FunPlus 'Limited-Time' Game Packs Foisted False Discounts: Class Action

FunPlus falsely advertises price discounts for in-game purchases and carries out other “deceptive and unfair business practices” in its Guns of Glory: Lost Island (GOG) mobile game, said a Monday class action (docket 3:23-cv-04122) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. Plaintiff Loren Kelly, a California resident, alleges violations of California’s Unfair Competition and False Advertising laws and Consumers Legal Remedies Act.

GOG has generated over $510 million worldwide since its 2017 launch by offering players “microtransactions” through which they can make discrete in-app purchases of in-game valuables necessary “to level up one’s account,” said the complaint. The in-app purchases, called “packs,” range from 99 cents to $99 each, but in direct marketing to consumers, FunPlus advertises “false former prices to induce players into believing they must act quickly to take advantage of a limited-time sale price,” the complaint said.

FunPlus “deceives consumers” by offering limited-time bonuses that “purport to massively discount the price of its in-game goods,” said the complaint. It uses strike-through pricing and percentages to “trick” consumers into believing they will benefit from limited-time promotions that “substantially increase the value of their in-game purchases, especially in relation to purchases made by competing players,” it said. The advertised savings are “false, however, because the original pricing that these ads reference are fabricated,” it said.

At no point have the in-game items ever been offered at a non-discounted price: “FunPlus never sells these items at their 'original' price,” said the complaint. The company offers false discounts from an original price that didn’t exist, “and its players bought packs on ‘sale’ that were the same prices they would ordinarily pay." The advertised original pricing doesn’t reflect the prevailing market retail pricing for the virtual in-game items, “which have no real-world value and whose pricing is entirely determined by FunPlus,” it said.

The complaint cited the FTC’s description of “false former pricing schemes,” saying if a former price being advertised has an an artificial, inflated price that was “established for the purpose of enabling the subsequent offer of a large reduction -- the 'bargain' being advertised is a false one; the purchaser is not receiving the unusual value he expects.” In those cases, the “reduced” price is likely “just the seller’s regular price.”

California’s Business & Professional Code says no price shall be advertised as a former price of any advertised product, unless the alleged former price was the prevailing market price within three months immediately preceding publication of the advertised price, or unless the date when the former price did prevail “is clearly, exactly and conspicuously stated in the advertisement," said the complaint. FunPlus’ tactics to induce players to spend “tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars each on purchases fall directly within the dark patterns -- manipulative design practices -- that the FTC identified” in a September report, said the complaint. Messages about product scarcity or urgency to beat a baseless countdown timer create “pressure to buy immediately,” it said.

In addition to statutory claims, Kelly asserts claims of fraud and unjust enrichment. He and class members seek an award of $5 million in compensatory and actual damages; plus actual, statutory and punitive damages; civil penalties; attorneys’ fees and legal costs; and an order enjoining FunPlus from engaging in the “wrongful and practices” alleged in the action. FunPlus didn't comment.