In a huge win for the little guys of gaming, one individual gamer has taken the conglomerate giant Microsoft to court over a hacked account, and has come out $400 up and the crown of a people’s champion.
After their account was hacked, despite adhering to the 2FA requirements, Xbox and Reddit user ‘Ordo_Liberal’ was left distraught, losing access to their paid games and all progress in countless titles.
The user, who named games like Minecraftas one of the games with their highest expenditure, was told that ‘unauthorised access occurred’ on his account, and was frozen out of his library.
As we continue to hurtle towards a time where physical media is being axed, and reliance is being stoked into digital games, the user echoed the fears of the mass gaming audience by ‘losing’ all of his purchases.
However, the Brazilian gamer launched a lawsuit against Microsoft, after being told, “We are unable to modify or restore the security settings once they’ve been updated.”
Brazilian gamer takes Microsoft to small-claims court and wins
Taking to Reddit, the user documented his three-month saga with Microsoft, saying, “Microsoft deleted my [Xbox account] and told me to buy my games again. I sued their asses and won!”
The gamer and his sole public defendant argued that it was unlawful to delete his account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games linked to it, even if it was hacked, and the small claims court agreed.
According to the man, Microsoft deployed “12 lawyers and a 300-page document with their defense” to quash the suit.
“In Brazil you can hire a public defendant to sue a company in consumer protection cases,” he wrote. “I had 0 costs in this lawsuit.”
Attaching a screenshot of the rulings, the Xbox user revealed that Microsoft has been ordered to reinstate his account to what it was before the hack and pay the user $400 in damages.
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Following his post, gamers flocked to praise his endeavour.
“This is amazing! With the all digital future seemingly closer than we think, this is an absolutely awesome precedent set and hopefully leads to more security for our accounts and games,” one Redditor wrote.
Another added, “Thanks for fighting the good fight! Let’s hope that this becomes reality in the States as well.”
“That’s honestly unbelievable,” a final person said, adding, “and they want all digital. Absolutely not.”
The Brazilian courts are notorious for their stance on fair gaming opportunities. Recently, a new bill has been prepared that contradicts PlayStation’s purge on physical edition games, which intends to ensure that publishers support games for years after support is ‘ended’.
The report from PushSquare revealed that “publishers would need to either enable offline play, provide the community with tools to keep the game running, or offer proportional refunds,” if they end support on a game, such as Destiny 2.
The extra servers would need to be supported for two years after the game’s close, and gamers would need 180 days of notice.
While the huge publishers continue to have the opinion that they hold all of the cards, it’s nice to know that there are cracks in the armour and the little guys can still get big wins.
