Can I Sue for Gaming Addiction?

The gaming industry has designed increasingly addictive features in their products. They try to maximize gamers’ playtime and the company’s profits through complex reward systems. In some cases, the addictive nature of these games has raised concerns for the players’ physical and mental health.

You can end up spending a lot of time playing games. When gaming affects your academic performance, career, finances, or even your physical health, you might wonder whether the game caused a real addiction. You may also wonder if the video game company deserves at least some of the blame for your losses.

Suing a video game developer depends on many factors, such as binding arbitration. Your first step would be to review your options with a talented consumer law or personal injury attorney. They may be able to persuade a judge that you should recover for the harms you suffered.

See below for more information about video game lawsuits, including:

• What is gaming addiction?
• Negative consequences of excessive gaming
• When can I sue for gaming addiction?
• Can I recover damages for gaming addiction?
• Lawsuits against game companies

What Is Gaming Addiction?

Gaming addiction generally refers to a compulsion to play and keep playing video games — even if it means sacrificing things that are important in daily life.

But can video games be addictive from a medical and legal perspective? That is a question that psychiatrists, researchers, and other healthcare professionals haven’t resolved.

Is Video Game Addiction Real?

The answer is still unclear. Experts in the United States are split on whether gaming addiction is an actual disorder. A court, therefore, might not allow you to recover damages for it.

In the United States, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), which is the authoritative volume that defines and classifies mental disorders. In 2013, when the last edition was published, the APA decided that there was not enough evidence to determine whether gaming addiction was a unique disorder or how to define it. The APA did determine, however, that “internet gaming disorder" was worthy of further study.

Symptoms of Gaming Addiction

The proposed symptoms of the condition include the following:

• Preoccupation with gaming
• Withdrawal symptoms, such as sadness, anxiety, and irritability, if gaming is taken away or is no longer possible
• Tolerance and the need to spend more time gaming to satisfy the urge
• Inability to reduce or quit gaming
• Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities
• Continuing to game despite problems
• Lying about the amount of time spent on gaming
• Using gaming for mood relief
• Having lost a job or a relationship due to gaming

You would have to experience five or more of these symptoms within a year to fall within the contemplated condition. Most people who develop clinically significant symptoms game online, but the condition might arise through the use of any electronic device, such as phones, handhelds, consoles, or personal computers.

International Views on Video Game Addiction

In late 2017, the World Health Organization announced that the upcoming edition of its International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) would recognize gaming disorder as a new disorder.

According to the ICD-11, gaming disorder is characterized by a pattern of persistent or recurrent online or offline gaming behavior that shows:

• Impaired control over the onset, frequency, intensity, duration, termination, or context of gaming
• Increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that it takes priority over other interests and daily activities
• Continuation or escalation of gaming despite negative consequences

The pattern is often evident for more than at least 12 months and results in marked distress or significant impairment in important areas of personal, social, and work functioning.

How Many People Are Addicted to Video Gaming?

According to a study published in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 1.4% of those who play video games are considered to be addicted gamers. Other studies suggest that the percentage may be as high as 9%. That would equate to more than three million people in the United States.

How Can Gaming Become an Addiction?

The Mayo Clinic has described how a video game may become addictive. There is a chemical in the brain called dopamine that is released whenever we experience success or achievement.

Dopamine is powerful stuff. It helps maintain interest and attention, which is why it may be so hard to put that game controller down. It’s also self-reinforcing. That means the more interest you experience, the more dopamine is released, and so on. This process can lead to long-term or permanent changes in the brain that require extensive treatment to reverse.

Negative Consequences of Excessive Gaming

Too much of a good thing can be harmful. While experts dispute addiction itself, many players feel or appear addicted.

In fact, gaming too much can have all sorts of negative impacts. People lose money, jobs, and relationships. Lawsuits claim that game companies are liable for these problems.

Below are a few examples of the common issues gamers could experience.

Career or Academic Damage

Compulsive gaming can disrupt a player’s routines. Playing long hours into the night could mean less sleep, which might obstruct their ability to focus. This lack of focus might affect their job performance the next day.

A player may also skip work or school to spend more time in a game. This temptation may be especially strong if there is an in-game event or a limited-time offer. Repeat absences can have repercussions.

Parents of young players might see the negative effects of video game addiction on their children’s education. Students may neglect homework and studying. Children may also show aggressive behavior (“gamer rage”) or other difficulties with social interactions at school. Some gaming consoles now have parental controls to limit kids’ screen time and access to certain content.

Financial Losses

The concept of a gaming addiction is similar to a gambling addiction. They both involve an addictive behavior rather than a substance, like drugs or alcohol.

With modern game design, the line between these two activities is becoming blurrier. The gaming industry has developed new monetization strategies to convince players to spend more money.

Many popular games now use microtransactions, which are in-game purchases with real-life currency. Sometimes, these purchases convert money into an in-game currency. Redeeming that in-game currency might only give the player a small chance to win something they want. Arguably, it’s somewhat like playing a game of roulette at the casino.

For example, gacha games offer randomized chances to win in-game items. Genshin Impact is a famous example of this type of game. Players could spend thousands of dollars to collect their desired in-game items. Some players feel that the expense is worth it. For others, it’s not.

Health Problems

Gaming too much could potentially be a factor in physical and mental health issues, such as:

• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• “Gamer’s thumb,” which is an overuse injury
• Eye strain injuries
• Mental health conditions or emotional distress
• Sleep disorders
• Developmental issues, particularly in adolescent gamers
• Social isolation

If you pursue a claim for video game addiction, you’ll likely need to supply medical records that support its impact on your well-being. You’d likely need a medical expert witness to explain how the game caused the health problem.

