It seems like half the ads on US TV is about some law firm trying to start a class action lawsuit against this or that company. Apparently it isn’t just limited to this side of Niagara Falls as a law firm in Canada wants to sue Fortnite for being “as addictive as cocaine” and that the company should have told everyone. Look, I’m not saying video games can’t be addictive to a very select few people under specific conditions in their lives, but as bad as cocaine? I don’t think so.
I think there’s something to the idea that Fortnite was intentionally designed to be addictive. From working in a school, I’ve gained a sense of how addictive that Fortnite is for many students. We’re a long way from the days of Q-Bert! Hey, we know that advertisements are designed with psychological techniques in order to manipulate us to buy products or services. I think that various psychological strategies are also implemented in certain modern video games in order to keep the players purchasing the “add ons” (skins, weapons, etc.). When there’s money to be made, psychological techniques are utilized to manipulate us into becoming consumers of said products and services.
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It’s designed to be a fun game you want to keep playing, especially on YouTube. It’s the “as bad as cocaine” nonsense that makes my head shake.
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But there seems to be something very different about Fortnite. I’ve never seen the amount of intense student attention for any video game as I’ve seen for this one. This “Fortnite mania” even beats out the Halo craze in that time period of 2007 to 2008 in terms of the intensity of student focus on it.
It will be quite fascinating to see how this lawsuit plays out in the Canadian courts.
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