Why a Child Just Sued Nintendo Over Mario Kart Lootboxes
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- Опубликовано: 27 июн 2024
- A child's attempts to sue Nintendo of America over lootboxes in Mario Kart Tour is actually part of a bigger attempt to battle gambling mechanics in games.
Which is probably not a surprise, because let's be real: the legal system isn't actually set up to be accessible to underage children. There needs to be a grown-up pulling the strings here.
Sorry TOTK Ganondorf fans, you'll have to wait for us to provide the authentic explanation from developers as to why Ganon is so hot.
Mario Kart Tour is not a game that I personally have played, because I already own Mario Kart on devices with, y'know, actual controllers, so a free-to-pay mobile game doesn't exactly fill me with excitement. These are exactly the kinds of games that I keep my daughter away from for this exact reason.
She's been allowed precisely one mobile game that features microtransactions, but I've disabled the ability for the game to make purchases, and in fairness she hasn't touched it for years because she prefers games on the Switch. The kinds of games where you pay once and then you "own" the thing, rather than the kind where you think it's free until you realise you've spend over £100.
My mother, on the other hand, goes in for this kind of freemium nonsense with a dangerous excitement. That's a story for another day, though.
The one exception to my rule about free-to-play mobile games is good old Pokemon Go, a game that I have absolutely never put a single penny into, because in my opinion it would entirely ruin the fun if resources were any less scarce.
As a matter of fact, I haven't touched that game for a couple of years now too, simply because I filled up my inventory with items and couldn't be bothered to grind gyms just for more storage space. That's silly.
I like to think that my beloved Snorlax, Foreman, is still waiting for me.
Anyway, what was this video about?
Oh yeaaaaaahhhhh, Mario Kart Tour. I'm sure it's perfectly fine. I own Mario Kart 8 on Wii U, though, so I don't think I need a mobile version in my life. I don't even need the Switch port, really. It's all good.
Ummmmm what else should I say? Don't buy lootboxes, I guess. We don't want to encourage this kind of awful behaviour from game developers.
To be honest, I feel like the big lootbox panic is mostly over now, but that might just be because the games I play are less likely to feature them. As stated, I'm not paying very close attention to the kinds of games that are glorified slot machines for children.
Lots of love,
Kotor
PS Oops, I just noticed I used an endslate that said that BretonStripes did the speaky on this one. Don't worry, she'll be back next time. This video just felt like more like it should be one of mine.
Sources for this video:
www.courtlistener.com/docket/...
www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_... 
Игры
The moral of the story:
A child shall lead them, for children are our future.
Yeah exactly.
1:10 the odds were actually available but you had to open an “additional info” menu in really tiny print at the bottom of each purchase page. Really easy to miss.
That kid gave Nintendo a taste of their own medicine lmao
Wait until Nintendo attempts to sue that kid over mentioning the game Mario kart tour.
@@mariofanl1ve Mate, you have "Mario" in your name, the Nintendo ninjas are already attempting to assasinate you. Whatever you do, *DON'T FALL ASLEEP.*
@@LordDragox412 yeah they try to break in every night. It's so annoying. I had to buy a $200,000 security system and 8 bodyguards just to sleep for 5 minutes.
@@mariofanl1ve Only _five_ minutes? Dang. 😆
Fr he did I bet that they were surprised that he stood up to them 🤣
The only Nintendo Mobile game I’ve ever played is Mario Run, as that doesn’t have Micro-transactions. Just a free demo, and a single purchase for the whole game.
Solid game, I picked it up too
Fire Emblem Heroes was pretty rad, went on forever but it was fun to collect the characters
Yeah I got it too. Sadly going the rout of a one time purchase wasn’t what people wanted. They couldn’t wrap their heads around it. So, they moved to what the mobile gamers understood.
Frankly, I hope these go through, might start some actual action on lootboxes.
Yeah, they removed the lootboxes. But they still kept the transactions, which, yeah... not ideal, but at least the lootboxes are gone.
Now We Need That Kid To Sue EA
Apple lost a case in 2012 over children buying microtransactions on iPhones. Microsoft and Google lost similar suits shortly afterwards.
Those companies then amended their store fronts, parental controls and terms of service to provide better protections. Mostly for themselves (and app developers) to put liability back on the parents for not securing devices with the available tools.