When Can I Sue for Gaming Addiction?

If your doctors believe you are clinically addicted to a video game, you may be able to sue the game’s manufacturer. Yet, there are many possible obstacles you’ll need to know. 

Also keep in mind that lawsuits have a time limit. A video game addiction lawyer can help you get started.

Playing a Game Often Means You Agreed to Arbitration

The first obstacle to a lawsuit is that when you install a game or create an online account, you need to agree to the terms of use. That forms a contract. 

One of the typical terms in this contract is a dispute resolution clause, which may be an arbitration clause. For example, you may find a statement like the following: "By using this software, you agree to resolve any disputes with the company through binding individual arbitration instead of court.

This means that any dispute you have with the game manufacturer will be resolved through binding arbitration. That means that you do not get to go to court. Instead, a person called an arbitrator listens to both sides and resolves your dispute.

Most courts enforce arbitration provisions. However, if you are bringing a lawsuit on behalf of a minor who funded the game or online account with their own money, you may be able to disaffirm the contract. That means the minor would no longer be bound by the terms, including the arbitration provision, and could sue in court.

Limitation on Damages

The second obstacle is that, like arbitration, virtually all games’ terms of use contain a limitation on recoverable damages. That’s often the amount you paid for the game or, for an online game, the amount you spent on it for the previous year. If you’re a minor who can disaffirm the contract, you may be able to seek damages in court that exceed this limitation.

If you’re not, you’re probably stuck. Going to court, even if you could get around the arbitration provision, would probably cost more than you could recover. It might not be worth it to sue.

Damages From Addictive Games May Be Hard To Prove

This obstacle may be the biggest. Even if you can get to court and can get past the limitation on damages, you are still left with the elephant in the room. Is gaming addiction even an illness with clear damages?

As noted above, the U.S. medical community has not reached a general consensus on whether gaming addiction is a disorder. Courts are generally reluctant to get ahead of the science, regardless of what the WHO says. Until the APA changes the DSM-5 or scientists find more concrete evidence, courts may not allow you to recover for a condition that hasn’t been generally accepted as a disorder by the U.S. medical profession.

Can I Recover Damages for Gaming Addiction?

Potentially, but the monetary value of such a claim will be complex. You would need to prove that the game directly caused a real addiction and that the consequences you suffered are the fault of the game company.

Some Courts Have Allowed Recovery in Similar Contexts

Given the WHO’s take, you may still have an argument despite the lack of medical consensus. An experienced product liability lawyer would be of great help. People brought lawsuits against tobacco companies before it was accepted that smoking was addictive, and courts permitted them to recover over time.

Others have had successful product liability lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies. They have claimed that the medicines they took caused them to develop a gambling addiction. They were permitted to recover not only the money they lost to gambling but also punitive damages, which are damages intended to punish wrongdoers for outrageous behavior. The damage awards were substantial. There is arguable precedent here for lawsuits.

Due to the lack of consensus on whether gaming addiction is a real thing, game manufacturers in general do not contain warnings in their terms of use that provide legal notice of a potential risk of addictive behavior. Until they do, a skillful plaintiffs’ lawyer may be able to take advantage and sue for damages for failure to warn of this risk.

Gaming laws are complicated. Be prepared for the argument that such product liability theories don’t apply to computer software.

Lawsuits Against Game Companies

Litigation against game manufacturers is still relatively new. However, it appears to be growing over time. In 2024, there were roughly 15 addictive video game lawsuits.

Some of the games and companies facing addictive gaming lawsuits include:

• Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch (Activision Blizzard)
• Roblox (Roblox Corporation)
• Minecraft (Microsoft)
• Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar Games)
• Battlefield (Electronic Arts)
• Fortnite (Epic Games)

For example, there have been two big cases against Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite. Epic Games released the video game Fortnite in 2017. It is cross-platform, which means you can play it on a console, computer, or even an iPhone or Android phone. 

There are three different gaming modes, but Fortnite Battle Royale may be the most popular one. Fortnite Battle Royale became an overwhelming success, gaining more than 125 million players in less than a year. Players use v-bucks, a virtual currency you can earn in-game or buy with real money, to customize their characters. As a whole, Fortnite generated $9 billion in gross revenue through 2019.

Canadian Class Action

The first highly publicized case against the industry-leading game maker Epic Games was filed in 2019 by Alessandra Esposito Chartrand, a lawyer at the Calex Legal law firm, on behalf of certain Canadian parents in Quebec Superior Court in Montreal. She brought a class action lawsuit on behalf of the parents of two minors, claiming that the game developers at Epic Games hired psychologists to help make Fortnite an addictive game.

The plaintiffs further allege that Fortnite is as addictive as cocaine and that the more people played, the more hooked they became, which ultimately resulted in gaming addiction. Justice Sylvain Lussier certified the case as a class action and found that the plaintiffs had symptoms of addiction similar to the harmful effects of tobacco.

North Carolina Class Action

The case in Canada is not the only class action against Epic Games for Fortnite. One of Fortnite’s three modes, Save the World, used to have what are known as loot boxes. Loot boxes contained randomized items, which gamers could buy in-game using v-bucks.

As part of a class action settlement in the Superior Court of North Carolina in February 2021, players now get to see what those items are before they make an in-game purchase.

If You or a Loved One Seems Addicted to Video Games, Get a Personal Injury Lawyer

As you can see, gaming addiction is a complicated subject in both the legal and medical sense. Both medicine and the law recognize that at some point, gaming can become a serious problem for some people.

If you or a loved one shows symptoms of a gaming problem, first consult a mental health professional. After that, you may want to get legal help from an experienced personal injury attorney in your area. They can help you understand your rights, go over your options, and decide what road, if any, you should take.