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It's like a never ending story, and this time a jab directed at Hearthstone.
I still don't know who's fault this was, the parents who allows their childrens to use their money,
or the Marketing team doing poorly explaining how the lootboxes works and the chances percentages.
But all things considered, this game was actually for childrens. SMH
https://kotaku.com/hearthstone-blizzard-lawsuit-card-packs-minor-warcraft-1848946644
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It's like a never ending story, and this time a jab directed at Hearthstone.
I still don't know who's fault this was, the parents who allows their childrens to use their money,
or the Marketing team doing poorly explaining how the lootboxes works and the chances percentages.
But all things considered, this game was actually for childrens. SMH
https://kotaku.com/hearthstone-blizzard-lawsuit-card-packs-minor-warcraft-1848946644
It's not strictly the focus of their lawsuit, but ultimately they're suing because of "over $300 on Hearthstone between 2019 and 2021". So, basically the kid bought less than the small pre-order each expansion for a few years, and the parent has enough disposable income to not even notice in that time? I don't know how old the kid was, but either they shouldn't have been let anywhere near a credit card, or they were old enough to know to spend 5 minutes Googling the odds and the whole argument that they were too young to understand the odds is utter bs.
HS should always have listed the odds in the client somewhere, but if that was a serious issue they would have been forced into adding this long before 2019. So to me it just looks like a stereotypical American conjuring up lawsuits about anything and everything.
Looks like a bullsh... erh, bovinewaste case.
The kid spent $300 over 3 years on packs...
The article says the Blizzard is hiding the rates of cards in packs which is not true, even they put the image where is a [i] button showing details.
Basically the kid stole the money from his parents to buy cards.
The only thing here worth mentioning is the true fact that blizzard is not publishing the true odds for legendaries/epics and instead we, the audience, have to piece this out from statistical averages based on our own pack openings. Im always up for transparency, especially when lootboxes/card packs come so close if not completely the same as gambling in real life - only without machetes and red paint involved.
As for the story itself, well, let's have the facts here according to the article;
- The parent of a child are proposing a suit on blizzard for “unlawful, deceptive, and misleading” tactics used by the company to entice minors into buying packs in a hopeless pursuit for good cards only to get “valueless Cards that players already have or do not want.”
- This is based on a total 300 bucks spent between 2019 - 2021. The minor have spent it on her parent's credit card without consent
The problem here is that this is hardly the first time (nor will it ever be the last) that advertising strategies have been utilized to make something look much better than it actually is. I mean, politics itself is based entirely on spectacle not cold hard facts. A car advert typically spews loads of garbage, requiring its user to actually do some work to find out the specs. Even the famous XX.99 cents is based entirely on the idea that people look at dollars not cents when making decisions. So in this case, what exactly have blizzard done illegally in order to mislead its customers when buying packs? That's not spelled out.
And then there's also the problem that the amount spent was 300 bucks, within three years. Hardly a predatory amount, and certainly could be a whole lot worse, which suggest that the minor in question have at least average intelligence, does not suffer from any mental illness, and aren't pushed into buying anything she sees.
As for the morality of it...well, I kinda blame her parents more if Im honest. Firstly, why even save your credit card details in there in the first place. And secondly, I thought the whole point of parenting actually involves at least a small amount of monitoring. Blizzard, and doubtless many other merchants, are greedy as fuck; surely a mature grownup should be wise to that and educate their children on the dangers of falling to scams.
And lastly, this case will likely be either dropped or dismissed. Its not the first time Ive seen lootboxes being on trial, and this is perhaps one of the flimsiest suit in my opinion. The parent will save more time and money educating his child, and himself, on how the world works than pursuing this fantasy. Lootboxes may be a scourge of the modern gaming age, but the fight is political, not legal.
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