Three gamers have sued the ESEA League,one of the largest PC gaming leagues,for the surreptitious installation on their computers of malware that "mined" the virtual currency called bitcoins,netting a rogue ESEA employee some $3, 700 back in April. Their lawsuit seeks class action status.

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The suit was filed in San Francisco on Wednesday in California state court. The plaintiffs,Kevin Gallette,Jackson Smith and Roy Han,allege that the bitcoin-mining malware required so much of their computers' processing power that it damaged their video cards. Several allegations of GPU damage were made in the ESEA League's official forums as the scandal unfolded.

In a statement provided today to Kotaku,Craig Levine,a co-owner of E-Sports Entertainment Association,the league's parent company,said the league set up a claims process to reimburse anyone in the ESEA League community whose hardware was damaged by the malware. So far,this process has resolved about 270 claims without going to court; another 20 or so are left to be dealt with. Additionally,said Levine,ESEA League gave all members a free month of Premium service.

Bitcoins are a virtual currency that are "mined" by resolving a very complex cryptographic equation,taking large and prolonged amounts of processing. Compiling a large network of computers,either knowing or unknowing,to divide the workload is one way of doing that more efficiently. The concept is that a computer sitting idle gives its GPU over to the mining application.

Source: kotaku.com