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[Eddie-Griffin]

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-...awsuit-over-addictive-fortnite-game-1.6186022

A Quebec judge has authorized a class-action lawsuit against the maker of the popular online video game, Fortnite, after parents of three children who played it argued it was too "addictive."

When the original application was filed in 2019 against Epic Games Inc. and its Canadian subsidiary, the lawyers representing the plaintiffs said they believed this case was a first in Quebec.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Sylvain Lussier authorized the class-action suit on Wednesday.


Three parents from Quebec sued Epic Games, which is based in the U.S., alleging that the game's creators deliberately designed the Battle Royale iteration of Fortnite to be "highly addictive" and that Fortnite caused their minor children to suffer psychological, physical, and financial harm. They are all seeking damages from the company that will be determined at a later date.

KIDS ALLEGEDLY SPENT HUNDREDS ON GAME, DISASSOCIATED FROM FAMILY​

The battle royale style of game sees 100 players battle it out on an island until the last one is standing. It is free to play, but users can purchase in-game currency, called "V-Bucks," using real-world money.

To fuel their addiction, the kids mentioned in the class-action suit spent hundreds of dollars — sometimes without their parents' knowledge — on characters and dances in the game, according to the judgment on the request for authorization to bring the class-action suit against Epic Games.

One of the kids, identified as JO.Z in the document, had played more than 7,781 hours of the game in less than two years, sometimes playing until 3 a.m., the lawsuit claimed.

Another child allegedly played the game for a cumulative 59,954 minutes, the equivalent of 42 full days of playing.

The Quebec judge concluded that there is "no certainty" to the parents' allegations of a deliberately addictive game, but wrote that it "does not preclude the possibility that the game is in fact addictive and that its creator and distributor are presumed to know this," the judge wrote in the 24-page ruling.

The three children developed severe addictions to the popular game, spending almost all of their free time in the virtual world and in some cases not eating, showering, or socializing, the lawsuit alleged.

They became withdrawn from their families and one of them had panic attacks "due to the pressure of the game," according to the lawsuit.


Epic Games can appeal the judgement within 30 days. If the company decides not to, it will have to defend itself from the allegations once the case goes to the trial stage.

It's lawsuit day on Neogaf today.

Epic games had 30 days to try and appeal, if they do not they will have to defend themselves in court.

I find this concerning. This looks like the definition of a slippery slope if Epic gets sued for allegedly causing video game addiction on purpose for their business (the same thing car dealers, TV show producers, and other products do) and they LOSE, that could cause quite the catastrophe.

Why didn't the parents do something? Stop their kids form playing thousands of hours of games? Tried to push them to spend more time with the family?

 

[OverHeat]

Free money!!! Yeah!

 

[//DEVIL//]

Man this province is so screwed up,,,,

 

[Gamezone]

Sounds like my kid.

He's fine.

 

[OverHeat]

Man this province is so screwed up,,,,

Ta yeule! Tabarnak!

 

[Holammer]

A trial would be interesting as games include pattern holding techniques to get people to keep playing.

 

[rofif]

Idiotic. That’s just civilisation nowadays. Kids play this shit. We played something else

 

[Deerock71]

Sorry we made a fun game.

 

[Mr Moose]

that Fortnite caused their minor children to suffer psychological, physical, and financial harm.

lol OK.

Physical harm came from their parents when they did those shitty Fortnite dances.

 

[Fuz]

Of all the games and bad practices to attack...

 

[anthony2690]

I blame the parents.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I can't believe this is real, these garbage people weren't fit to be parents in the first place jfc

 

[Wooxsvan]

I blame the parents.

no freaking kidding. I have complete control and am responsible for what my child plays and how long. Get a grip you freaking free loading, Authoritarian loving nanny state pansies.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

no freaking kidding. I have complete control and am responsible for what my child plays and how long. Get a grip you freaking free loading, Authoritarian loving nanny state pansies.

