Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news – in this case, all happy fun lawsuits.
Stadia: Consumers are waging a new class action lawsuit against Google and multiple other games companies, this one largely centering on Stadia. Why? Well, remember back when Google was talking up Stadia’s 4K gaming qualities, but then then it backtracked and the games couldn’t actually do it? Yeah, people are pissed, or at least their lawyers are. The suit alleges Google and the other plaintiffs made misleading claims about Stadia in violation of every state’s consumer protection statutes and seeking punitive damages. (via MMO Fallout)
Bethsoft: The soon-to-be-owned-by-Microsoft company is dealing with another class-action lawsuit of its own, this one years old, and it’s about Fallout – but not Fallout 76. Gamers are suing the company for deceptive marketing and fraud in regard to Fallout 4’s season pass and Creation Club, the latter of which was as implemented a sneaky way of charging for de facto DLC that wouldn’t be incorporated in the season pass itself. The suit was filed back in 2019 in Maryland, though the plaintiffs have expressed concerns that given Bethesda’s past history with acquisitions and shell companies seemingly used to dodge financial culpability with respect to class-actions, Bethsoft might try it again with Microsoft. ““What we’re going to try and do is go in and ask a judge to stop the sale between Microsoft and Bethesda to preserve the assets,” the plaintiff told VentureBeat. If there’s a trial, it’s like to start next year.
CD Projekt Red: Earlier this month, hackers busted into the Cyberpunk 2077 studio’s servers and stole gobs of source code for multiple CDPR games, attempting to ransom it back to the developer, which of course did not work. The hackers ultimately claimed to have auctioned it off on the black market, and now apparently the data are leaking into the wild, with CDPR issuing DMCA takedowns on Twitter. (via Gamasutra)
Epic Games: Finally, yet another class-action lawsuit in the gamespace appears to be heading toward an end. This one was lodged against Epic Games over Loot Llamas – basically random lockboxes. While the suit isn’t officially over, Epic acting on a preliminary approval for the settlement to grant all players who bought one 1000 V-Bucks (or 1000 Rocket League Credits for those crates). It’s 1000 total, not per box, and apparently the settlement includes an additional $26.4 potential compensation for “additional legal harm” from those lootboxes. (via Kotaku)
