NCSOFT CORPORATION sued for $100M in a Class Action filing related to the company’s MMORPG: Lineage2
San Mateo, California June 5, 2006 – NCSOFT North America was named in a lawsuit seeking class-action status in United States District Court for the Central District of California. The lawsuit seeks $100M in exemplary and punitive relief and contends that NCSOFT CORPORATION (a South Korean Company) breached its contractual obligations, engaged in false advertising, and committed credit card fraud in connection with its Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) Lineage 2.
The suit was brought forward by 28 year old Brian Durin, after his Lineage 2 account was terminated by NCSOFT without any justification, notification, refund, or means of recourse.
The 227 page lawsuit alleges:
On March 12, 2006, Durin’s Lineage2 account was terminated by NCSOFT without any provision of an explanation or notification. Durin had spent over 500 hours in playing and leveling his online character in the online world of Lineage 2. His repeated attempts to solicit an answer from the company as to the reason for his account termination was met with silence.
Durin argues that NCSOFT’s actions are in violation of its own End User License Agreement (EULA). Additionally, that the company violated the player-provider contract by terminating his account without providing any justification for the termination, or a method of recourse for him to pursue.
He contacted NCSOFT, and PLAYNC (the online billing/receivables for the company) for a refund of the unused portion of his “gaming time” and was told by the company that no refund would be issued. His credit card continued to be charged for additional months even though he could not play. Refunds for the additional charges were not refunded as well. The suit claims that NCSOFT’s action surrounding it’s credit card charging process constitutes fraud.
Durin’s lawsuit further contends that he bought the game without knowing that hundreds of automated characters, referred to in the community as: “bots”, were rampant throughout the online world. That these bots, referred to as a “3rd party program” within the game’s EULA, made it impossible to enjoy the game, hampered leveling a character, and was never mentioned in the companies EULA or marketing that a player would be subjected to these automated characters (bots).
153 Articles of Evidence were entered with the lawsuit showing in detail that NCSOFT was fully aware that these bots were prevalent within the Lineage 2 game. Records of the Lineage2 forum site were provided showing how the company censors and deletes any topics/threads/posts related to the discussion of bots within the game’s environment. Some articles even detail how an internal NCSOFT employee used a bot, to level their own character.
An affidavit of support attesting to the allegations made in the lawsuit was attached from Ki Su Lin, a former South Korean GameMaster for NCSOFT Korea. Lin claims that NCSOFT knowing allows a certain percentage of bots to exist in Lineage2 for game economics as well as the company’s own profit based agenda.
Lin states that when he started to work for the company last year, he banned every bot that was petitioned (when a players sees a bot, they have the ability to petition a GameMaster online to remove the bot) but was quickly told by the Head GameMaster (HGM) to cease with his activities. In the ensuing 9 months of his employment he was only able to terminate nine (9) accounts for botting (the process of running a bot in-game). He states that he received in excess of 2000 petitions related to botting from characters but was instructed to only investigate the petitions and not to terminate any accounts.
In Lin’s affidavit, he states “NC made it clear to me that they didn’t want to ban the bots because it would mean lost revenue for them. I think that the bots make up anywhere from 30 to 40% of the community. So banning the bots would result in a 40% decrease in revenue. Everybody knew this, and accepted it.”
The affidavit also states that NCSOFT engaged in deceptive practices related to preventing the proliferation of bots in Lineage 2. Lin refers back to a memo he received, “The memo said that there was to be now public acknowledgement of the botting problem. Any public questions about bots in the game were to be answered with: ‘we’re working on it.’”
Lin’s account of banning players detailed, “Anytime a player started making too much noise about botting or anything like that we banned them. I thought it was unfair but that’s what we were told to do. No player was allowed to talk about bots in the forums, or name a person that was botting. When a player always petitioned us, we would call them a “pet” and sometimes we banned them because they would rally other players to petition us about bots. We really couldn’t have that.”
