Canadian Parents Want to Sue Fortnite for Game Addicted Kids

Have you ever played a video game so addicting, it's illegal? This Canadian legal team believes millions of people have. So they're pressing charges against Fortnite.

According to a report by CBC Canada, Montreal legal team Calex Légal is looking to launch a class-action lawsuit against the popular battle royale game. The suit, filed on behalf of two parents with children (with boys age 10 and 15) that are "addicted" to the game, claims that Fortnite is comparable to cocaine for the dopamine levels the game releases, causing a dependency.

The suit also pays regular references to a 2015 case from the Quebec Superior Court against tobacco companies. The firm believes that, like the tobacco case, Epic Games did not do an adequate job warning consumers of the dangers of playing Fortnite.

"Epic Games, when they created Fortnite, for years and years, hired psychologists they really dug into the human brain and they really made the effort to make it as addictive as possible. They knowingly put on the market a very, very addictive game which was also geared toward youth.

In our case, the two parents that came forward and told, 'If we knew it was so addictive it would ruin our child's life, we would never have let them start playing Fortnite or we would have monitored it a lot more closely.'"

 
A closer eye at Fortnite's terms of service includes a clause that consumers give up the right to go to court over a dispute, instead opting for arbitration. But the firm believes that, due to the game's failure for warning, this clause is null in void.

The suit itself has been requested against Epic Games and it's Canadian branch in the Montreal Court. How much money the firm seeks in compensation remains unsaid. The firm has yet to receive approval for the case, either. It very well may get thrown out immediately.

If this sounds dumb, then it is. For as long as there have been video games, people have tried suing game companies for being addicted to their games. in 2015, a man tried to sue Bethesda for how much he played Fallout 4, for example. Remember earlier this year, too? Prince Harry called for banning Fortnite in the UK. While these are not Canadian, common sense doesn't have borders.

Game addiction is real, I can admit to that. Companies like EA have been implementing gambling tactics and loot box mechanics in various games and it's caused a stir. But Fortnite's monetization system doesn't use these same mechanics.

This is like claiming that Minecraft is too addicting and should be taken to court.