First the league deactivation feature has been in effect for over a year now and has been notified about in the game  News updates.  And a count down is displayed  that for inactive leagues with more than 1 player can see.  Your choice to not log in was yours to make as was your choice to run a one man league  and it's the same for everyone. 

This is from the Terms of service that you agreed to when you joined.

12. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OWNERSHIP AND LICENSE

You acknowledge and agree that all intellectual property rights in our Service and its underlying technology, and all information and content available on or through the Service (excluding User Content (as defined below) but including the characters, graphics, storylines, sounds, Virtual Currency, and Virtual Goods in the Games) are owned by us and/or our suppliers (including other users).

You further acknowledge and agree that you shall have no ownership or other property interest in the Account, and that all rights in and to the Account are owned by us.  

It's never a good idea to threaten legal action when you have no intention or the ability to follow through the threat. Much better to be polite when looking for help.

Nor is a great idea to make claims about them breaking agreements with no idea what the agreements actually say. The T&C's actually give them pretty much zero liability to you whatsoever. 

The above section 12 about intellectual property right isn't actually the applicable/relevant section of the T&C's for this situation.

Right off the bat in the in the very first section:

1. GENERAL USE AND CHANGES

The Service is licensed, not sold, to you. Plarium reserves the right to refuse any user access to the Service without notice for any reason, including, but not limited to, any violation of the Terms. You agree that Plarium may suspend or discontinue the Service (or any feature or Mobile Application thereof) or change the content of the Service at any time, for any reason, with or without notice, and without liability. 

to ram the point home....

5. VIRTUAL CURRENCY AND GOODS 

......You will have no right or title to any Virtual Goods and/or Virtual Currency you acquire......

Plarium has absolute control over all Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods and at any time has the right to change the value, modify, and/or eliminate any Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods as it sees fit and without any liability. Plarium's obligation to you regarding purchased Virtual items will be deemed performed upon transfer of the Virtual Goods and/or Virtual Currency to your Account. 

9. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS AND WE DO NOT REPRESENT, WARRANT, OR GUARANTEE THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, VIRUS-FREE, OR THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED 

15. APPLICABLE LAW AND ARBITRATION AGREEMENT

These Terms and any action related to these Terms will be governed by and interpreted under the laws of Israel.  

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The last one is the kicker. Cause unless you live in a region where there is specific local legislation that would allow you to bring a legal case in your country of origin, you would need to take your legal case up with them in Israell. 

Good luck trying to sue a large corporation with deep pockets in a country that might be thousands of miles away from you, in a legal system you don't understand. That would be pretty hardcore even if you had serious resource to throw at it.

His claim was in regards to property.

Section 12 said "You further acknowledge and agree that you shall have no ownership or other property interest in the Account, and that all rights in and to the Account are owned by us.   "

Intellectual property is a very specific thing. It's not really what this is about.

The key part is the very first line "The Service is licensed, not sold, to you".

Because what they are trying to do is say you are paying for a licence to play the game when you spend, you aren't buying specific goods. And they have a right to terminate or change the licence at any time because you have already had the benefit of your spending by having already played the game (used your licence).

It would actually be interesting to see if that held up in a real court, cause pretty much all T&C's of all games try and do roughly the same. And as far as I am aware those terms have never been tested in a court case.

I think it's palpably obvious that in this game you aren't buying a servive/licence. 

- The game is available F2P. So using the service/licence is clearly actually free.

- When you pay you pay for specific items or goods, on top of you basic access to the service

- The game specificly went down a micro transactions route not a subscription basis. A subscription would clearly be aligned to a service/licence model. Micro transactions is about buying goods.

It's pretty obvious you are buying goods. Castle skins, dragons, buildings. Just because they are pixelated doesn't stop them being goods and suddently make them a service. 

The difficult part is that those goods don't have a finite life. You know when you buy them, they will only last as long as the server is supported. 

So the reason developers want to try and phrase it as a service is so they can end games without having a liability to anyone for the goods they bought that are in those servers. 

Personally I think the comprimise is that you should have 12 months minimium of enjoying the goods. So if a company wants to end a game they would need to give 12 months notice. If anyone spends after that it's their own choice and they know what they are buying won't exist soon. At the moment you could buy something and literally 10 seconds later the game is turned off and you effectively get nothing for your money.

But don't hold your breath. The gaming industry is largely just money grabbing. Don't expect them to do the reasonable or "right" thing anytime soon (they are having to be forced by regulation not to addict ppl to random lootboxes for instance).

Yep, always fun seeing people threaten to sue over an agreement they haven't even bothered to read...