A class action lawsuit was filed against Take-Two Interactive in November 2023. This is the company behind both GTA 6 and the basketball games NBA 2K. However, they apparently do not believe they are at fault.
What company is involved? Take-Two Interactive is the company behind the publishers Rockstar Games and 2K Games, as well as their in-house development studios. Titles from Take-Two include successful franchises such as GTA, Red Dead Redemption, BioShock, and the basketball games in the “NBA 2K” series.
The first trailer for the upcoming GTA 6 caused quite a stir:
Keep an eye on the VC purchase
What is currently happening at Take-Two? Since November 2023, there has been a legal dispute regarding the 2K games. Players can purchase in-game currencies with real money in NBA 2K, known as “Virtual Currency,” or “VC” for short. VC can then be spent on cosmetic items, performance boosters, or other exclusive features.
When older versions of the game series are retired, players also lose access to their digital savings: Take-Two offers neither refunds nor a way to transfer their purchased currency to a current title.
A lawsuit against 2K Games states that players do not receive any warning when purchasing game currency that it may be removed at the discretion of 2K Games. Gamers only have the option to accept their losses and top up their balance in the active versions of the game if they want to continue using the pay-to-play features (via CourtListener).
You can’t steal what doesn’t exist, says Take-Two
What does Take-Two say about it? The company’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on February 2, 2024. The allegations of “theft” are unfounded, as the in-game currency does not actually belong to the players – therefore it cannot be stolen.
According to Take-Two, in-game currencies are “fictions created by game publishers” and thus are also subject to the publisher’s terms of use. Publishers have the freedom to make business decisions about how their games work, including the virtual currency, which only exists within those games, according to the filing (via CourtListener).
Furthermore, Take-Two argues that players received exactly what they paid for: a virtual currency that they could spend at their discretion in the game.
In simple terms, the company disputes that players suffer any damage when their digital savings disappear – after all, they never truly owned them.
Of course, it should not come as a surprise to players that the virtual in-game currencies do not truly belong to them, as the games themselves often do not either. A development that gamers should get used to, according to a senior employee at Ubisoft. After all, it has worked with other media as well.