The authorization reason given by the judge is a red flag imo.

 

[Crayon]

I don't hate it. Not just cuz don't like epic either. It would be cool if there could be some kind of audit in the future to see if a company is explicitly building monetization around skinner box shit and there would have be a warning.

 

[RoboFu]

It’s always someone else’s fault isn’t it.

 

[LordCBH]

Have they tried actually parenting their fucking kids?

 

[Dick Jones]

Have they tried actually parenting their fucking kids?

Sounds like too much work! How about suing?

 

[AJUMP23]

As the parent you can turn it off. If they don’t like that throw it out.

 

[ScHlAuChi]

They sue Epic for having optional purchases, but not Valve who has actual gambling?
How does that make any sense?

 

[fart town usa]

Pathetic. Maybe try parenting and enforcing some limits.

 

[Northeastmonk]

They should teach the adults how to disconnect the power.

 

[GhostOfTsu]

Va chier

 

[MarkMe2525]

My kid keeps charging my credit card and playing this game for 12 hours a day and I CANT DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT!!!

 

[Jennings]

I hope whoever is in the right wins this case.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Quebec?

So out of all the provinces in Canada, the one province where there's tons of smoking and drinking, and video game addiction is lawsuit worthy by parents.

LOL

 

[ZehDon]

Honestly, they had a better shot in the 90s with Pokemon, where the game and TV show formed a perfect circle of addiction that still grips many middle-aged men and women to this day.

 

[zcaa0g]

The parents should be sued for negligence. I hate stupid people that blame others for their shit parenting skills.

 

[MiguelItUp]

I blame the parents.

As you should! It's the parents fault. If they don't want their child playing video games, or putting so much time into them, it's on them to say something. I wish this could just be dismissed and the parents could be told to be better parents if they have a problem with it or anything else for that matter.

 

[anthony2690]

As you should! It's the parents fault. If they don't want their child playing video games, or putting so much time into them, it's on them to say something. I wish this could just be dismissed and the parents could be told to be better parents if they have a problem with it or anything else for that matter.

Epic should counter sue them for being stupid shits, incapable of raising their own children and allowing videos games/tablets to parent for them.

They can set play time limits, set passwords for bank details etc.

It just comes across as incompetent parenting and then opportunistic behaviour to try get some money out off a big company imo.

 

[DiddyKongRacing69]

"Is it our fault for not setting time limits, parenting our kids?"

"No it is the game company's fault"

 

[Husky]

Would actually be pretty cool if this worked out, ya know, make games center around quality gameplay again, and not on engineering addictive loops.

 

[Miles708]

While i agree on parents needing to do some actual parenting, modern games employ specific and scientific psychological tactics and stimuli to cause certain user types to get hooked.

On that basis, i wouldn't mind some ruling telling the publishers to get a grip.

 

[RJMacready73]

I strictly limit my kids playtime of fortnite, he knows not to question me when I say times up as last time he whinged about it I uninstalled it and he didn't get it back for week's and vbucks he only gets at bdays and Xmas, fuck these parents who can't fucking parent and say no, they're simply raisin the next generation of entitled wee gobshites

 

[lukilladog]

Excellent, one really cannot expect parents to be trained to counter the armies of experts engineering full-time artificial pathological addictions financed by multi-billion corporations. It's not a fair fight.

 

[lukilladog]

I strictly limit my kids playtime of fortnite, he knows not to question me when I say times up as last time he whinged about it I uninstalled it and he didn't get it back for week's and vbucks he only gets at bdays and Xmas, fuck these parents who can't fucking parent and say no, they're simply raisin the next generation of entitled wee gobshites

That is so unfair, there are so many conditions that cause parents to not be the optimal parents.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

How hard can it be to stop their kids playing games?

