Genshin Impact Right of Minors to Disaffirm Purchases Class Action

Genshin Impact (GI) is a game offered by Cognosphere, LLC and miHoYo Co., Ltd. that is supposedly free to play. However, it managed to attain the highest first-year launch revenue ever for a game because it offers in-game currency and items for purchase with it. The complaint for this class action alleges that much of this revenue comes from minors, who are not legally permitted to enter into contracts, and who now, via this class action, disaffirm their in-game purchases.

The class for this action is all persons in the US who, at any time between September 28, 2020 and the present, while under the age of 18, (1) exchanged in-game virtual currency for any in-game benefit within the game Genshin Impact or (2) bought in-game currency or another in-game benefit for use in Genshin Impact.

GI is a “gacha” game, in which players can use in-game currency to buy new characters, weaponry, and other items to use in play. Players can earn game currency through play or by buying it with real money. The complaint alleges that GI “grossed more than $3 billion in its first year of release,” and that a lot of that revenue came from child players.

Players can play GI for free, but the complaint alleges that “the game encourages impressionable minors to make in-game purchases. This is because many of GI’s most desirable in-game characters and weapons can only be obtained by participating in the game’s ‘gacha’ system and hoping to get lucky with in-game loot boxes that the game refers to as ‘Wishes.’” However, the Wishes are given out on a random basis, so that players are likely to have to buy them repeatedly before they can get the character or weapon they are hoping for.

The complaint alleges, “This system was created to capitalize on and encourage addictive behaviors, akin to gambling. Minors are especially susceptible to these addiction-enhancing elements of game design.” The system gives minors a shot of excitement when they find out what item they’ve gotten and encourages them to keep playing and keep buying things.

According to the complaint, in most states, minors are allowed to disaffirm contracts. Yet GI has a no-refund policy that does not acknowledge the right of minors to do this. “In fact,” the complaint claims, “GI allows minors to make purchases even after [they] inform[] GI that they are below the age of 18.”

The complaint contends that if the game had “provided proper parental control and age verification features,” minors would not have been able to purchase in-game items. Alternatively, the complaint says, the companies could also implement age-verification or other features that would protect minors and not permit them to make purchases.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Minors
Tags: Children/Minors, Contracts with Minors/Refusal to Allow Minors to Disaffirm, Failure To Pay For Refund