A court in St Petersburg, Russia, has rejected a lawsuit filed by parents seeking to recover 445,000 rubles that their 15-year-old son spent on a video game, the city's joint court press service told the news outlet Lenta.ru.
The Petrogradsky District Court of St Petersburg denied the parents' request to have the boy's transactions declared invalid, according to the press service. The Petrogradsky court is one of the district courts that handles civil cases, including consumer and contract disputes, in St Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city.
The lawsuit said the boy, who was born in 2011, transferred the money from his father's bank account without his father's consent over five days, from May 17 to May 21, 2025. The funds went to the company OOO Blackhub Games so he could keep playing one of its titles.
The Telegram channel Mash, which first reported on the dispute, described the game as a Russian-themed equivalent of Grand Theft Auto, the open-world crime series developed by Rockstar Games. The Grand Theft Auto franchise is one of the best-selling in video game history and is known for letting players buy in-game currency and content with real money.
Court sided with the game company
The parents had asked the court to void the transfers, arguing their teenage son had moved the money without authorization. The Petrogradsky court examined the claim and ruled against the parents, leaving the payments to Blackhub Games in place.
Disputes like this have grown more common as many online games let players link a bank card to buy virtual currency, characters or continued access to features, often with a parent's card details saved on a shared device. Courts weighing such cases must decide whether a purchase made by a minor without a parent's knowledge can be undone once the money has already reached the game company.
Earlier case tied to online gaming
Lenta.ru noted that a court in Veliky Novgorod had previously handed down what was reported as the first real prison sentence of its kind, against 21-year-old Mikhail Shalimov. Shalimov was said to have used the internet to bully a schoolgirl, Diana Kildiyarova of Ufa, for six months, in a case that was also linked to the game.
