An Arizona father has brought a potential class-action lawsuit against Blizzard over the sale of Hearthstone card packs to minors.
According to Polygon, lawyers filed a complaint in the Superior Court Of Orange County on behalf of Nathan Harris’ daughter and other minors who have bought Hearthstone’s randomised card packs earlier this week. Harris has claimed Hearthstone tricks players into non-refundable purchases without knowing the odds of rare cards.
Harris’ suit alleges that his daughter used his credit and debit cards to spend over £240 ($300) on card packs between 2019 and 2021 and “almost never received any valuable cards”
The suit argues that Blizzard’s lack of refund policy and parental controls is in breach of “disaffirmation law”, a ruling through the California Family Code that allows a contract to be broken if it’s undertaken by a minor.
However, Blizzard has since filed its own complaint, arguing that the company “does not know, and would have no way of accurately knowing, which Hearthstone in-game transactions were initiated by minors using parental credit or debit cards, as (Harris’ daughter) claims to have done. Blizzard does not concede, and in fact disputes, that such transactions fall within the scope of any state’s disaffirmation law.”
Blizzard has also requested the case be moved from the Superior Court Of Orange County to the higher-level Central District Of California with the company arguing that only “one half of one percent” of Hearthstone‘s £800,000,000 revenue would need to be made up of transactions carried out by minors for the potential fines to exceed the £4million threshold the Orange County Court has.
In other news, a new update to Hearthstone has drastically nerfed a card that was sold for £20 ($25) as recently as April. To avoid backlash, the company has given all affected players 3,000 gold.
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