Washington State is accusing Nintendo of alleged illegal gambling in Mario Kart Tour through the mobile game’s loot boxes. The lawsuit is in relation to Nintendo’s newest implementation in the racing game called the Spotlight Shop that opened in September of 2022.
The plaintiff who filed the lawsuit against Nintendo is a youth that once previously played Mario Kart Tour. Allegedly, the plaintiff spent nearly two hundred dollars on Mario Kart Tour microtransactions with the use of their father’s credit card attached to the Nintendo user account. They argue that minors are susceptible to participating in systems that revolve around surprise rewards and, allegedly, Nintendo has taken advantage of that. The plaintiff and their father demand that Nintendo refunds all minors in the United States who used real-world money in Mario Kart Tour. More specifically, those who spent any real-world money for the loot boxes in the Spotlight Shop are the ones who should receive a refund. This lawsuit could potentially become a class action lawsuit against Nintendo over the morality of loot boxes and microtransactions.
“Defendant’s loot box mechanism capitalized on and encouraged addictive behaviors akin to gambling,” according to the suit.
In the past, players could invest money to activate gacha pipes for chances of unlocking random prizes and upgrades. These gacha pipes were later replaced with the Spotlight Shop that fulfilled the same role. The lawsuit against Nintendo argues that the gacha pipes allegedly promoted gambling due to the random nature of the rewards that players must spend money on. In addition, the plaintiff argues that Nintendo allegedly purposefully made the game difficult to progress without purchasing these loot boxes to get the upgrades they needed in Mario Kart Tour. Thereby, forcing players to spend tons of money on loot boxes for the chance of getting the items they needed to progress. Essentially, players were allegedly forced to spend more money than they wanted. The lawsuit claims that these practices are, allegedly, violation against California Business Law and Washington State’s Consumer Protection Act. Nintendo has since changed the Spotlight Shop to allow players to buy upgrades directly, but the lawsuit still stands. The plaintiff filed the lawsuit in March, but since persisting outside of state into the federal courts has garnered more attention as of last week.
Microtransactions have proven to be the most lucrative method of generating profits in the video game industry. Monetization in modern games has been scrutinized by the gaming community for a while now. However, it seems that just recently these practices have come to the attention of many government and legal officials. In fact, the United States Federal Trade Commission imposed 520 million dollar penalty on Epic Games for their alleged violation of privacy policies and deceptive, unwanted charges of their Fortnite players. Another case was in Austria when a judge allegedly accused Electronic Arts for illicit gambling practices in FIFA Ultimate Team. Other European countries, like Belgium and the Netherlands, have banned loot boxes and other similar practices altogether; companies are not allowed to implement these mechanics into their games unless they have a gambling license.
However, some opposition has posed microtransactions in a slightly different light. For example, Justice Margot Fleming ruled a class action lawsuit against Electronic Arts in regards to the loot boxes were not considered gambling. She stated, “Unlike a casino chip, virtual currency and virtual items in loot boxes can never be ‘cashed out’ to gain money.” Therefore, they did not constitute as gambling as loot boxes have no real-world value. Despite this, Justice Fleming did rule the actions to be allegedly deceptive in nature.