Gamer Sues Bethesda, calls Fallout 4 Too Addicting

Merry Christmas week everyone! We’ve got ourselves four more days until the holiday is upon us, and you can feel the festiveness in the air: people are singing, children are laughing, and Russian men are being embittered and angry at the world. Fa la la la la.

In this particular case, however, it’s not just any Russian man: it’s a gamer. And this gamer has a problem called Fallout 4. Turns out, he’s been playing it on a three-week binge ever since its release, and his obsession with the game has turned dangerous… so dangerous, in fact, he wants to sue Bethesda for not properly labeling the game as hazardous.

I’m 100% serious about this.

This 28-year old is suing Bethesda and SoftClub, the localizing company, to the tune of 500,000 rubles, or around 7,000 bucks, on emotional distress, as the game has apparently cost him his job, his health, and even his wife. This is pretty similar to that story of a Hawaiian man who reportedly spent over 20,000 hours on Lineage II. Insane.

"If I knew that this game could have become so addictive, I would have become a lot more wary of it. I would not have bought it, or I would have left it until I was on holiday or until the New Year holidays,"

His lawyers, while on his side, are aware that this is something of a crapshoot, and are mostly interested in seeing how far they can take it. While cases like this have popped up in Russia in the past, it had never gotten very far, so it would be mildly unprecedented if it worked.

Regardless, while this lawsuit is something of a joke… the amount he’s asking for is also pretty small. Part of me wants Bethesda to just pay him out of pity, but I know they won’t, because that would set a bad precedent for more ambitious lawsuits. Still, if your Fallout 4 habit begins to cost you your job, perhaps think about giving it a rest. Or at least, get your boss addicted too. Whatever works.