We know that the children and video game debate is an endless conversation that maybe will never stop being so controversial, however, is known in and out of the industry that new ways for parents to monitor and moderate their children's play and actions have been implemented in every platform and most video games. Either way, there are situations like the one we are about to share with you.
In case you missed it: Here is the result of Epic Games' lawsuit for dance plagiarism
Back in 2019, it was reported by several media portals that a Canadian legal firm was preparing a class-action lawsuit accusing Epic Games of "knowingly" creating a very, very addictive game, this being Fortnite.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the parents of two kids of 10 and 15 years at the time, and has been joined by many more parents. The paper remarked how Epic Games spent years and years developing a game so addictive that they even hired psychologists to really dug into the human brain and really made the effort to make it as addictive as possible.
It took the lawsuit over 3 years to be approved by a Canadian court and now a very difficult battle is ahead for Epic Games.
Alessandra Esposito Chartrand, an attorney representing the plaintiff declared back in 2019 that the company knew how addictive the game was and compared it with the 2015 class-action suit against tobacco companies where the Quebec Superior Court determined that the tobacco companies didn't do enough to warn their customers about the dangers of smoking.
Is Epic aware?
Of course, they are and they have 0 days to appeal the judgement. However, according to PC Gamer Epic Games’ spokesperson Natalie Munoz said that the parents can receive and track playtime reports of their children and many other types of parental control features:
“Parents can receive playtime reports that track the amount of time their child plays each week, and require parental permission before purchases are made, so that they can make the decisions that are right for their family. We have also recently added a daily spending limit by default for players under the age of 13. We plan to fight this in court. This recent decision only allows the case to proceed. We believe the evidence will show that this case is meritless.”
Some reports have shown that the court agrees with the plaintiff that the game is addictive to say the least nonetheless there is no real proof that the developer created the game with bad intentions.
We will see how this lawsuit unfolds over the next few days.
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