So the question is how is Nintendo liable, when the parents did not secure their credit card or their mobile phone account to stop these purchases... if Apple/Google already put in the tools to do so?
Yeah as much as I hate loot boxes, this case doesn't really hold much water or gain much sympathy from me at least. Perhaps a jury will think otherwise, but people should be responsible enough to not provide access for their kids to their credit cards.
This is the 2nd time a child has sued Nintendo, first for nes baseball or something like that, and now this.
Oh good.
Loot-boxes and video game gambling deserves to die.
they removed loot boxes
…but the odds WERE accessible, there was a button to view them (rounded to the fourth decimal digit)
Pipes have not been removed but they’ve been fairly “nerfed”, they used to be the main way to get items (randomly) with really unfair outcomes, not too much now, but they still exist, sadly.
Also, thanks for making this video, more people need to realize about this kind of predatory practiced and how they can harm EVERYONE, not only children.
i need this kid to win these cases.
its a snowball effect
I hope that these cases are successful. The future of game development needs this. Otherwise it'll be the end of classic gaming development as we know it.
While I don't like lootboxes, It would actually be a shame of these did go through, we should hold parents more accountable for their children, and if their children are given access to a credit card that is on parents as far as I am concerned. Lootboxes suck, but it isn't worth allowing parental negligence to be protected by the law.
Wait wait wait wait, loot boxes in Mario Kart Tour??
It’s was more likely than you thought.
I think the whole point of the high prices of rubies with in app purchases is to make it feel bad using them in the pipe (you don't get much for $60). The removal of the pipe doesn't change much about the game fundamentally, only means you need to think about more than just drivers when spending rubies
Edit: One in 10 were a gold pipe, the stats for every pipe were given out in full
Mario Kart Tour did show the precentages for the loot boxes when you go pipe odds menu on the pipe pull screen back before loot boxes were removed. You could also get rubees for free through normal gameplay so will I agree that Nintendo has been making some not so great decisions lately with Doug Bowser as president of Nintendo, I think that in this case the lawsuit against Nintendo will probably result in a landslide win for Nintendo since I personally think the reasoning for lawsuit against the Nintendo does not have enough evidence to back it up
One time, I bought extra content for a game accidentaly
Accidentally bought aeos for unite on my switch one time and didn't even know I had money on it
I don’t mind it for new quests or licensed content (music, etc.), but for the regular stuff I do my best to avoid it. It helps that I’m not really competitive at any of these games.
@@pokepress the bad part is, it was a Thomas mobile game. Where you have to buy EVERYTHING
I don’t know either to be surprised or get very confused on this.
Just keep an eye on your kids and avoid games that require in app purchases like the free to play games or games that has some small amount of micro transactions for characters and stuff.
While true, I still don't really feel any pity if those companies are getting sued, though. Be it Nintendo or any other one. If the game is aimed towards an adult playerbase, it's admitedly a more slippery slope to argue against, but for games which are purposefully made to be children-friendly, like Mario Kart Tour obviously is, I do think they shouldn't be using "gacha" gambling mechanics in the first place. It's unfortunate that there will always be small independant developpers on the mobile market aiming to extort children out of their money and it's out of our control unless we watch over the kids while they play. But big companies like Nintendo should strive to be better than that. So yes, do sue the crap out of them. It's the only language they understand.
@@LonesomeDevil "So yes, do sue the crap out of them. It's the only language they understand."
I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, honestly. 😅
@@TheRealRidley12 At the risk of sounding like a cop-out answer... depending on your perspective, it can be either, really. It's a good thing that the system can actually be used for the sake of consummer protection relatively successfully. However, it is unfortunate that we have to resort to doing this in the first place, else greedy corporations would be able to do literally whatever they want to syphon money out of us. (Granted, they already do it pretty often regardless with "planned obsolescence", but the system actually keeps them from making it too obvious and direct)
So you're team "parents need to make sure their young children gamble responsibly", then? Team "it is parents' responsibility to ensure Nintendo et al cannot give their 4yo a gambling addiction"?
