Mobile Game Tournament Player Sues King, Activision Blizzard for Fraud

Game developer King and Activision Blizzard misled contestants about their odds of winning a mobile game tournament to get them to bump up their in-app purchases, said a Tuesday fraud class action (docket 3:23-cv-00314) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia in Richmond.

Defendants King, King Digital Entertainment and Activision Blizzard launched the Candy Crush All Stars 2023 tournament globally March 23, promising $250,000 in prizes and an expense-paid trip to London for 10 finalists, said the complaint. The companies also advertised championship rings with a combined value of $72,900 for three winners. The complaint cited a January report for Mobile Marketing Reads saying Candy Crush Saga generated over $1 billion in revenue in 2021, a “significant portion” derived from in-app purchases.

The defendants never informed plaintiff Sorina Montoya of North Chesterfield, Virginia, or class members, how many other players were part of the tournament, said the complaint. Instead, they “did what they could to mislead contestants into thinking that they were doing well vis-a-vis their competitors, that there were few other players against whom they were competing, and that they had a good chance of making the Finals in London,” the complaint alleged. That kept players spending money on in-app purchases, it said.

Contestants were placed into groups of 50, “which ensured that contestants were only able to gauge their performance against a statistically insignificant number of competitors,” the complaint alleged. “A contestant who thinks that she is #6 in her group of 50 is far more likely to spend money on in-app purchases than a contestant who can see that she is in position #126,456 out of 1 million,” it said.

Defendants used terms such as “Quarter Finals” and “Semi Finals,” which Montoya said are commonly understood to mean that competitors are one and two stages from the finals, and typically “also indicative of a stage in the contest where there are only eight and four competitors remaining. The complaint cited a post from the Candy Crush Reddit Forum estimating 1.2 million players made it to the tournament's “Semi Finals.”

One competitor on the King Community Forum said he spent more money on in-app credit card purchases during the tournament than it would have cost him to buy a plane ticket and pay for accommodations in London, the complaint said. The financial harm the contestant suffered was caused by defendants’ “deceptive conduct,” it alleged.

The complaint also cited “suspicious activity” reported by users on the King Community Forum. Defendants failed to acknowledge or deal with “cheaters,” it said. One user who started from the beginning of the tournament said in five minutes he won as much as 20,000 points, but leaders had 200,000, saying, “How is it possible?” The user speculated the leaders were either bots or real players “favored by King,” which put class members at a disadvantage and caused them to make in-app purchases they wouldn’t have made, the complaint said.

Super Users, who built up multiplier rewards in the game over the years, had an advantage over typical users, said the complaint, citing a participant on the Forum who accrued more points due to a point multiplier advantage. His point total could look like a bot total to other players, the user conceded, saying his 30x point multiplier, not available to ordinary contestants, was “not really within the spirit of the game.”

Had Montoya known that Super Users had an advantage, she wouldn't have made in-app purchases, she said. By the time the Quarter Finals ended on April 11, Montoya had spent 20 hours and $50 on the game. She then spent $1,000 on each of two Semi Finals and ended up spending over $3,000 and close to 100 hours on the tournament by April 21. “Perhaps we could blame Sorina, and the millions of people like her who did the same, if the game had been fair,” said the complaint.

Montoya claims fraud, violation of the Virginia Consumer Protection Act and unjust enrichment. She seeks a full refund for all in-app purchases during the tournament; compensatory, statutory and punitive damages; injunctive relief and an order requiring defendants to disgorge their benefits from the tournament.