Bethesda and parent company ZeniMax Media are facing a class action lawsuit over DLC for "Fallout 4" and are currently in the discovery phase. The lawsuit was initiated in 2019 and is over the "Fallout 4" season pass, which was sold prior to the game's launch with the following promise:" To reward our most loyal fans, we are offering a season pass this time." "You can get all the DLC we've ever done for 'Fallout 4' for only $30." "Based on what we did with 'Oblivion,' 'Fallout 3' and 'Skyrim,' we know it's worth at least $40." "If you want to do more, you can get it all with the season pass."

This seems pretty clear: "Fallout 4" was released with a season pass in 2015 and was a huge commercial success; in 2016, Bethesda raised the price of the season pass to $50. And in 2017, it announced the launch of the Bethesda Creation Club: "This is an entirely new collection of content for both Fallout 4 and Skyrim. It features new items, abilities, and gameplay created by Bethesda Game Studios and external development partners, including the best community creators. Creation Club content is fully curated and compatible with the main game and official add-ons.

Creation Club content is not included in the Fallout 4 Season Pass.

Venturebeat has a comprehensive report in which we spoke with Jacob Devine, one of the plaintiffs in the case." I purchased the season pass for $50 in 2019 when it was still advertised as "all Fallout 4 DLC for one S.P.E.C.I.A.L. price. The lawsuit dates back to June 2019, when Devine's mother Suzanne sued Bethesda in Maryland.

"I bought the first season pass and it was cool. Now I can access all the rest of the games, right?" says Jacob Devine. 'And then they dropped a new batch. I went to check it out and found out I couldn't access it at all. I basically had to buy another season pass to get access. I was disappointed. I felt like I was being ripped off."

The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.

The basic argument of the lawsuit is that players like Devine are being deceived and that Bethesda is distinguishing between DLC for Fallout 4 and Creation Club content that does not actually exist. Importantly, the majority of Creation Club content is produced in-house at Bethesda." The majority of the Creation Club content is produced in-house." the company explains on its website." Some is produced by outside partners who have worked on our games, and some is produced by outside creators." And. Bethesda's Pete Hines said in a recent interview, "It's like a mini-DLC."

Filippo Marchino is one of the lawyers for the X-Law Group, which filed the lawsuit. Creation Club] is clearly downloadable content," Marchino told Venturebeat. It walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. Walk like a duck, quack like a duck. They are trying to call it Creation Club content with stickers to get it out of the sight of people who have already purchased season passes. But it's essentially artificial. It's part of the scam."

The lawsuit accuses Bethesda of many acts, including breach of contract, unjust enrichment, deception or fraud, fraudulent concealment, and negligent misrepresentation. One of the wildest aspects of the lawsuit is the amount of damages being claimed: "It's a multibillion-dollar lawsuit. It's a multi-billion dollar lawsuit," asserts Martino.

"Even conservatively speaking, the damages are multiplied by a factor of four or five, which means billions of dollars in damages."

It is clear that the lawsuit has elements of a good argument, and Bethesda is in a sense hanging by its own beak. While I myself did not purchase the season pass, it seems reasonable that those who did would have expected the Creation Club content to be thrown in as well. But the X-Law Group smells slightly like an ambulance chasing ambulance, and the website for this class action lawsuit is unintentionally hilarious. Behold this poor soul.

Whether all of this amounts to "billions of dollars" in punitive damages is highly questionable (this calculation seems to be based on acknowledging that the Creation Club content is worth just under $300 per player who purchased a season pass). Of course, this comes just after Microsoft paid $7.5 billion to ZeniMax Media late last year, further complicating matters as to which company will ultimately be held liable.

It is unclear whether this will be a trial or a settlement, but a recent request from a Maryland court regarding the former lawsuit indicates that settlement talks were ordered in December. Either way, it is certainly a reminder in one case that Bethesda should be more careful about its promises.