Just yank the console or cellphone from them. No different than when I was a kid. My parents were chill as my siblings and I all did well in school and never skipped class but there were times we pissed them off. Dad yanks the game system. Or if we were playing too much PC, my older brother would put a log in password screen on it so only he could get through it.

If parents have no balls to take away their kid's gadgets, that's on them. And they have loose rules because they are probably too busy watching netflix or staring at their own smartphone playing Clash of Clans. Stop being a loosey goosey parent and be more strict with your kids like the 80s when I did grade school.

It's no different than sugary kids cereal. Kids ask for it. Parents can either cave in or say no. My bro is a lax parent to his kids doing YT or gaming, but if there's one thing they are good at is not buying junky food. Go over to his house expecting snacks and pop and his entire fridge and cupboards are healthy stuff. At best, there might be a shitty tetra pack of iced tea.

Well look at that. Every person in his family is lean and healthy. Not a fatty in sight.

So just like all the parents who claim they cant help but buy their kids junk food. Cant be that hard . My bro doesn't. He and his wife eat pretty healthy. So lesson learned for his kids. Set a good example and kids should follow easier. It would be stupid if he and my sis in law preached healthy eating to their kids, but they ate burgers and fries and pizza every day.

Stop being lazy ass parents treating companies, government and schools like free babysitting services. Man up. It's your kids, it's your responsibility. Expecting a corporation with head office and employees 5000 miles away to parent your kids is the dumbest thing ever.

 

[lukilladog]

How hard can it be to stop their kids playing games?

How hard is to make someone to break addictions?.

Ps.- BTW, we are talking about people already addicted to certain video games because they were engineered to produce a psychological dependency, not playing games in general.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

How hard is to make someone to break addictions?.

Cant be that hard. Take away the kids' gadgets. Worked on my siblings and I when we were kids.

In modern day, install some programs on PC to prevents stuff like that. My bro installs on the family computer and their shitty laptops some kind of sub plan service that prevents his kids doing dumb shit. It's like Net Nanny of some sort, but I know it's not that program. I cant even use his family PC when I go over until he types in his code to bypass the password screen. And as I said as well, he and his wife are good at buying healthy food.

If my dad and bro can do some basic tactics to limit gaming and junk food, why cant modern day parents?

 

[lukilladog]

Cant be that hard. Take away the kids' gadgets. Worked on my siblings and I when we were kids.

In modern day, install some programs on PC to prevents stuff like that. My bro installs on the family computer and their shitty laptops some kind of sub plan service that prevents his kids doing dumb shit. It's like Net Nanny of some sort, but I know it's not that program. I cant even use his family PC when I go over until he types in his code to bypass the password screen. And as I said as well, he and his wife are good at buying healthy food.

If my dad and bro can do some basic tactics to limit gaming and junk food, why cant modern day parents?

Your sibling were addicted to Fortnite?. Maybe these parents thought they were being responsible and were actually acting responsibly, limiting time and all, but the game just got their kids psyche badly and now they have serious problems, akin to addicts.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

One of the kids, identified as JO.Z in the document, had played more than 7,781 hours of the game in less than two years, sometimes playing until 3 a.m., the lawsuit claimed.

That doesn't even sound possible. That's 325 days of gaming across "less than two years". So this kid is basically playing around 12 hours/day. I dont know if Fortnite tracks game playing as actual gameplay, or if it tracks time even if you are doing but staring at the menu screens (a gamer leaves the game on at a menu screen as he sleeps and that still counts on the time tracker), but either way that's a shit load of game time.

If a parent cant control their kid playing Fortnite almost every waking minute, that's on the parents. Sounds like the parents just let the kid sit in his room, door closed, and play as much as he wants for two years straight.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Your sibling were addicted to Fortnite?. Maybe these parents thought they were being responsible and were actually acting responsibly, limiting time and all, but the game just got their kids psyche badly and now they have serious problems, akin to addicts.

