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A 28 year-old Russian man is suing Bethesda Softworks and its localization studio for what he claims is a life-ruining experience with Fallout 4. In the three weeks after release, he claims he was so addicted to the game that he managed to lose both his wife and his job.

He skipped work for Fallout 4, leading to his firing. He ignored friends and his relationship, leading to his wife leaving him. He’s now suing for 500,000 rubles in damage (about $7,000 USD) for emotional distress.

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

It’s an unprecedented case for Russia, though not worldwide. In 2010, a Hawaiian man, Craig Smallwood, sued after becoming addicted to Lineage II, racking up 20,000 hours in playtime. It’s a game he says he would not have begun playing if he knew he’d get addicted to it. That sounds familiar, and in the end, the case was heard and South Korean publisher NCSoft actually did end up paying his legal fees.

It’s tough to know what a Russian court will do with this, but on the surface it’s easy to dismiss the claim out of hand. Proving the addictiveness of a video game is more than a little tough. It’s not something you can test like cigarettes which has a specifically addictive component in it. The counter-argument, of course, is the hundreds of thousands of consumers who played Fallout 4 and didn’t get so addicted to it their entire lives fell apart.

I’ve played Fallout 4 for probably 200 hours so far, which may qualify as “addictive,” but again that’s another question. Where is the line drawn? Are you “addicted” to a game if you sink 50 hours in? 100? 300? 1000? 20,000? Over what period of time? Do negative things have to happen in your life as a result in order for it to “count”?

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It’s really muddy water, and I don’t think there’s a clear case here, or in any other case like it. I am not dismissing the idea that video games can be dangerously addictive in some cases, but suing for “emotional distress”’ about the addictiveness of one game is legally a tough sell.

I, for example, did not really understand just how addicted I would get to a game like Destiny, which I have now sunk at least 500 hours into over the past year. Could I sue for “emotional distress” because the game didn’t come with a warning about how I might get hooked on it? Almost certainly not.

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Once you start talking about potentially labelling games like cigarettes, you get into dangerous, kind of stupid territory.

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I think we’re past the days of potential labels stating video games lead to violent behavior (which has literally been suggested in the past), but labels regarding addictiveness? I don’t think that’s entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Problem is, you could easily extend that to other forms of media. Should Netflix come with a warning that you could get sucked into watching five seasons of Breaking Bad in a row and neglect all your other social and financial responsibilities during that time?

But while this situation does seem goofy, I do think there’s a bit of truth lurking in the shadows here. I have absolutely seen definite “harm” come from many games, in particular “free” mobile titles which vacuum up the free time of anyone from teenagers to middle-aged housewives, some of whom dump ungodly amounts of money into the microtransactions of the games, hopelessly addicted to the title. I feel like we see this more in mobile where so many games can feel like slot machines, and I think those type of games need to be more closely monitored by consumer protection agencies than they probably are.

Fortunately, all a game like Fallout 4 can devour is time. That’s still a valuable resource, but there’s just no way to spend more than $60 on it right now, as the game is completely devoid of microtransactions (a rarity even in full-priced games these days).

If I had to guess, this man’s case won’t get anywhere in Russia, but I do think video game addiction is something that needs to be discussed more frequently, however goofy this one lawsuit may appear to be.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I can see how a few individuals may be particularly vulnerable to becoming addicted to an activity - perhaps images, sounds, etc engage their emotions in an exaggerated fashion by tapping into specific memories and associations (a character looks or sounds like them or someone that they have meaningful memories of, for example) and - viola- they become addicted.

Interesting topic. Thanks for bringing it up.

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Originally posted by G:

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:
Felix Unger is the only one I know who is addicted to house-keeping.

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:::Tangent Warning:::

Ahem, I take umbrage with the term "addicted." I find mornings with coffee and some light cleaning in the kitchen (we cook a lot) to be therapeutic, even meditative. It takes very little concentration to clean moderately well, leaving plenty of mental power such as it is, to unravel and organize plans for the day. ...

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Originally posted by Wishimay:
"If I had to guess, this man’s case won’t get anywhere in Russia, but I do think video game addiction is something that needs to be discussed more frequently, however goofy this one lawsuit may appear to be."

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:


That was over 63 Million seconds wasted that I could have been doing something..... ANYTHING to better my life.

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