Blizzard and Activision (by proxy) are facing a class action lawsuit brought forth by several players.
Lead plaintiff Benjamin Bell is accusing Blizzard of consumer fraud, negligence, unjust enrichment, and breach of contract and bailment. Bell and the rest of the plaintiffs are alleging that Blizzard is forcing its customers to purchase authenticators sold by Blizzard in order to provide extra security.
Bell claims that Blizzard could have used tighter security measures, instead of having players of their games use their own authenticators. According to Bell, players pay $6.40 in order to use Blizzard's Authenticator product in order to protect private information from hackers. The complaint says that Authenticator sales have brought Blizzard approximately $26 million, and that the Authenticator has yet to solve the problem of hacking.
Bell cites two incidents of the Authenticators' failure to stop hackers who managed to find their way into Blizzard's system earlier this year.
1. May 19 - Battle.net accounts were breached after the launch of Diablo 3.
2. Aug. 4 - Information gathered from customers in New Zealand, North America, and Southeast Asia.
According to a 33 page document, Bell claims that since as early as 2007, the loss of private information has been occurring. Bell claims that Blizzard "deliberately, and/or recklessly fails to ensure that adequate, reasonable procedures safeguard the private information stored on this website."
While Blizzard has yet to comment on the case, they do have a history of telling players to download anti-virus software, and not to trust e-mails sent out by third parties.
With online games as large as popular as the ones made by Blizzard, the threat of hacking is something all players should be aware of, and isn't limited just to Blizzard titles. Over the summer, players of the most played game in the world, League of Legends, had their accounts hacked as well. However, no one decided to take Riot Games to court, as they didn't require players to buy a security authenticator.
Bell and the remaining plaintiffs are seeking class damages, an injunction to bar the defendants from "tacking on" undisclosed costs after customers have bought games, for Blizzard to stop requiring players to sign up for Battle.net accounts.