A trio of professional gamers sued video game developer Activision Friday for its “unlawful 100% monopoly” on “Call of Duty” leagues and tournaments, a competitive gaming space they said was a “lucrative and once-vibrant market.”
Filed in the central district of California, western division court on Friday by plaintiffs Hector Rodriguez, Seth Abner and Hecz LLC, the lawsuit accuses Activision of practicing “myriad anticompetitive actions.”
“Activision has used that unlawful monopoly power to prevent would-be competitors from entering the market, as well as to coerce the market’s other participants — in particular, professional ‘Call of Duty’ players and team owners — to acquiesce to extortionate financial terms,” the lawsuit states. “Absent its unlawful monopoly, Activision could never have obtained those terms, which enrich Activision at the team owners’ and players’ expense without any pro-competitive justification.”
The suit further claims that “prospective team owners and players who were unwilling or unable to acquiesce to those terms were effectively frozen out of the market (i.e., were forced to forego participating in the relevant market altogether), while other prospective team owners and players (including Rodriguez and Abner) were forced to incur additional (and foreseeable) economic burdens in order to satisfy Activision’s anticompetitive terms.”
Activision responded to the lawsuit Friday, calling it “meritless litigation.”
“We will strongly defend against these claims, which have no basis in fact or in law,” a spokesperson said in a statement to TheWrap. “We are disappointed that these members of the esports community would bring this suit which is disruptive to team owners, players, fans and partners who have invested so much time and energy into the ‘Call of Duty’ league’s success.”
Rodriguez and Abner “demanded that Activision pay them tens of millions of dollars to avoid this meritless litigation, and when their demands were not met, they filed,” the statement continued.
Among the lawsuit’s claims is that Activision “dramatically impair[ed] Rodriguez’s ability to monetize the OpTic brand” and that he was “coerced into giving the billionaire investors a substantial share of ownership in his company OpTic IP, LLC (‘Optic Gaming’).”
According to Activision, Rodriguez sold his CDL league OpTic Texas (formerly called the Dallas Empire) “two years prior to the formation of the League he now claims devalued it.”
The plaintiffs have requested a jury trial.
