Soto v. Sky Union, LLC

159 F. Supp. 3d 871, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10631, 2016 WL 362379
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedJanuary 29, 2016
DocketCase No. 15 C 4768
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 159 F. Supp. 3d 871 (Soto v. Sky Union, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Soto v. Sky Union, LLC, 159 F. Supp. 3d 871, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10631, 2016 WL 362379 (N.D. Ill. 2016).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

MATTHEW F. KENNELLY, District Judge

Jose Soto, Christine Exelby, and Tanner Eastman have sued Sky Union, LLC, on behalf of themselves and putative classes of similarly situated persons. Plaintiffs allege that they lost money playing the online game Castle Clash, which Sky Union operates. They contend that Castle Clash is a game of chance — gambling—that Sky Union camouflaged as a game of skill.

Plaintiffs claim that Sky Union violated the laws of Illinois, Michigan, and California — the states in which Soto, Exelby, and Eastman reside, respectively. Specifically, they allege that Sky Union violated California law by (1) operating a slot machine, Cal. Penal Code § 330b(d) (Count 1); (2) convening lottery events, Cal. Penal Code § 319 (Count 2); and (3) engaging in unfair competition arising out of this unlawful conduct, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 17200 (Count 3). Plaintiffs allege that Sky Union violated the Illinois Loss Recovery Act (ILRA), 720 ILCS 5/28-8(a) (Count 4), the Illinois Prizes and Gifts Act (IPGA), 815 ILCS 525/40 (Count 5), and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (ICFA), 815 ILCS § 505/1 (Count 6). Plaintiffs also allege that Sky Union violated the Michigan Loss Recovery Statute (MLRS), Mich. Comp. Laws § 600.2939 (Count 8), and that Sky Union also should be held liable for unjust enrichment under Illinois and Michigan law (Counts 7 and 9, respectively).

Sky Union removed the case to federal court on the basis of the Class Action Fairness Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332(d) & 1453. Sky Union has now moved to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint for failure to state a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 12(b)(6). For the reasons stated below, the Court grants Sky Union’s motion.

Background

The Court takes the following facts from plaintiffs’ complaint, accepting them as true for purposes of the present motion. See Fortres Grand Corp. v. Warner Bros. Entm’t Inc., 763 F.3d 696, 700 (7th Cir.2014). Electronic gaming has never been more popular than it is today. As more people have integrated Internet-connected mobile devices into their daily lives, and as those devices have grown more advanced and accessible, so too have the number and type of online games that can be played on them. ‘Free-to-play games are online games that a user may download to a mobile device and play without charge. Often these games are free only for those users who choose to keep them that way. Many of these games, including the one at issue in this case, offer users the opportu[875]*875nity to spend money at various stages of gameplay.

One such game is Sky Union’s ‘Castle Clash.' From the complaint alone, the Court cannot say exactly what the objective of Castle Clash is, but it appears to be a game of conquest in which players amass armies of ‘Heroes' to do battle with one another. As the Heroes fight one another, they develop more skills and attributes that make them stronger and more capable of winning future battles. As players play the game, Sky Union randomly places ‘shards' — a type of virtual currency in this virtual world — in the game’s ‘dungeon/ Players can acquire new Heroes from the ‘Hero Shop/ where players are offered Heroes with varying degrees of skill and strength. Players pay to purchase these Heroes from the Hero Shop by using the shards they have accumulated through normal game play. The weakest and least effective Heroes (categorized by Sky Union as ‘Sacrifice' Heroes) cost very few shards, while the strongest and most effective Heroes (classified as ‘Elite' and ‘Legendary') cost much more. Sky Union limits the daily number of visits players may make to the dungeon, but players may purchase additional visits from Sky Union if they would like to advance more quickly.

Not all of the virtual currency in Castle Clash is earned through ordinary game-play. When a player downloads and begins to play Castle Clash, Sky Union gives her a small number of free ‘gems' that she may use to make purchases within the game. According to the complaint, players stockpile more gems only by paying real money for them. Sky Union sells gems in bulk, ranging from 230 gems for $1.99 to 16,800 gems for $99.99. These gems may be used to purchase ‘in-game enhancements or to speed up [a player’s] progress in the game. For example, consumers can spend gems to reduce the time it takes to ’recruit troops’ for virtual battles/ Am. Compl. ¶ 23. These .gems may also be used to participate in games of chance in which Sky Union awards players new Heroes or ‘Talents/ special attributes that modify a Hero’s combat behavior. If a player wants to collect a Hero without spending the shards she has collected over time, she may purchase gems and use them to enter into a ‘Hero Roll/ If a player would like to develop her Heroes without spending the time to hone their skills in battle, she may use her purchased gems to enter a ‘Talent Roll/

With each Hero Roll, players spend 150 gems to win a randomly selected Hero. Because not all characters are created equally, however, Sky Union’s randomizing algorithm is designed to return a high value Hero less frequently than it returns low value Heroes. For example, based on their own experiments with the game, plaintiffs estimate that the odds against winning a character known as ‘Crystal Ooze*' — by plaintiffs’ standards, ‘an ordinary and effectively worthless Hero/ id. ¶ 31 — are five to one. By contrast, the odds against winning a powerful and valuable Hero known as ‘Grizzly Reaper' are roughly one thousand to one. Plaintiffs’ complaint contains less information about Talent Rolls, but they are apparently similar to Hero Rolls: participants always win something, but they have a far better chance of winning a low-value Talent than they have of winning high-value Talents.

In addition to allowing players to purchase gems and spend them on Hero and Talent Rolls, Sky Union also often organizes in-game events whereby players with large quantities of gems are awarded rare Heroes or Talents. In October 2014, for example, Sky Union held an event called the ‘Great Gems Bonanza/ through which the twenty Castle Clash players owning the most gems at the end of one day were awarded a new highly skilled and valuable [876]*876Hero named ‘Moltanica/ Sky Union informed players how many gems they would need to buy to have a chance of winning, and some players spent as much as $3,000 in one day to achieve a high enough rank to win the eoveted Hero.

In or around November 2013, Jose Soto, an Illinois resident, downloaded Castle Clash to his mobile device and began to play the game. Eventually, he began purchasing gems from Sky Union to play Hero and Talent Rolls. From November 2Ó13 to March 2015, Soto spent over $200 on gems that he used on these Rolls, at least fifty dollars’ worth of which he lost in the six months leading up to the filing of this lawsuit. Sky Union also offered Soto the opportunity to participate in five separate events from July 2014 through April 2015 through which he could win ‘legendary1 Heroes, ‘materials,1

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
159 F. Supp. 3d 871, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10631, 2016 WL 362379, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/soto-v-sky-union-llc-ilnd-2016.