Or, let's bring out a hypothetical example. Say instead of "video games" it was "toys", instead of "microtransations" it was "lead", and instead of "purchase" it was "put in mouth"... would it be the parents' responsibility to watch their kids around lead toys so they don't get lead poisoning? Or would you prefer to put the responsibility on the people putting lead in the toys in the first place (knowing kids are likely to put toys in their mouth without thinking), and establish legal precedent so they can't get away with putting lead in toys any more?
That's what this is about. "These companies have been knowingly endangering kids and their families. They won't stop on their own, because there are no laws directly stopping them and they make a profit, so we need to set a legal precedent that stops them from doing exactly this harmful thing."
@@TheRealRidley12 Sentence 1: Good! Sentence 2: Bad...
Been subbed since you first started. So great to see your channel grow commensurate to your talent.
I personally don't blame the entirety of Nintendo
I blame President Furikawa. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I personally believe Mr. Iwata (R.I.P.) would not be happy with a good handful of the decisions they've made.
I personally believe Presidents Yamauchi, Yamauchi and Yamauchi would also not be happy with this.
there were still stuff like false copystrikes and other bad things when iwata was CEO iirc
@@No_Life_Alex But the rest of the company was pretty based. At least during the early-mid 2000's.
@@coltonk.3086 yeah there wasn't really much of an internet to strike down during the early to mid 2000s. Nintenod probably thought it was more of a fad
Not all Fan Projects where taken down.
I also Think Doug Bowser is Vary Disrespectful towards fans, he canceled 2 of biggest official events for people to play there favorite games at together (splatoon and smash bro’s).
The pipes still exist in the game. Except you get them for free from doing challenges and racing. Although I still don't get the gambling aspect. Yes of course you're getting something random like a character, kart, glider etc, but you aren't wasting any money or in my case haven't spent nothing and have gotten almost everything in game for free. So I must be different and kids and parents are just dumb.
That's why I hope this isn't successful, as much as I hate lootboxes, I don't think parental negligence should be protected under the law.
“What loot boxes? 8 Deluxe comes with everything besides the dlc cour- OH, that Mario Kart”
At the very least, I believe any game with any gambling mechanic should be rated 18+. That would put a stop to this shady practice pretty quickly.
Man I really wanted to know why Nintendo made Gannon so hot
Nintendo suing fans for just liking their stuff. Meanwhile
*BASED CHILD SUES NINTENDO FOR LOOT BOXES*
We have some absolute legends in this world boys
Dude scores good-day points
If I had a nickel for every time that a child sued Nintendo, I would have two nickels which is not a lot but it is weird that it happened twice.
Personally, I played mario kart tour for quite a bit, making sure never to engage in micro-transactions and it's pretty easy to get rubies by playing the game, however I can definitely see where this case is coming from.
Sure it's easy to get rubies... for a bit. Eventually, once the season rewards runs dry of them (thankfully, there is no season pass) it is excruciatingly difficult to get them until the next season, where all the characters, karts, and gliders you can get are completely different.
As much problems as the shop solves here by removing the random elements, it creates a whole new one, as nintedo decided to make anything you really want in the shop cost a whole lot of rubies. Now you can get one (legendary* character kart or glider), mabye two or three, per season if you grind enough.
So the game remains anti-consumer, like most of the mobile game industry.
Yeah, the game is anti-consumer, and all that, but it's also a fun and different take on the mario kart series. I enjoy playing it quite a bit. I just wish it didn't have these anti-consumer annoyances. They don't ruin the game, but they make it worse for sure.
*in mario kart tour context, common is bottom of the barrel and more of a "hey, at least it's somthing" reward. Rare is a mid reward, not too special, and legendary is the most common ranking among the entire roster of characters, and you know the other two, and is usually the ranking given to anything emphasized on the season, costume swaps, and fan favorites.
I hope I provided a clear picture for any outsiders. Feel free to ask any questions.
Maybe we can get something like this to happen to Genshin Impact and the like as well...
Reading the comments made me lose brain cells.
Now if only someone did this to Tera online, ESO ECT. And let you buy the mount or skins for your character without loot boxes. Or overprice items.
Is weird that is not Nintendo doing the demand.
