A San Francisco lawsuit against Epic and Roblox has the potential to be extremely interesting for the gaming industry at large, should it ever go to trial. 23-year-old Dawson Little is claiming damages for what the filing describes as “operant conditioning,” arguing that games like Fortnite and those on Roblox “weaponize a video game for the unethical, reckless, and/or negligent application of this psychological technique to encourage a negative response as to the gamer and the positive outcome of increased revenue for the defendants.” In other words, he’s claiming they deliberately exploit video game addiction.

Little, it seems, is claiming that having played both Fortnite and Roblox as a “minor” (listed as “at approximately 15 years old”), he now suffers from “severe emotional distress, anxiety, depression, diminished social interactions, lack of interest in other hobbies, and withdrawal symptoms such as rage, anger, and physical outbursts, and a drastic decline in his grades which led to academic dismissal from school.” This is, the suit argues, because companies Epic and Roblox exposed him to “behavior modification systems” which, “as foreseen and intended,” resulted in “physiological and psychological results and resulted in a disordered relationship with, and addiction to, video games.”

In decades past, innumerous claims of gaming addiction have been made based on spurious evidence and a lack of understanding of what addiction actually entails. But times have changed, and in the last decade games have undeniably employed techniques directly lifted from gambling in ways that have little to do with being inherently compelling or all-consuming.

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