Square Enix Sued For $5 Million Over FFXI
A San Franciscan gamer filed a class action lawsuit against Square Enix this week, claiming deceptive advertising, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment. (I thought unjust enrichment was when the school bully gets a good math tutor...) The suit seeks $5 million in damages:
"This case narrowly focuses on Defandants deceptive advertising, unfair advertising, and fraudulent concealment to conceal certain critical information about their online games. The deceptive advertising, unfair and undisclosed business practices, and concealment concern, among others:1. Licensing of the online games software disguised as a sale
2. Monthly fees ("fees") to play online games
3. Penalties for late payment fees
4. Interest charges for late payment fees
5. Charges while the online game account is suspended
6. Termination of the right to use the online game for late payment of the fees
7. User restrictions and conditions related to the online games
8. Termination of game data for late payment of the fees
Aside from misspelling 'defendants,' those are some pretty hairy accusations - well, except for #1 and #2 and #7, which sound more like descriptors of the standard MMO business model. Late fees and charges-while-suspended on the other hand, sound a little shadier.
The filing estimated that others willing to join the suit "will number greater than 100,000," based on the "Defendant's online game database," whatever that turns out to mean, exactly. We expect to see some more specific allegations in an amendment to the complaint, otherwise the suit won't make it past the summary judgment.
Class Sues Online Gamer Square Enix [Courthouse News via Gamasutra]
tiny dancer
Posted to MMOs, Video Games on 25 June 2009
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: class action, ffxi, final fantasy xi, mmo, square enix
I'm very curious about this. I wonder if I can join the class-action lawsuit...
1. Welcome to the Digital Millenium o.o Where the hell have you been?
2. Welcome to 1995...seriously...where the hell have you been? And did you misplace your glasses or just not read the box?
3. Ah, clearly you were in a world where you don't get charged fees for late payment. That's a pretty neat place. I oughta visit...
4. ...what? o.o Oh, you mean where your credit card company will charge you interest on the extra fee charge that is placed on your card? Yeaah...welcome to credit cards =O
5. This one's actually interesting, if true...but certainly not worth $5 million...maybe the $10-20 for the month or two you didn't notice cause you weren't paying attention to your account statement.
6. ...umm...if you don't pay for the service you can't have that service. This isn't new =O
7. ...what the hell does that even MEAN? It sounds like trying to sue the government because you're not allowed to shoot someone in the face...-_-;
8. Pretty sure that's pointed out quite plainly in the ToS that if your account is inactive for some period of time your character and crap is deleted.
Frivolous lawsuits should be met with criminal charges, imo -_-;
I would not be surprised if the judge throws this out of the court, or if it gets shot down pretty quickly. Most of that stuff is standard business. The only thing that MIGHT stand up are the late fees that are charged, and only then if they were not in the user agreement that he had to agree to when signing up. I'm sort of surprised that a lawyer agreed to represent these people.
I kinda wanna know how these people want 5 million in damages.
I can say first hand that most of those are crap but I DO think it's crappy that SE will close your account for non-payment of a subscription AND THEN charge you a fee (on top of the subscription) to re-open the account. If you don't pay in 30 days they then charge you ANOTHER interest fee. This can go on for up to 6 months (which is 3 months AFTER they deleted your character).
My story:
I started playing FFXI when it launched in the US. About a year later I started a new job and didn't really play much anymore because I had to travel 90% of the time. Anyway I continued my subscription because I was aware of the fact that *if* I canceled my account they would delete my character and it became a hassle to remember when I needed to pay them again every 2-3 months.
About a year later (this whole time period I had been paying them and not playing the game) my bank sent me a new debit card. SE tried to bill me... but guess what. That card was no longer in use. Since I wasn't playing (and truly had forgotten I even was paying them) I had no clue until they sent me a letter about 7 months later telling me that I owed them $432 and that they were going to report me to credit bureaus if I didn't pay up.
I am going to try my best to support this lawsuit and see if I can't get in on it myself.