Parents Sue Microsoft, Nintendo for Addictive Video Games
By Movieguide® Contributor
An Arkansas mother filed a lawsuit against major video game companies, including Microsoft and Nintendo, earlier this month for making their products too addictive for children.
“We never imagined when our son started playing video games that he would become so addicted that his education would severely suffer, he would lose all interest in spending time with his friends, and his physical and mental health would be at risk,” Casey Dunn, the mother who filed the lawsuit, said.
“These video game companies have targeted and taken advantage of kids, prioritizing their profit over all else. As a mom, I knew I had to do something to ensure they don’t get away with destroying the wellbeing and futures of our children,” she added.
Tina Bullock, the family’s attorney, explained how video games become addictive.
“They’re all designed to analyze the behavior of the child while they’re playing. So they’re using AI to track your child,” said Bullock. “More than just their name and date of birth, they’re looking at the kind of character. How do they respond when they lose? What do they do? Do they keep playing? Do they want to play? And they start tracking your child to the point that they know when to offer you another pack or skin to help you level up and stay.”
“It’s all about staying engaged in the game and that’s what becomes addictive,” she added.
The lawsuit looks to punish companies for intentionally making their games addictive by adding features such as unlocking new levels based on playtime. It also blames video game addiction as a leading cause of mental health, behavioral and educational issues among minors.
“There’s no warnings about video games that they can be addictive. Therefore, parents are just trying to get their kids to just come eat, come do their homework, do these things like a normal household would expect to see,” Bullock said. “All of a sudden, you have a child that is blowing up. Punching holes in the wall, throwing objects. They’re getting upset and they don’t realize that this is gaming addiction.”
The lawsuit hopes to hold video game companies accountable for intentionally making their products addictive and curb the features that make video games so irresistible. It also hopes to raise awareness about video game addiction – a disorder that affects up to 8.5% of minors.
“Gaming addiction is a serious, life-altering disorder that is stealing children’s lives and disrupting families across the country,” Bullock added. “Through this litigation we hope to shine a light on these companies’ reprehensible actions, deceit, and manipulation of our children for their own financial gain.”
Beyond just the video game sphere, many parents want to hold companies accountable for making their products too addictive. Earlier this year, 41 states sued Meta for making its social media platforms harmfully addictive.
Movieguide® previously reported:
A lawsuit filed by forty-one states and the District of Columbia alleges that Meta knowingly targeted adolescents with products that were too addictive for their own good.
“Facebook is really like the new tobacco,” law professor Danny Karon told Fox News Digital. “It’s designed to addict kids, to hook kids, to bring them in, to make them have no choice but to glom onto this platform where Facebook lets out dose after dose, drip after drip of this almost electronic morphine to keep kids hooked.”
The majority of state attorneys general now want to keep the company accountable for its predatory practices and, more importantly, cause it to change its business model.
“Our bipartisan investigation has arrived at a solemn conclusion: Meta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