The only thing I don't like about Mario Kart tourism you have to win Mario when you first start
I was going to make a joke about how this is the 2nd time nintendo got sued by a child, specifically for not having the people who made up the teams in a sports game for the nes, but i wasnt able to find it. Did i simply not see it while looking through your old videos? Did someone else make it and im just misremembering? Or did i just get fooled by the mandela effect???
Pretty certain you're thinking of a video role the Gaming Historian, who's a bit like our channel, but actually competent 😂
Thanks for the vid
They removed them in October why all of the sudden they care?
Watch out KingsIsle, you're next. (That is, if i wanted to drag these guys to court over their stupid booster packs.)
I think that since we seem to be suing every company with lootboxes, we should sue nintendo at the very least out of fairness.
and next we should sue valve for no other reason than because seeing the traders get mad at the tf2 economy collapsing would be highly humorous.
Why not the reason of "hey, lootboxes!"?
@@youtubeuniversity3638 yeah that too.
The game removed lootboxes
@@Marko-pg8ms they were still there at one point sooo 🤷♂
A good lawyer, technically and morally.
we need to be more smarter about having your credit card on something you know your child is going to simply abuse it, i feel like it should be the parents at fault more than the company
I think the real moral of the story is... Never play mobile games period!
Especially ones that involve micro transactions. Stick to playing games
on consoles, PCs and handhelds. (And use your own money for spending)
“Watch what your kid is doing on your tablet.”
Exactly parents needs to take responsibility.
You people in the comments better remember that if you have kids!😠
My phone gives the option to require a password every time I purchase something through it, I'd definitely have the enabled if I had a kid using my device.
@@mattwolf7698 That’s a very smart idea when you have kids using your device.
Back in the days of lead toys, would it have been solely parents' responsibility to watch their kids around the dangerous lead toys companies were shoving out the door by the truckload consequence-free?
The entire point of these lawsuits is "companies shouldn't get to push off the responsibility for t he dangerous goods they produce onto the parents who don't always have the time or knowledge to research which products in this category are *safe* for their children (especially since the market is so full of the unsafe ones)", with a side of "parents should be able to expect that things advertised at children are also safe for children, and the companies have shown they will not ensure that of their own volition".
@@corruleumblue3317 There’s a thing called Parental Controls and about what Matt Wolf said,
He’s got a point.
So you have Credit cards,
Be sure to have a password on it and if you do have kids,
Don’t let ‘em see it without permission.
That’s called being a responsible parent and that’s why my parents raised me right and it’s a good thing they don’t have credit cards cause I would never take their debit cards or use their debit cards without permission.
And I make my own money by working which I can’t tell you what I work on cause on RUclips the information is classified.
@@Unknown_User174 Why are you so determined to blame *solely* parents for "letting" Nintendo et al encourage gambling addictions in children without (legal) consequence? Blaming *only parents* for Nintendo et al's business model *relying on* at least some kids having unsupervised access to extremely abstracted money, for reasons ranging from "parents are neglectful" to "parents are out of their depth from the extremely rapid pace of technological development" to "kids went out of their way to break into the parental controls because they just *had* to have the new shiny"?
I'm not saying parental controls aren't useful/necessary, just that it shouldn't be the *sole* guard against Nintendo et al deliberately exploiting childrens' lack of self-control around *gambling* so Nintendo et al can make a profit.
I hope Nintendo loses.
Loot, Loot, Loot. Sue… Sue… Sue…
Case like these are pretty common.
For me I’m playing Pokemon Master it’s a character gatcha, There are times I have wanted to spend but I resisted even when it’s bad.
My policy is read and think times and purchase once for alot of stuff. Think in the future especially down the line and rng.
And I say it better to grind and try, then wait. You can’t believe how happy I was to get Necrozma Lusamine after months of preparation.
I don’t spend, only once on Pokemon Go for an event Nihilego because it’s my fav pokemon but then fell so bad of the purchase I made a donation to a charity a few mins later.
I think there should be a balance between free and pay.
Also keep an eye on your kid and the game as you do on your balance. The only way to prevent troubles is being there.
buy more microtransactions so you donate more to charity
I hate microtransactions! Nintendo on mobile are underrated!
Frog I hope Nintendo loses
Mobile games have been a plague on gaming.
