Epic Games, the developers behind Fortnite, are now facing a class-action lawsuit. A law firm intends to sue the company for not warning about the addictive nature of their game, allegedly as addictive as cocaine.
This is what the lawsuit looks like: A Canadian law firm represents two parents who believe that their children have become addicted after extensive play of Fortnite, and that this addiction resembles a cocaine addiction.
Because Fortnite does not warn players about the potential risk of addiction, the lawsuit follows.
Fortnite makes children addicted – This is how the law firm explains it
This is the basis of the lawsuit: The lawsuit references a ruling by the Supreme Court of Quebec. The court sentenced a tobacco company in 2015 for not alerting its customers to the harmful effects of smoking.
The same is now being accused of Epic: they did not warn about the potential addiction.
Fortnite deliberately aims to make players addicted
This is what the lawyer says: Alessandra Esposito Chartrand, a lawyer at Calax Légal, the suing law firm, explains the step to the site CBC News:
“We dug in and found that there is a good argument for this. […] It is basically the same legal basis as in the case of the tobacco company.”
The lawyer also states that Fortnite is designed to be as addictive as possible and that Epic’s success is based on extensive research and development aimed at creating an addictive game.
“Epic Games, when developing Fortnite, hired psychologists for years – they really dug into the human brain and made an effort to develop it to be as addictive as possible.”
Chartrand also explains what motivated the parents to file this lawsuit. They said to the law firm: “If we had known that it is so addictive that it would ruin our child’s life, we would have never let them start playing Fortnite, or we would have monitored it much more closely.”
Is Fortnite really that bad? There are recurring stories, especially of children who seem trapped in Fortnite addiction. For example, a 9-year-old girl was sent to therapy after becoming addicted.
Another child destroyed a car after its parents took Fortnite away from it. Prince Harry also called for a ban on Fortnite, saying children spend too much time on it.
A certain risk of addiction is indeed present for young players. It remains to be seen how the class-action lawsuit against Epic will turn out.
Even professional football players are affected by Fortnite addiction. The coach subsequently cut off the internet:
