Axios.
The plaintiff asserts that the Japanese multinational carried out an act ” immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous and/or materially offensive to consumers “. These actions would also violate the consumer protection code in force in the State of Washington. Originally qualified as a “class action” procedure, the action is now continuing before the Californian courts.
Ruby Pipes, a system of “loot boxes” criticized
Nintendo is definitely struggling to escape the controversy over its ways of monetizing bonuses in the Mario Kart Tour driving game. Originally, players could randomly unlock drivers, vehicles, or gliders by purchasing the right « pull the pipe ” (THE ” Spotlight Blowjob “commonly called “gacha pipe”), payable in rubies, the currency of the game. Each test cost 5 rubies, corresponding to approximately 3 dollars (or 4 euros when we tested in 2019).
This system of “loot boxes” (” loot boxes ”) which consists of offering additional paid content whose content remains unknown until opening is regularly criticized when it targets young players ready to spend lavishly. Some complain that the sums spent do not correspond to the value obtained on the game.
When Numerama tested the ruby pipes in 2019, we first obtained a wing, then a kart, the equivalent of 10 rubies or around 8 euros (i.e. 4 euros per object). In this example, given that the objects were sold for 500 gold coins in the shop, and a character for 800 coins, the use had proved interesting in the event of finding a character. If it is a wing, you will have spent too much.
Mario Kart Tour was already banned in Belgium for this reason
Via Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo would have earned no less than 293 million dollars between 2019 and 2022, according to information from Games Industry.biz. Some countries have already banned loot boxes like Belgium, where the game Mario Kart Tour is also not available, although it is possible to circumvent the blocking.
Many game publishers have also disabled this type of microtransactions. Nintendo followed suit last October, ending Ruby Pipes. Instead, it is now possible to buy bonuses directly from the in-game store, the Spotlight Shop.
The player would not have almost never received a valuable reward »
The complaint in question concerns the period between 2021 and 2022, during which the ruby pipes were still active. The young player would have spent undue sums in this system at the time. ” The Complainant hardly ever received any valuable rewards from the Spotlight Pipes he purchased during the time he spent playing Mario Kart Tour and would never have spent so much on the game knowing his true chances of getting a reward from the Spotlight Pipe, or that he would not be entitled to a refund “, is it noted in the court file. Nintendo has yet to comment on the matter, as of this writing.
This isn’t the first lawsuit against a video game publisher over the practices surrounding these loot boxes. Last December, Epic Games was fined $520 million for tricking children into spending money on Fortniteby allowing unauthorized purchases (including by their parents) via “obscure schemes”.
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