Judge dismisses ‘dubious’ lawsuit against ‘Game of War’ maker

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Saying fantasy was confused with reality, a federal judge in Baltimore has dismissed a woman’s hoped-for class-action lawsuit seeking compensation for money lost playing what she called an unlawful gambling game on her mobile device but which he called a virtual entertainment where players know they cannot receive a financial windfall.

U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar said Mia Mason’s lawsuit against the maker of “Game of War: Fire Age” had little merit and harms the legal profession’s reputation.

“Plaintiff thinks that this case is about recovering modest payments she and fellow putative class members were improperly persuaded to make while playing an illegal online game,” Bredar wrote Tuesday. “Instead, the case ends up being more about the need to draw clear and distinct lines between real and virtual worlds, particularly when it comes to the serious business of going to court and litigating real claims and interests. Even in the Internet age, there is a crucial distinction between that which is pretend and that which is real and true.”

In the game, players can use actual currency to buy virtual “gold” with which they can purchase virtual “chips” to wager on a virtual spinning wheel in hopes of winning virtual prizes, such as “wood” or “stone,” Bredar said. Players can then use the wood or stone in the next phase of the game, which involves virtual world conquest, Bredar said.

Mason alleged she was entitled to compensation for the more than $100 she spent on the virtual gold because the spinning wheel was a “slot machine or device,” which is illegal to manufacture in California, where Game of War’s maker, Machine Zone Inc., is based. The Glen Burnie resident added she could recover under Section 12-110 of the Maryland Criminal Article, which enables people to recover money they lose at a prohibited “gaming device.”

But Bredar said Game of War is played purely for entertainment and involves no real gambling, as the players have no expectation of a financial return from the spinning wheel.

Mason’s “theory, if taken seriously, would place an eventual factfinder in the unenviable position of pricing the conversion from virtual gold and chips to virtual wood and rock,” Bredar wrote. “Such a whimsical undertaking may spark the imaginations of children and ardent game enthusiasts, but it can have no place in federal court.”

Mason “got precisely what she bargained for,” the judge added.

“Under such circumstances it is not unjust for defendant to retain the funds it received from plaintiff; on the contrary, it would be unjust to return those funds to plaintiff after she benefited from the enhanced gaming experience that ‘gold’ evidently delivers,” he wrote.

In a footnote, Bredar stated “dubious” lawsuits like Mason’s “strain and strain but in the end never credibly allege an injury” and lend “credence to a negative view held by many about the legal profession.”

“Federal dockets are crowded enough with credible allegations of true harms,” he wrote. “Parties with righteous claims — and righteous defenses to such claims — are forced to put their lives on hold for months and sometimes years as they await their turn to be heard. Lawsuits like this one needlessly add to the delay in resolving truly legitimate disputes.”

Mason’s team of attorneys at the Washington and Chicago offices of Edelson P.C. did not return messages seeking comment Friday.

Allyson Himelfarb, an attorney for Machine Zone, declined to comment on Bredar’s decision. Himelfarb is with Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington, D.C.

The case is Mason v. Machine Zone Inc., 1:15-cv-01107-JKB.