Court approves parents’ class-action lawsuit against ‘addictive’ Fortnite

A CANADIAN law firm is preparing a legal case against Fortnite developer Epic Games for “knowingly” creating a “very, very addictive” game.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2019, but has been stuck waiting for courts to decide whether it is frivolous or not.

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However, according to CTV News, the lawsuit has been approved stating that “The claim does not appear to be frivolous or manifestly ill-founded.”

The courts also decided that the parents have “have a defensible case to make” and that it is in the public interest for the case to be heard.

Three parents in Quebec founded the lawsuit after they claimed the game caused their children to suffer “psychological, physical, and financial harm”.

They alleged that the children have spent hundreds of hours in the game, causing them to disassociate from their families.

The lawsuit alleges that one child spent almost 7,900 hours in the game in just two years, which means they spent the equivalent of almost a year playing Fortnite.

Another is claimed to have spent 42 days in the game. The documents state that the children forwent eating, sleeping, socialising and showering in order to play.

One of the documents filed comes from a doctor diagnosing a child with “cyberaddiction”. 

However, Epic Games argued the report was not a formal diagnosis, nor was there “any expert report on causation.”

The judge ruled that the lawsuit applies to anyone in Quebec who developed “a dependence, or a loss of control over or prioritisation of the game (Fortnite), which has had a detrimental effect”. 

One of the lawyers for the parents pushed back against the idea that parents had not properly regulated the amount of time their children spent in-game.

She claims: “It is a much, much deeper issue than people will ever really realise. 

“So basically, these games were created with algorithms and dark patterns that are made to addict you.

“And once the pattern starts, it’s very, very, very hard to get out of it.”

Epic Games has not commented on the lawsuit, but recently developed accounts that will help parents better control and monitor how their children play its games.

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.

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