The MMORPG company Nexon had to pay a fine of 8.1 million euros. The reason for this was false information about the chances of loot boxes, so-called “Cubes,” in MapleStory. As part of the lawsuit, the company had to disclose how much it earned from the loot boxes.
How much have players spent on the loot boxes? The company had to name the 10 players with the highest amounts spent. A table shows the years 2019 to 2022. In the reddit forum, user anonn102030 published the figures for all users (via ftc.go.kr):
The highest amount was spent by a player in 2021. He invested approximately 194,000 euros in loot boxes. In the top 10, there is no player who has spent less than 16,800 euros on the loot boxes.
The table is to be read in such a way that each year counts on its own. So it could be that the player with the 194,000 euros also spent a five-digit amount in another year. However, it is not known whether the player in first place is always the same person.
The explosive part: The figures Nexon had to provide only relate to spending on loot boxes. There are other ways to invest money in the game – unfortunately, the amounts are not shown in the table.
The MMORPG MapleStory is presented in the trailer:
Pandemic seems to have driven the numbers up
Why do the numbers rise so sharply from 2020? The table particularly shows that spending increased significantly in 2020. This is probably due to strict regulations at the time because of the Corona pandemic.
The contact restrictions may have led to more people spending time in the MMORPG and thus investing more money in it.
What was the problem?
- Nexon secretly changed the probability structure of the Cubes. For example, it was no longer possible to obtain certain rewards from the loot boxes.
- The chances were adjusted based on the player’s activity and location, their items, and the number of friends on the friends list (via mmorpg.org.pl).
The court has now sentenced Nexon to a fine of approximately 8.1 million euros. However, this is unlikely to harm the MMORPG company, as impressive 383.5 million euros were earned from loot boxes over 10.5 years.
Nevertheless, the 8.1 million euros is a clear sign. The amount is the highest fine that the responsible commission has imposed to date. There was already a major scandal involving Nexon in 2021: Free2Play MMORPG deceives players for years about random system, causing huge trouble
