Over 1,000 players are suing an MMORPG that lied to them about loot for 10 years

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The South Korean MMORPG company Nexon is known for video games like The Finals and MapleStory. In December 2023 it was sentenced to a record punishment: the company had cheated players of an MMORPG about the opportunities of loot boxes for 10 years, a trade commission decided and imposed a fine of 8.1 million euros. Now more than 1,000 people are starting a class action lawsuit.

What is the scandal about?

  • Nexon was accused of lying about the likelihood of certain items dropping from the loot boxes of the MMORPG MapleStory.
  • When it was introduced in March 2010, all items still had the same drop probability. This was changed in September 2010.
  • The South Korean Trade Commission found that particularly sought-after items had not been released from the cubes for over 10 years, between August 2011 and March 2021. However, Nexon denied having changed the probabilities.

    • The company sold the cubes for €1.40, made almost €383.5 million over 10 years and was fined €8.1 million. Nexon said it accepted the punishment but reserved the right to appeal the decision.

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    Players launch class action lawsuit against Nexon over MapleStory

    This is now the consequence: The punishment against Nexon came from the trade regulator in South Korea. According to reports from South Korea, MapleStory players have now filed a class action lawsuit against Nexon, demanding reimbursement of their expenses and damages.

    As of January 26th, over 1,000 people had joined this class action lawsuit, as reported by the YTN site.

    The logic behind the lawsuit is: If the buyers had known the actual drop probability of the loot boxes, they would never have bought them. They had no idea that the odds of winning had been so manipulated.

    The plaintiffs apparently believe they have good chances for their lawsuit, as the Trade Commission’s investigation has already brought the facts to light.

    From South Korea it is said: The implication of the lawsuit could have an impact on other online games and how they deal with the probabilities of comparable loot boxes.

    More about the fraud case at MapleStory, which we reported in detail on MeinMMO: MMORPG has been brazenly cheating players on loot boxes for 10 years – now has to pay a record fine

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