Durin insists he never used a 3rd party program, himself as he accessed Lineage2 exclusively at Internet Cafes that have imaged drives and don’t facilitate the use of Bots in any of the games that they host on their computers. That he never conducted himself in any type of behavior that would have resulted in an account termination.
He believes his termination may be related to the dozens of petitions he sent to the online GMs everyday he played.
Over eighteen (1 pages containing (211) signatures from players whose accounts have been terminated, received credit card charges, no refunds, and no explanations was entered in support of the Plaintiff’s motion seeking Class Action status.
Also attached to the suit was a Motion to Subpoena the records of NCSOFT concerning its billing policies and policies related to the conduct of its GameMasters in regards to bots and account terminations and all records evidencing 3rd party programs.
The suit seeks relief by:
1. $100M in damages
2.Immediate investigations/banning of 3rd party programs
3.Instituting justification / refunds / redress for players
The suit was served to NCSOFT by Federal Marshals at their Los Angles location on June 2, 2006. John Crittenden of Cooley Godward LLP, NCSOFT’s Attorneys issued no comment or statement concerning the suit
They are not going to comment on this. They can't. It's a lawsuit. I am sure, however, you know that and you are just posting this to get one more of the 'you deleted this thread' sort of things going.
no actually i dont care if the thread is deleted, i'm not an ********.
I just wanna know, theres lots of bogus forums out there with alot of BS that personally i sceptical about.
They can likely not comment as pointed out by Jute - you'll have to wait up for further releases. I don't see a reason to doubt that the lawsuit was filed, anything else will show itself over time.
If it is true, I am very suprised that this has not come across Google or any of the Gamer magazines. I would have thought with all the scuttlebutt going around about adena mills, bots and the like, this kind of topic would be more in the news.
Now, on to the suit. If the GM's statements are true, and hold up in court, I could and would venture to say that online gamming has been set back at least 5 years, and NcSoft will have an even more difficult time convinceing us that they are concerned about us and not about the bots.
since it wasnt in the regular news on TV or in News forums, thats why i'm asking for validity. But if they cannot comment thats fine that'll answer my question too, we'll just assume after that i guess.
but going into NCSoft's morals is something I'd like to stay away from on this thread this time, atleast for a day.
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I'm calling BS on that artical, because It wouldn't get in depth about how bot threads on a forum are deleted. It has nothing to do with the supposed lawsuit lol.
I just think someone is butt hurt about something and got alittle creative.
It mayhap had been filed but you would think if it had that ncsoft would straighten up some just while its under investigation.
Personally I havent seen any improvments, in fact what I have seen is the connection stability become far worse then I have seen in a long time.
I can't say that the lawsuit is lying either cause I had account banned also & and my [censored] dont know how to even get a third party program started let alone know how to use it.
This was during the time i was doing mass reports on bots.
Since I got the account back and I dont reports as much as i use to, I havent been banned again.
no actually i dont care if the thread is deleted, i'm not an ********.
I just wanna know, theres lots of bogus forums out there with alot of BS that personally i sceptical about.
I retract my statement then. I'm glad to see it's not just another sensationalist thread. But I doubt they will be able to comment on it.
Edit:
One thing that's really confusing to me about the article is it states they were served in Los Angeles. That seems odd. Also, they state that they got information from a Gamemaster in Korea, but this guy is supposedly a US player? The information from the Korean Gamemaster talks about Korea, not the US. So it just seems odd.
I'd be interested in knowing if a lawsuit was actually filed, which I believe the staff here can answer without issue. A simple, "yes" the lawsuit was filed would suffice.
If it is true, this isn't going to be very pretty for NCSoft. The reason I say that has nothing to do with the EULA violation or any of the crap about botting/banning, it is strictly related to the CC issues. Charging people for services they do not receive is a big no no in the US.
I reckon we'll have to see if it's even true. To me, it seems a little like BS though, I mean what bearing does testimony of a former Korean GM have on NCNA?
I don't know - if their attorney doesn't want to comment "on the issue" period, are forum staff really allowed to say anything at all? Law always confused me that way.
It may or may not be true that they are being "sued" for this. it in no way, shape or form indicates that the allegations are true.
