Firm seeks to sue makers of Fortnite

[The Caspian Hare]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/fortnite-lawsuit-calex-légal-montreal-1.5308625

A Montreal legal firm has requested authorization to launch a class-action lawsuit against the widely popular video game Fortnite.

The legal notice, filed on behalf of the parents of two minors, aged 10 and 15, likens the effect of the game to cocaine, saying it releases the chemical dopamine to the brain of vulnerable young people who can become dependent on playing.

"We dug into it and we realized there was a strong case for it," said Alessandra Esposito Chartrand, an attorney with Calex Légal.  

Chartrand said her firm was contacted by parents interested in suing the company for producing such an addictive game. She is asking others concerned about their child's dependence on the game to come forward.

[+Desertrat56]

Well, the dopamine comment is true.  Parents need to take responsibility for their kids.  Screen time limits (including video games, television & social media) are a good way to do that.  There are tools available (like removing the electrical plug from the wall if it becomes necessary) to make sure the rules are followed.  But a 10 year old playing fortnite seems like something that should not be allowed.  Though there are plenty of other games like roblox & mine craft for the younger kids that could be just as "damaging" or hard to control.

[Cookie Monster]

The parents should thank God their kids haven't come across Factorio yet.

Edited October 8, 2019 by RabidMongoose

[Golden Duck]

Fortnite sounds pretty boring; how about cocaine?

[TigerBright19]

Played Fortnite for about 20 minutes and got bored.  Don't know what people see in it.  Just one of those fads I guess. 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2019 by Aaron2016

[Gwynbleidd]

On 10/8/2019 at 11:40 PM, The Caspian Hare said:

Chartrand said her firm was contacted by parents interested in suing the company for producing such an addictive game. She is asking others concerned about their child's dependence on the game to come forward.

I thank you for posting this article - I remember standing at my youngest son's school reception earlier this year and a father was there to pick up his son from Sick Bay.  The reason was because the child was too tired, cranky and fell asleep in class.

I also overheard him saying to the receptionist that his son had snuck onto the family computer and was found playing Fortnite at 3am in the morning.  

Our eldest son played Fortnite and we ended up banning it from our home network.   He used to rage and carry on like a maniac at his brother if he lost.  So as parents, we could see this game was definitely not bringing out the best behaviour in our son and banned the game from our household.  He became addicted to it very, very fast.  Our younger son wasn't really interested in it, he much prefers creative games like Minecraft and coding on Roblox, which our eldest son now does too.   

But as @Desertrat56 said there is a multitude of things you can do to keep kids off games that affect them like this.  My Husband runs some type of software on our home's network that gives both of us unlimited time online, but for our boys (their devices and computers are in their bedrooms), they have set bedtimes and the internet time reflects that.  8:30pm our youngest's internet goes off and 9.30pm the eldest one's internet stops.   There is no internet for them prior to school of a morning, but it's freely available after school until bedtime.  For school holidays we just adjust the time schedule to a bit later at nights and open for the daytime if they want to go online.  

This is just what works best for us, but might not for another family.  At the end of the day, parent's have to be parents and actually put boundaries in place for their kids otherwise, they'll end up with addicts on any type of game.  

[spartan max2]

I remember being pretty addicted to RuneScape ad a middle schooler lol.

But yeah in the rare chance this lawsuits actually succeeded , all it would accomplish it making all games become rated M. 

[Golden Duck]