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Papaya Countersues Skillz, Alleges Platform Admits to Bot Use and Deceived Skill Gamers

Papaya Gaming, based in Israel, has filed a countersuit against Skillz, the Las Vegas skill gaming platform that features the developers' games and links players to compete for real cash. 

In March 2024, Skillz filed a lawsuit against Papaya in the Southern District Court of New York, alleging that the gaming developer modified Skillz’s hosting platform to enable the use of computer bots. Papaya justified its operations by stating that it utilizes bots solely in tutorial games and notifies players that they are competing against an “automated opponent.” Papaya claims its rapid peer-to-peer pairing is due to a unique matchmaking algorithm it created in-house. 

In its reply in New York, Papaya stated that Skillz has initiated a smear campaign by establishing a “fake website” known as 4FairPlay.org that contains untrue claims against Skillz’s rivals and aims to mislead consumers into thinking that Papaya’s games are manipulated. 

Last month, Papaya initiated a separate federal lawsuit in Virginia’s Eastern District with similar accusations that Skillz deliberately engaged consultants in Chicago and New York to create the now-defunct 4FairPlay.org website and advertise "fake customer testimonials." 

Bot Usage Recognition 

Critical elements of the New York Southern District lawsuit have recently been disclosed, and the previously hidden information is a significant development for the millions of frustrated mobile skill gaming users questioning if they were misled by participating in specific games on the Skillz Platform. 

The counterclaim from Papaya—only recently accessible to the public via online court records—appears to indicate that Skillz permits developers to utilize bots and even employs them itself. Papaya's counterclaim features a screenshot from the Skillz developer platform addressing "the use of bots in gameplay."

"When integrating bots into your gameplay experience, consistency is key. A bot, by design, allows the computer to manage aspects of gameplay, typically acting as a player’s opponent or/and player’s challenges,” the screenshot message read. “The bot behavior in your game must be deterministic, meaning that given the same set of play inputs or conditions, it must always produce the same bot behavior.”

Papaya lawyers claim that the communication to developers contradicts the “never bots” message it frequently promotes to gamers. Papaya claims that Skillz employs bots in its games, but calls this practice internally “determined outcomes” and “hard wins.” 

“Whatever Skillz may have been compelled to acknowledge in this litigation, and whatever the true and complete scope of Skillz’s deployment of bots will be proven to be, Skillz has done nothing to explain these claimed distinctions about certain kinds of bot use in differing situations to consumers and players. Rather, those consumers and players are very clearly — but falsely — informed both by the company and by [Skillz CEO] Andrew Paradise himself that the Skillz platform ‘never’ (or ‘NEVER EVER’) has included or will include bots,” the lawsuit continued.

Skillz Hit Task? 

In 2023, Skillz started taking legal action against prominent game developers on its platform. In February 2024, Skillz received nearly $43 million after a federal jury in San Jose found that AviaGames intentionally infringed on Skillz’s patent. The lawsuit was not solely dependent on whether Avia utilized bots, but rather if it modified Skillz’s platform to enable quicker peer-to-peer matching. 

Papaya and Avia assert that Skillz's legal actions stem from the company's ongoing loss of market share regarding gameplay on its own platform. Players report that the time to be matched with another player is significantly less with Papaya and Avia games compared to Skillz. The defending companies claim they have merely created technology to connect players with comparable skills more efficiently. 

Ongoing class-action lawsuits have been proposed against Avia and Papaya.