Blizzard in court for underage purchase of Hearthstone card packs

Blizzard is facing a planned class action lawsuit over card packs sold to minors Hearthstoneit’s popular World of WarcraftThemed trading card game. A parent in Arizona claims his child bought hundreds of dollars worth of cards, not realizing how rare it is to get good cards out of packs. And the purchases were non-refundable.

As reported by igamesnews, Earlier this month, Arizona’s Nathan Harris filed the proposed class action lawsuit in California State Superior Court in Orange County. The lawsuit is on behalf of his child and alleges that Blizzard uses “unlawful, fraudulent and deceptive” tactics Hearthstone

. Specifically, Harris and his attorneys allege in court that Blizzard allows children and teenagers to “pay real-world currency to gamble on winning in-game items” and will not issue refunds, even if the purchases were made by a minor. Harris’ legal team argues that children make up “a large portion” of Blizzard’s audience.

In the court record, Harris and his attorneys are slamming Blizzard’s packs of cards, stating that the chances of getting a powerful card are very slim and that Blizzard doesn’t really say it enough, leading many players to spend big bucks to get a good card receive. The lawyers refer to the documents Hearthstone‘s card packs as “mostly worthless,” claiming that they often only offer users “worthless cards that players already have or don’t want.” They claim that if users knew the actual odds of getting legendary cards, they would be far less likely to buy packs.

Harris also has a personal issue with Blizzard. According to court filings earlier this month, that lawsuit was filed after his child spent over $300 Hearthstone between 2019 and 2021. According to Harris, these purchases were made using his credit and debit cards without his permission. The lawsuit notes that the child “almost never received valuable cards” from any packs purchased while playing the free card game. And that she regrets spending so much money on the packs and wishes she could get her money back.

Harris and his attorneys argue that under California family code, Minors should be able to “reject contracts”; in other words, be able to break them, get out of them, or get their money back. Harris and his legal team are asking the court to grant the lawsuit class status, potentially allowing more parents and minors to be recovered.

In response to this proposed class action, Blizzard has filed a motion to refer the case from the California State Superior Court to the California State Superior Court United States District Court in the California Central District, for which Blizzard’s Legal Department claims jurisdiction. Blizzard argues that damages for this case could exceed $5 million, which would allow the case to be moved to the Federal District. Blizzard also disputes all claims made in the proposed class action lawsuit.

my box has reached out to Blizzard for comment on the lawsuit.

Of course, this is far from the only legal issue Blizzard is currently facing. The company is part of the larger publisher Activision Blizzard faced several lawsuits after it became known last year that the company was under investigation toxic, sexist and racist working conditionsas well as sexual harassment and other appalling behavior.

Since this became public, the company has seen high-level departures, experienced strikesand faced other fallout than it will continue to be fought in court about several cases.