Take-Two Interactive, the owners of the immensely sought after 2K Sports line of titles, has found itself some in some boiling water with a recent filing of a class-action lawsuit in the United States surrounding the inclusion of loot boxes in the ever-popular, but increasingly controversial NBA 2K series.
What makes this case stand out so much is the fact that it actually involves a minor and their guardian.
As reported by Bloomberg, the lawsuit fires off at Take-Two for its loot box system being responsible for causing users to “psychologically distance” themselves from the purchases. It goes as far as to call the system “illegal. deceptive, misleading” among others.
The root of this particular case points to how due to the repetitive loot box transactions are, especially due to their relatively small asking price, has a strong effect on customers—but especially minors. The argument being made in this case is that not only are minors trained to get used to carrying out such transactions, but it’s done at the expense of their guardians due to often having unmonitored access to their banking information.
As of the time of publication, Take-Two has yet to make any response to the aforementioned lawsuit. Such microtransactions have generated millions for the company over the last few years, so despite the bad press that such situations like this generates, it’s hard to imagine that Take-Two will even consider dropping or removing them from their titles.
Loot boxes have long been a problem in the gaming industry. The side effects of this have included sparking outrage from some members in the community, along with other lawsuits, such as this one.
Infamous situations involving loot boxes include examples like Microsoft’s Turn 10 Studios getting grilled by fans for including them in Forza Motorsport 7. Although the game’s loot boxes could only be purchased by in-game currency (and this currency could only be obtained by playing, not purchasing with real-world money) the negative feedback was so great that Turn 10 ended up patching out the entire system from the game back in 2018.
