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A class action lawsuit alleged that entertainment giant Sega “rigged” one of its arcade games, Key Master, so that it could only be won after a certain number of players had lost.
The lawsuit, which was filed in California on Monday, said the game was “routinely marketed and sold … with images and advertising indicating that the machines are pure games of skill when in reality the machines are are rigged and are designed to prevent even highly skilled users from being able to win until a set number of unsuccessful games have been completed.
The plaintiff, Marcelo Muto, is suing the company for $ 5 million.
“The Plaintiff and the other consumers would not otherwise have paid money to play the Key Master Machine, or paid to have others play, or paid as much, if they had known that the machines were not purely skill-based, but rather were programmed to allow the machine operator to undermine the player’s skills by preventing the key from entering the lock, ”the suit continues.
In the game, which can be found in arcades and malls across the United States, players use a joystick and button system to maneuver a wrench into a specific hole. Winners are awarded prizes, such as headphones and video games.
If a player put the key in the correct position to win – but it is not at the predetermined time, the machine will overtake, causing a loss, depending on the combination.
Each machine, depending on the lawsuit, can be programmed to only allow a win after a certain number of hits, but machines are set to allow a win after 700 hits by default.
The machine has encountered legal problems in the past, this week’s lawsuit noted. In 2019, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich discovered that the Key Master machines had been gamified and tuned with a company that distributed them in Arizona for $ 1 million.
“Under Arizona law, outside of casinos, it is illegal for gaming machines to have settings that allow an operator to alter the odds of participants winning the game,” Brnovich told the time.
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