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Marcusw29

New member
Not sure if I chose the right section for this but my issue is with a japanese website dmm.com they host many things there but I only use the mobile or web based game portion of the site. I have had an account there since about 2014 and have probably made something around $15,000-20,000 in point charges over the span of 4 years. There was a limited time lootbox or "gacha" would be the japanese name for it that advertised a 2% rate for a new character and 4% for all other characters of the same rarity. The two sets of 10 gacha are discounted about $15 and $20 and then all other sets are about $27 after that. I figured its a 2% chance shouldn't be too hard to get that new character so I essentially kept charging points expecting to get that new character at some point but that never occurs. I ended up with exactly 290 gacha total or 29 sets so a couple hundred dollars. I'm fairly certain there was some sort of error and that new character wasn't applied to the gacha correctly with so many failed attempts. I do not believe the rate for the other characters of that rarity supposedly set for 4% was accurate either I think I only saw maybe 3 of them come out of the entire 290 shots I made. I sent messages to their game developers in english and also some short phrases I translated with google to check the issue but all they do is send back scripted messages in japanese which say " we do not modify the gacha rates for individual players and that I'm not guaranteed to get anything" so I doubt they even checked if my problem existed. From what I observed no one else obtained the character either. Since they seemed to just ignore me after multiple attempts to speak with them I just filed chargebacks with paypal and my bank. They have blocked my account now for a mere $700 in chargebacks when my account is 4 years old with likely $15,000 or more total I have charged for other games I play there. I emailed the address that reports every charge I make "[email protected]" and they actually reply back to me in english there but they say they can only offer me to pay $290 and then they will unblock my account but if I make anymore claims my account will be banned again. I tried asking them in this email also if they could verify the issue and they only say the say they can't help me from their department and what the game developer said is true. I believe the $290 is from the refunds my bank and paypal have already given me paypal rejected most of the claims but not all since it wasn't charged all at once. I'm not sure if my bank is still investigating since I asked them to refund the paypal charges that paypal rejected as being legitimate claims. I just recently figured out how to send messages to their dmm games support section but I don't have much hope in it. Before I was just using an online support button at the bottom of the games page but I can no longer access that since I'm banned. It may be difficult to prove since the gacha that I used was only limited time and any characters I obtained are instantly converted to an item if you already own the character so I'm not completely sure how many I obtained. The only thing I know with 100% certainty is that I didn't get that new character set at a 2% rate.

I'm sorry for the wall of text but I was trying to be as descriptive as possible. Does anyone have an idea if I could somehow sue them for the value of my lost account if I refuse to pay or would it be better I just pay them and try to sue for false advertising? I'm worried they don't have enough of a US presence to be sued since only certain parts of their website has an english version or they can just doctor the evidence since I don't have anyway of knowing what the rate's really are in their system or even if my system somehow malfunction and just didn't properly load the gacha. I'm also not exactly made of money to afford a ton of lawyer fees. I'm considering that maybe I should not of had all of my games on one account so I could just chargeback claims in rare instances like this with no problems if they want to ban me for their faulty product.
 


quincy

Senior Member
What is the name of your state?

I do not see that you have much chance of succeeding with a legal action against a Japanese game maker.
 

quincy

Senior Member
I'm in Maryland
Thank you for providing your state name, Marcus.

I am afraid you do not have much chance of successfully suing the Japanese game maker - and you would likely have to file your suit in Japan for it to have any effect. I would bet the terms and conditions of use you agreed to when setting up your account probably has protected the game maker sufficiently from legal actions.

I would continue to try to resolve your problem through games support - but I wouldn't count on your account being reactivated.

Good luck.
 

Taxing Matters

Overtaxed Member
Not sure if I chose the right section for this but my issue is with a japanese website dmm.com they host many things there but I only use the mobile or web based game portion of the site. I have had an account there since about 2014 and have probably made something around $15,000-20,000 in point charges over the span of 4 years. There was a limited time lootbox or "gacha" would be the japanese name for it that advertised a 2% rate for a new character and 4% for all other characters of the same rarity.
That's the problem with loot drop rates for any game. A 2% drop rate only means that on average from among all the players in the game you would expect to see the new player 2% of the time. 98% of the time, therefore, it does not occur. And that's the average among the thousands or millions that play the game. What an individual player experiences will be different; some may experience a rate that ends up less than that, others more. That's the nature of random ocurrences. For example, you expect that on average over a large number of occurrences when you flip a coin half the time you'll get heads. But it is possible that in 100 coin flips you might have 90 of them turn up heads and only 10% tails. The larger the data set, the less likely it is that such an unbalanced outcome would occur, but it is always possible to get such an outcome. Because of this, proving fraud even in the U.S. would be difficult without doing extensive (and expensive) discovery of the game data from the developer.

The only thing I know with 100% certainty is that I didn't get that new character set at a 2% rate.
But the developer doesn't guarantee individual players will get the desired loot exactly 2% of the time. That would not be random drops. Instead, it simply says the average among all players will be 2%. What each individual player gets will vary. I've played a well known MMORPG game for a number of years. When I do raids with a group of players there are some nights when I don't get single piece of loot in the entire raid while other players in the same raid might get loot from nearly every boss. That's just a reflection of how random numbers work. Sure, over a large enough number of raids eventually I get the loot I want, but some players get it faster than others because of the nature of random number generators (rng). Thus, players sometimes joke about praying to the rng gods before a raid.

In short, the game may not have been faulty. You may have just been cursed by the rng gods.

Does anyone have an idea if I could somehow sue them for the value of my lost account if I refuse to pay or would it be better I just pay them and try to sue for false advertising?
You could sue unless the terms of your account require you to arbitrate the dispute (and at least in the US most game account terms of service do require arbitration), but I rather think you'd lose. And the cost to do it would be more than what you have at stake here. You'd almost certainly have to sue in Japan and even if the rules there allow you get the discovery you would need to prove that they are not providing on average a 2% drop rate for all players, I suspect it would be pretty costly to do it.
 
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quincy

Senior Member
I visited the site and most of it is in Japanese. :)

I did not on a brief look find the English translations - but I can almost guarantee that the terms of use cover exactly the situation described here by Marcus and that the game developers have legally protected themselves from unhappy gamers.
 

Marcusw29

New member
yeah thanks guys I think I will just give up on it for now, though I really feel like something went wrong to have failed 2% almost 300 times and to also have not gotten much more then 3 SSR rarity characters total with a supposed 6% rate altogether. I guess I will start making separate accounts for each game I play in the future so if I have issues like this I can just dispute without worrying about losing progress and money spent on every game.
 

quincy

Senior Member
yeah thanks guys I think I will just give up on it for now, though I really feel like something went wrong to have failed 2% almost 300 times and to also have not gotten much more then 3 SSR rarity characters total with a supposed 6% rate altogether. I guess I will start making separate accounts for each game I play in the future so if I have issues like this I can just dispute without worrying about losing progress and money spent on every game.
I suggest you re-read the game's terms and conditions to make sure you are not violating any of them by making several separate game accounts. If you enjoy the game play, you don't want to risk a permanent ban.

Good luck.
 

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