At this point, it’s hardly a secret that Nintendo is the Godfather of the gaming industry, and they won’t shy away from taking their pound of flesh from those they deem to have crossed them. However, what you don’t often hear about, actually scratch that, what you never hear about is Nintendo being on the butcher’s block themselves.
Today’s news shows that no one is infallible and immune to the intoxicating call of the courtroom and loot boxes. In a lawsuit against Nintendo, it’s alleged that the company uses dark patterns to get its young audiences to spend money on Mario Kart Tour’s microtransactions, which the lawsuit calls immoral.
Mario Kart Tour is a Nintendo game released in 2019, and it’s essentially a free-to-play mobile version of the beloved Kart racing franchise.
Anyone who’s played the game will know it contains Spotlight Pipes, Mario Kart Tour’s version of loot boxes. Each of these Spotlight Pipes costs real-world money to open, while the contents and odds are hidden from the purchaser.
Nintendo removed these Spotlight Pipes from the game last year, but that did very little to discourage the possible class action lawsuit it’s now facing. This lawsuit stems from a father whose kid spent over $170 opening Spotlight Pipes by using his dad’s credit card connected to the game.
This lawsuit was filed in March of this year. Still, it has only just appeared in the federal docket this week and is calling for Nintendo to refund all minors in the US that paid to open these pseudo loot boxes. The lawsuit also claims that Nintendo had purposely made it hard to progress through the game without spending money on opening Spotlight Pipes.
Now you might be reading this and rolling your eyes. Loot boxes are a hot topic and are seen as illegal gambling in many regions of the world. In the last week alone, we’ve seen Sony lose in court and be ordered to pay restitution concerning a similar system in one of their games.
We’ve also seen the FTC fine Epic over $500 million after finding it had invaded children’s privacy by tricking players into making Fortnite purchases. Only time will tell how much, if anything, Nintendo will need to pay out, but for once, the odds are not in their favour.