Judge Tells Plaintiff That Paying Real Money For Virtual Gold Doesn't Somehow Lead To Gambling Law Violations

from the compounding-losses dept

Mason v. Machine Zone, Inc., wherein a Game of War player falls prey to Gamblor and expects the judicial system to extract her pound of flesh ~$100 from its neon claws.

The suit (PDF) by a Maryland woman named Mia Mason says she lost more than $100 and claims the casino is an unlawful "slot machine or device." The court ruled that were it to apply Mason's logic, one might declare skills-based game pinball to be an illegal gambling device as well.

The judge said that, even if he were to decide in the woman's favor, determining the amount of damages she is owed would render him in the "unenviable position of pricing the conversion from virtual gold and chips to virtual wood and rock."

"Such whimsical undertaking may spark the imaginations of children and ardent game enthusiasts, but it can have no place in federal court," Judge Bredar ruled.

And so it goes throughout the decision, which examines each of Mason's baseless claims in great detail. Mason doesn't have a problem with the main gameplay of Game of War (despite her complaints railing against the evils of free-to-play games), but rather its (entirely optional) "wheel of fortune." The chips to use on the "wheel of fortune" are time-released, which encourages impatient players to spend real money to obtain fake cash to spin the fake wheel to obtain fake money and/or virtual goods (wood, stone, etc.) for use in Game of War's core gameplay.

Mason's paid-for wheel spins evidently failed to return what she perceived to be $100 worth of code and pixels. So, she took the game's creator to court under the dubious legal theory that Game of War's virtual "wheel of fortune" violated California's gambling laws.

The decision is well worth a read, not just for those who enjoy watching judges smack down irresponsible people who seek to hold others accountable for their own actions, but also for those who might be toying with the same sort of dubious legal action. Sure, free-to-play games are incredibly effective at exploiting a variety of human weaknesses, but it hardly follows that the exploiters should be forced to compensate those who participated voluntarily to their own detriment.

Judge James Bredar's decision is full of wonderful moments, most of those hidden away in footnotes:

[D]efendant suggests that if the Casino function constituted the type of gambling activity proscribed in California, “it would be the user’s device itself that was made unlawful” under section 330b, a disconcerting notion given the wild popularity of GoW. Plaintiff retorts that “Defendant controls the software and network that supports the Casino . . . and caused Plaintiff’s device to act as a ‘discrete terminal’ for its Casino.” Plaintiff adds that “even if the phone itself was to be considered a gambling device . . . it’s Defendant’s own conduct . . . that rendered it as such.” Plaintiff’s notion that Defendant is solely responsible for a game that Plaintiff volitionally downloaded to her phone seems dubious…

[...]

In her opposition memorandum, Plaintiff posits that she has standing because Defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct “occurred in and emanated from California.” The Court finds this assertion curious. In her Complaint, Plaintiff had alleged that the United States District Court for the District of Maryland has personal jurisdiction over Defendant because Defendant “conducts significant business transactions in this District, and because the wrongful conduct occurred in and emanated from this District.” Plaintiff, it seems, would have her cake and eat it too.

[...]

Plaintiff paid for the privilege of playing with Defendant’s in-game currency, and she got precisely what she bargained for. Under such circumstances it is not unjust for Defendant to retain the funds it received from Plaintiff; on the contrary, it would be unjust to return those funds to Plaintiff after she benefited from the enhanced gaming experience that “gold” evidently delivers.

[...]

In Plaintiff’s Complaint, she alleges that she spent more than $100 on “gold,” which she thereafter exchanged for chips to spin the Casino wheel. However, Plaintiff conveniently neglects to identify which Casino prizes she won. For all the Court can tell from the face of the Complaint, Plaintiff may have won a pile of “wood”—or a “gold” jackpot.

As the court points out, Game of War's casino-esque "wheel" offers no "real world" payouts, making it less a gambling device and more a vehicle for entertainment. Bredar compares this game dynamic to other things people pay money for while expecting nothing but temporary amusement in return -- like movie tickets.

In the end, it has nothing to do with gambling and everything to do with the plaintiff feeling she was somehow screwed out of her "investment" by Game of War's payouts of virtual construction materials. That, however, isn't an actionable tort.

At the outset of her Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that with free-to-play games of chance, “developers have begun exploiting the same psychological triggers as casino operators.” The Court does not doubt that gambling addiction is a real phenomenon and that the allure of an elusive jackpot can be powerful. Similarly powerful, the Court suspects, is the remorse a buyer may feel when she realizes that she has wittingly swapped her hard-earned cash for simulated gold. The Court does not sit in judgment of the entertainment choices that Plaintiff and others like her have made—but it will not allow Plaintiff to foist the consequences of those choices onto an entertainment purveyor that, at least on the face of this Complaint, appears to have done nothing wrong.

Hopefully, the failure of this lawsuit will discourage future remorseful buyers from bringing baseless lawsuits against companies that are similarly skilled at separating fools from their money. A string of purely voluntary transactions isn't the best basis for a lawsuit. Mason's attempt to use California's gambling laws to sue the game's creator in Maryland proves nothing more than her ongoing ability to be separated from her money.

Filed Under: gambling, game of war, mia mason, virtual gold
Companies: machine zone