14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind hit games like World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2 or Diablo 3, has been sued in a class-action suit by angry users who are upset over the recent hacking suffered by the studio's Battle.net system, as well as the fact that they're pretty much forced to buy Authenticators in order to protect their accounts.
Blizzard has entertained millions upon millions of gamers from all over the world with quality titles but, at the same time, it's caused plenty of problems for its customers, as it forces them to create Battle.net accounts in order to access the aforementioned titles.
These accounts, unfortunately, are quite vulnerable to hacking attempts and, earlier this year, the whole Battle.net system was breached, leaving millions of users vulnerable.
Now, some of these victims have banded together and filed a class-action lawsuit against Blizzard because it failed to protect their private data.
“Defendants negligently, deliberately, and/or recklessly fail to ensure that adequate, reasonable procedures safeguard the private information stored on this website. As a result of these acts, the private information of plaintiffs and class members has been compromised and/or stolen since at least 2007,” reads the complaint, via GamesIndustry.
“Most recently, on or about May 19, 2012, reports proliferated that class members’ Battle.net accounts had suffered a security breach (‘hack’) at the hands of unknown parties (‘hackers’), and on or about August 4, 2012, hackers massively breached Battle.net’s security and acquired the private information of all of defendants’ customers in the United States, as well as the remainder of North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia.”
Users are also upset that they're practically forced to get Authenticators in order to actually protect their accounts from hackers, claiming that Blizzard made around $26 million (around €20.4 million) in profit without investing it back into Battle.net security.
As of yet, Blizzard hasn't commented on this lawsuit.