Things Don't Look Great For The Bethesda And Xbox Merger
As Microsoft gets closer to completing its acquisition of Bethesda, a new stumbling block has now popped out of the woodwork. According to VentureBeat, a class-action lawsuit filed against Bethesda in 2019 could rear its ugly head at the absolute worst moment, potentially holding up the company's deal to be purchased by Microsoft.
This lawsuit was originally filed in 2019. Since Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Bethesda, the attorneys at The X-Law Group — the firm behind the litigation — have been concerned about how that deal would impact the suit. Therefore, The X-Law Group has said that it plans on asking a judge to stop the transaction between Microsoft and Bethesda until after the trial is over. It is unclear if X-Law Group will be successful in keeping Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda from moving forward, but this is undoubtedly a scenario Microsoft would like to avoid.
In the firm's lawsuit against Bethesda, X-Law claims that the company's Creation Club – a "collection of content for both Fallout 4 and Skyrim," according to its official website — breaks promises that Bethesda made with gamers. Back in 2015, the studio promised fans a DLC Season Pass that would include all DLC content the game would have. The Season Pass, which released at $30 and then increased in price to $50, did what it promised up until the Creation Club released in 2017.
The Creation Club offered new missions, new skins, new locations, and new weapons to name a few. However, fans of Fallout 4 who bought the Season Pass weren't able to get the Creation Club content unless they wanted to pay. According to one attorney involved in the case, Filippo Marchino, "[Bethesda] released a limited amount of DLC. Then they released a second wave of DLC, but decided to call it the Creation Club content and artificially removed it from the definition of DLC." X-Law Group believes it was false advertising for Bethesda to say that the Season Pass would include all DLC for Fallout 4, only to go back on that and not give Season Pass holders access to content in the Creation Club.
The argument from Bethesda is that the Creation Club isn't actually DLC. However, if it's not DLC, then it tiptoed on the line of paid mods according to Marchino. As the attorney stated, "It walks like a duck, quacks like a duck." At this time, there's no word on when a judge might rule decide on X-Law's request to stop the Microsoft/Bethesda deal.