None of my siblings (or me) play Fortnite. His kids dabble with it sometimes. I've seen them play it. But they focus on other games on Switch or cellphone when I see them. Their game time seems to slowly decrease over time as they are interested in other things.

I get what youre saying that if a parent tries to show some authority limiting something, it can backfire and be worse than normal. But if that's the case, just letting the kid be addicted and humming along doing his own thing likely wont work either. That would assume the addicted kid would just naturally ween off it by themselves.

 

[lukilladog]

If a parent cant control their kid playing Fortnite almost every waking minute, that's on the parents. Sounds like the parents just let the kid sit in his room, door closed, and play as much as he wants for two years straight.

Well, let's say there are some parents that don't care and wont care at all, which is a fact... do we give corporations free reign to make things even worse?.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Well, let's say there are some parents that don't care and wont care at all, which is a fact... do we give corporations free reign to make things even worse?.

Then that's on the kid to resolve.

No different than a 400 lb fat guy walking around town buying junk food gaining 10lbs a month. You could put a law out there saying any ginormous guy can be denied buying bad food at a store. But there's not. And never will be.

In life, sometimes a person has to take responsibility in their own actions.

How would a corporation even evaluate among it's database of millions of gamers who should and who shouldnt play their games? Base it on game time? Base it on money spent? So if a gamer hits a certain amount of time played or passes a $$$ threshold, he gets banned? Or a CSR calls him to make sure he's ok?

 

[Ovech-King]

Free is popular... ?

Ps. I live in Quebec

 

[Pallas]

Gaming addiction is real, but that literally applies to ANYTHING and while I don’t doubt that these companies know about this and still do it because of profit and apply suspicious practices, , this really boils down to parenting.

The same can be said about the TV, there are a lot parents content with allowing their kid to sit in front of the TV so long as it placates them and hardly interact with them unless they have to.

Honestly if your kid likes gaming, why not get into it with them if you aren’t already. Don’t just leave them to their own devices.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I get what youre saying that if a parent tries to show some authority limiting something, it can backfire and be worse than normal. But if that's the case, just letting the kid be addicted and humming along doing his own thing likely wont work either. That would assume the addicted kid would just naturally ween off it by themselves.

Not to mention that the kids in this case according to some of the parents, are spending less time socializing or with the family. The parents can easily get the kids off the game to be with the family for dinner or activities, and restrict gaming time.

Suing Epic because the parents are bad and DIDN'T want to be parents and just cried about their kid not coming out tot he family, or socializing outside of gaming for thousands of hours is either showing these are some of the most incompetent parents that are out there with low mental capacity, or they are lying/exaggerating the truth to push this lawsuit.

 

[lukilladog]

Then that's on the kid to resolve.

No different than a 400 lb fat guy walking around town buying junk food gaining 10lbs a month. You could put a law out there saying any ginormous guy can be denied buying bad food at a store. But there's not. And never will be.

In life, sometimes a person has to take responsibility in their own actions.

How would a corporation even evaluate among it's database of millions of gamers who should and who shouldnt play their games? Base it on game time? Base it on money spent? So if a gamer hits a certain amount of time played or passes a $$$ threshold, he gets banned? Or a CSR calls him to make sure he's ok?

That is a good example to prove my point, fat guy rarely will have the scientific knowledge or the resources to realize that certain food additives can hurt his well being, so they become regulated or banned, the list is long (https://www.cspinet.org/banned-food-additives). Same way some parents don't know that some psychologically predatory elements in games can cause addictions, so these should become regulated or banned as well. This is not exactly about gaming too much in general, it specifically is about games designed to capture and squeeze the more vulnerable part of the population for long periods of time. Lootboxes, gambling, and every other form of aleatory and credit/coin reward system, need to go.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Here’s an idea…be a parent and restrict your children/s time with a game

 

[Arsic]

If only you could sell little Timmy’s gaming device. If only you could punish him for staying up to 3AM.

If only these parents had been neutered to not be able to breed .

If only.