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Are video game addiction lawsuits having a moment?
24.04.2024 - 16:09 / polygon.com
Lawyers and parents are taking on the video game industry. There are eight lawsuits currently active in North America that seek to address video game addiction. All have been filed within the past two years, and most argue that the targeted video game companies, including Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, Microsoft, Roblox, Nintendo, Take-Two Interactive Software, and Sony Interactive Entertainment, make their games purposefully addictive as a way to keep people playing, and, ultimately, to get them to spend lots of money.
“These video games are intentionally designed with the help of Ph.D. behavioral psychologists and neuroscientists to keep minors and young adults playing longer and spending hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars on the games,” a representative from Bullock Ward Mason, an Atlanta-based law firm involved in six of the eight suits, wrote on its website. “Defendants use game tactics such as reward systems, along with patented designs containing addictive features and technology to ensure its users keep playing longer and spending more. Most parents don’t understand what’s going on in their own homes as their children are manipulated and targeted by these multi-billion-dollar corporations.”
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There are three lawsuits in Arkansas, two in Illinois, and one each in Missouri, Florida, and Washington. The majority were filed by parents concerned about their children’s purported video game addictions, and how they’ve resulted in failure in school and elsewhere. One lawsuit states that a 13-year-old’s video game addiction has caused physical pain, obesity, and “rage,” for example, and there’s a 21-year-old who said he dropped out of high school because of video games.
Then there’s the Missouri lawsuit, which was filed by a 24-year-old woman named Harper Glasscock, who said she is addicted to video games and that they’ve caused her “brain damage, cognitive impairment, lost job opportunities and unemployment, depression, anxiety, withdrawal symptoms,” among other things. The games she’s addicted to, according to her lawyers, are largely published by Activision Blizzard: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch. The lawsuit, as with others, calls video game practices like microtransactions, reward systems, and loot boxes predatory, but also accuses video game companies of having specialized departments dedicated to building relationships with “whales” — or people who spend a lot of money in video games — to ensure they keep playing. Glasscock’s lawyers also call on neurological studies to back up their addiction claims.
Activision Blizzard and the other involved companies are looking to dismiss these lawsuits. Microsoft and Epic Games, among others, are compelling
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