Casinos should be legally required to have a driver's licence, that you take with you, in your car, to drive to the building that is the designated sin palace in your town. They shouldn't be allowed to fit into your pocket and follow you around. Age shouldn't even be a factor in that.
While I agree, this seems to be at least partly a tactical decision. It's a lot harder to justify promoting gambling at children, and once *that* precedent has been set (establishing that lootboxes are gambling in the first place), there'll likely be a lot of looking at every other lootbox like "hey this is dangerously unregulated gambling too".
@@corruleumblue3317 Yeah. If you want to be strategic about it. To be honest though, there's probably not that much difference between childishly defiant and strategic. Money usually wins eventually. I guess I'd just prefer to be childishly defiant.
...why a driver's license in specific? That feels a bit random.
...then again random might be perfect for a casino, in it's own twisted way...
@@youtubeuniversity3638 Well, the structure of the joke is, driver's license is what most people use as proof of age, so you think that's where I'm going, but then it turns out that I'm saying driver's license because the actual metaphorical gate here should be a physical journey to a physical place, and one that requires, if not full-fledged adulthood, at least the level of competency that we expect someone to have to be able to drive a car, and then meet whatever standard of dress, hygiene, and social decorum is expected of the venue.
That paired with the level of commitment on the part of the casino to have to actually construct and maintain an actual building, with at least some minimum level of duty of care to their patrons, seems to be to be what should constitute a bare minimum check and/or balance for a consensual game of chance.
Yes, technically the joke is vulnerable to the fact that you don't have to be 18 to get a driver's license, or that there's other valid ways to get to an actual casino, such as bus or cab or bicycle, but I didn't get a chance to workshop the joke in the smaller clubs before taking it to the big time here in the comments.
Sorry, that was a little dickish at the end there :p
People dont realize how bad this is. My nephew has spent hundreds on this game. He cannot resist himself. Its a real addiction, Akin to drugs. Its scary watching him lose all control and just want more rubies to get the shiny new characters.
Hopefully the defendant has enough money to keep the lawyers paid. Lawsuits are expensive, and large businesses are notorious for doing everything possible to make them expensive for the defendants. Also - I do hope Nintendo's mobile games change as a result. Not just Mario Kart, but also Animal Crossing, which also has a loot box mechanic on cell phones.
Might be a pro-bono publicity case?
is the voice for this channel AI?
no way lol
Doing the wrong thing for the "right" reason is still wrong. I'm no expert, but if people really want to get to the heart of this whole microtransactions thing, then maybe people should set a precedent where these games are DISTRIBUTED, not in an attempt to bully it out of someone in a court case. Google, Apple and other app companies should have a law enforced on them/set a rule that says: "you cannot sell stuff to kids. Period." I know it's not that cut and dry, but if there's a firm boundary people cannot cross, it seems like it would seriously discourage this kind of thing. Yes, I know businesses are all about the dollar, but if enough people took a stance on the *root* of the problem instead of attacking it from the outside, maybe they could change things. In the end, I'm very picky about which mobile games I play- as an _adult_ - because I don't want to get sucked into the grind. Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Pokémon Go are very good examples of this problem. They'd be great games if they didn't constantly waggle a fortune cookie on a stick in front of me or tell me I've run out of Pokéballs.
So, what in all would this effect?
"App" could be argued to apply to Steam PC titles, would that be included?
Some games with a physicao distribution had lootboxes digitally added after already getting a "no lootboxes" rating from the ESRB, so one *could* argue that even distribution limits wouldn't help much.
Also, adults can get gambling addictions too, so really focusing children only, even if the storefronts could reliably distinguish, wouldn't *really* fix the issue.
why do you mention mummies (the anicent creature) a lot in this video
Hopefuly they actually win the case, predatory practices like dark patterns, obscure monetization schemes, loot boxes, etc. on games aimed at childs-teens is an abhorrent thing.
I hope the FTC also gets them like they got Epic for dark patterns too (Epic didn't want to even go to court and settled with the FTC)
but it is not gambling. Because the products you receive, the 98% common or the 0.002% legendary, don't have monetary value unlike winning a game of blackjack.
Or so goes the argument of the ESA and its constituents.
(I disagree, obviously)
1:37 Parents need to be more responsible. It's their fault that they are not.
Lol