However, they won't be able to comment on this because their lawyers would throw a hissy fit.
I could sue NC soft indicating that they promised that I would be lvl 75 in 2 months.
I would then have to prove that. And their lawyers would instruct the company that no employee is to speak to anyone about the matter AND all inquires would then be funneled to the PR person.
Since I got the account back and I dont reports as much as i use to, I havent been banned again.
...Since you've stopped being a "Pet" :eek:.
Let this teach you not to report them again,even if you see them fishing in Giran as they do now on Dev.
-I don't see anything ! I don't see anything !
no actually i dont care if the thread is deleted, i'm not an ********.
I just wanna know, theres lots of bogus forums out there with alot of BS that personally i sceptical about.
I retract my statement then. I'm glad to see it's not just another sensationalist thread. But I doubt they will be able to comment on it.
Edit:
One thing that's really confusing to me about the article is it states they were served in Los Angeles. That seems odd. Also, they state that they got information from a Gamemaster in Korea, but this guy is supposedly a US player? The information from the Korean Gamemaster talks about Korea, not the US. So it just seems odd.
the Ncsoft US is just a small part of NC Korea.
And Korea is the ones setting the rules and choosing what guidelines NCsoft USA needs to follow(the EULA). I hope brian wins (censored cause i would get banned for it on these fine forums) so i finally can play the game i have payed money for.
ok again i see board people fighting with game people its getting so god damed tireing
if you dont have some thing nice to say DONT SPEEK AT ALL
and yes nc soft can comment on if its true or not infact theay shopuld seeing as we are all paying coustomers we have a right to know if a compony we currentley have a contract with is under sute for violateing that contract with some one else
ok again i see board people fighting with game people its getting so god damed tireing
if you dont have some thing nice to say DONT SPEEK AT ALL
and yes nc soft can comment on if its true or not infact theay shopuld seeing as we are all paying coustomers we have a right to know if a compony we currentley have a contract with is under sute for violateing that contract with some one else
all ived seen from ncsoft so far is 2 deleted topics with none hostile text in em and pure silence.
They would have someone from PR make a statement or release a statement if the suit is true.
Usually though, they won't make any comments unless it looks like it is going to get out of hand.
Companies don't want bad press whether the allegations are true or not.
I mean, this guy could be spot on and all his allegations ARE true. He could also be a disgruntled employee who was let go and is bending the truth to suit his needs.
Case in point, he claims that he used to ban bots but then the company said he should investigate them not ban. That could imply that NC was "looking the other way". It could also imply that it was not his place to ban and that there was another tier who took care of that for a variety of reasons that we are not privy to.
In any case, I'm sure if there is a suit we will see more about it as time goes on.
And i highly doubt we will get any responce from NC on this.
All that will happen is mistryl will come into the thread and say that she or NC cann't comment on this. And because of the nature of this thread she will have to close it.
According to the EULA, NCSoft can terminate accounts for any reason. The one big problem I see that NCSoft will have is for billing someone for services that are no longer rendered or accessible.
big simple way to verify if this is true. Call his law offices in an hour and a half and ask
John W. Crittenden
California—San Francisco
101 California Street
5th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111-5800
Phone: 415/693-2090
Fax: 415/693-2222
heh, mods have busy with this topic, I see. posts go missing everytime I change a page. I find NCSoft's continueing silence a bit puzzling. I would have though this would have either been locked/deleted by now, or a stock "we cannot discuss this right now" followed by a lock.
My memory doesn't permit more than a vague guess - but are posts that venture so far into the actual contents of the lawsuit that the thread would have to be locked or deleted otherwisely being removed so that the post may stay open?
The rumor of a lawsuit filed against NCsoft North America regarding Lineage II is exactly that -- a rumor with no basis. There has been no action filed in any court and there is no lawsuit. The press release that was posted on certain sites regarding this activity was a hoax, and the information in it was fabricated and is false.
Please keep in mind that we typically do not allow discussion of legal action here on the official message board, but I did want to respond to the question. Thanks!