CLEVELAND, Ohio — The mother of a 12-year-old Cuyahoga County boy is suing the companies that make popular video games like Fortnite and Madden, accusing them of intentionally designing the games to make players addicted to them.
In her lawsuit, Sonia Foster claims that her son's drug addiction caused him to suffer severe emotional distress, lose friends and suffer from violent rages.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Cleveland, is one of several similar suits filed across the country against popular game makers including Take-Two Interactive, Microsoft and EA Sports.
The Entertainment Software Association, a trade group that represents video game makers, said in a statement that game makers “prioritize a positive experience” for all players and have easy-to-use tools to allow parents and guardians to monitor the time spent playing games.
“Any assertion to the contrary is factually unfounded and ignores the reality that billions of people of all ages and backgrounds around the world play video games in a healthy and balanced way,” the statement said.
The lawsuit alleges that the companies intentionally create games that are complex and take hours to complete, and that they are designed to be addictive, especially for younger players.
According to the lawsuit, there is only one reason companies would do this: to make more profits.
Video game addiction is recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the World Health Organization, and has helped fuel the gaming industry into a $360 billion-a-year business, according to the lawsuit.
According to the filings, the companies are hiring behavioral psychologists and neuroscientists to help design games that will make players addicted.
According to the lawsuit, video game addiction, also known as Internet gaming disorder, can interfere with cognitive abilities, cause people to stop interacting with family and friends and cause them to show excessive anger.
Studies cited in the lawsuit estimate that up to 60 million people are addicted to video games.
“Video game addiction is a global epidemic that harms our nation's youth and young adults,” Foster's attorney, Edward Kelly, wrote in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says Foster and her son live in Cuyahoga County, but it doesn't say which city they live in.
Foster's 12-year-old son began playing video games at age 4 and now plays between five and 10 hours a day. According to the lawsuit, he lost friends, his hygiene deteriorated and he became violent when asked to stop playing, sometimes at his mother.
He plays video games on his Sony PlayStation, including Grand Theft Auto, Rocket League, Fortnite, Roblox, Call of Duty and Madden 24 “at an increasingly uncontrollable rate.”
Adam Ferreira covers federal courts. Cleveland and The Plain Dealer. here.
