this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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I mean, I do, but whether or not I have kids is not really important to this subject. Even a person without children can make the same comment.
If a child develops an addiction to video games (which I'm not sure exactly how that is classified, does the child suffer physical withdrawals from not playing video games? Might they die from it like people addicted to hard drugs?) that is the fault of either the parent neglecting to keep track of how much time their kid spends playing video games, or the fault of the parent allowing their kid to spend too much time playing video games. Its not the fault of the kid, its not the fault of the game development studio or publisher, its not the fault of the ESRB or anyone else, its not anyone's fault but the parent's.
While I agree that gaming companies regularly engage in shady business practices, it is the responsibility of the parent and not a company to teach their kid that not every hour of every day is for playing video games. The world is not a circus, and as difficult as it may be, sometimes you have to say no to your kid. I never want to say no, because I often wish I could be a kid again and not have to worry about real life responsibilities. But not saying no to your kid (when appropriate) is telling them that you do not love them, because you are setting them up to fail later in life.
TLDR: The point is, the woman filing this lawsuit is trying to dodge parenting responsibilities by passing it off as "not her fault," but "the company's fault." That's mental.
People, children or adults, have the ability to become addicted to anything. Coffee. Pulling your hair out. Video games are not this anomaly that is more addictive that any other media or product or hobby.
What the REAL, ACTUAL PROBLEM IS, is the gambling and microtransactions that are injected into most games nowadays. Not every game company practices this to such an evil degree, especially not Nintendo, no where near as bad as Epic.
Correct. But that's not the fault of the company. Its the person not exercising self-control. Saying "no" to smoking a cigarette is much easier than trying to quit smoking, but that addiction is the fault of the person who says "yes."
Yes, but that's not what the lawsuit is primarily about. It's a small part tacked on at the very end. The primary issue is that the plaintiff argues that Epic and Microsoft intentionally make children addicted to their products. That's mental.
You cannot claim that McDonald's is responsible for diabetes because they make products high in sugar and other unhealthy ingredients. Video games are a luxury product and not a requirement for life, a person doesn't have to use them to live. I can't win a lawsuit against Konami if I get addicted to gambling because I played one of their pachislot machines and didn't control my spending.
Sony? Paradox? Creative Assembly? Konami? SEGA? Konami and SEGA Sammy literally make pachislot gambling machines.
Nintendo is just as guilty, like the time when they only sold Mario All Stars for a limited time. Nintendo sure loves their FOMO oriented time limited products. NES mini and SNES mini are other recent ones, continual low stock problems for time limited products. Sounds predatory to me.
Regardless, the answer to all that is the adult just saying no. It's literally that easy. That's not to say your kid can never play video games, but the parent neglecting to monitor their kid's screen time is not the game company's fault. I hate to defend a game company, but this woman is mental.
It is the fault of the company.
It's their sole design goal. There is no part of the addiction process that's in any way less than deliberate and intentional.
You're not wrong.
But most parents don't keep up with the standards of the gaming industry. And it's targeted towards kids, the most vulnerable and impressionable demographic.
So when they're kid spends 3000 dollars on vbucks, my first thought is "how the FUCK is that even allowed to happen in the first place???"
Game companies have greasily been pushing the limits of what they can get away with, and it NEEDS to stop. Games used to just be games, not a fucking 5 year long planned out live service experience with DLC and battlepass that pressures you to play every day, or else you lose your progress.
I agree but from the perspective of "why is the parent allowing this to happen or not knowing this is happening?" A business exists to make money, the business will never turn you away if you're trying to pay them. Race, age, gender is not important as long as you have money. It's not their responsibility to know that the person logged into an account is actually a child and to limit that account's ability to spend money. That's up to the parent to not allow the child to buy anything without their permission.
Obviously, sometimes a kid will steal money or your credit card, I mean, they're kids they usually don't know better. But that's a time to sit down with your kid and teach them that stealing is wrong, especially from family, and to put in place discipline that will help the kid to make better choices, etc. But if the kid is routinely stealing from a parent, there are much more significant problems going on there and the most likely cause is parental neglect, or possibly worse.
To me, it just keeps on cycling back to being the parent's responsibility. Sure, without gambling it would be easier for parents, but gambling is literally never going away, sadly.
Yes I agree. Though I worry that this particular lawsuit could cause a problem with legal precedent since the primary issue is so legally unsound. It may bolster the company's ability to defend against a real lawsuit over predatory business practices. And that is not a future I want to see.
Fuck the parents, absolutely.
But put every single executive at every company with lootboxes in prison for the blatant unregulated gambling they're putting in games.
Physical dependence isn't the real issue with hard drugs, either. If it was, supervised detox would be an actual resolution instead of having almost no success. The brain chemistry being abused in gambling and gaming addiction that modern gaming companies deliberately instigate is exactly the same as it is with crack and meth. The dopamine doesn't start as strong, but it's identical otherwise, and identical in an addict.
You presume there always exists a capable parent to fail. You are displaying privilege. You are displaying a classic case of "I won't care until it happens to me." and arguing for perfection.
In this world view, no company should ever be held responsible for harm to others, and no laws should exist to protect people from things, and no services should exist to help those in need of things since apparently everyone can and should just be perfect citizens all the time and raised properly by well-adjusted adults. /s