AAA Studios Sued for Addictive Games | Cold Take

October 30, 2023. In the first court case of its kind, an Arkansas mother is suing multiple AAA video game companies, claiming that their intentionally addictive games have caused damage beyond the value of $75,000 and ongoing pain and suffering to her, her husband, and their 13-year-old son. The filed complaints claim these companies use psychological mechanisms, behavioral psychology, and neuroscience to encourage repeated play and increase spending among users, especially among vulnerable pop

ulations like minors. Allegedly, their design made her son grow addicted to Fortnite, Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Rainbow Six, which caused spending of approximately $350 per month on gaming, spending of approximately $3,000 total on in-game transactions and downloadable content, a diagnosis of ADHD and dyslexia, physical pain in his hands, elbow, and shoulders, morbid obesity, withdrawal from public school, and many more grievances. For those of you who like your information quick and dirty,

successful businessmen with only a minute lunch break in between lunch breaks, you're caught up, you can go now. For those of you who want to get straight to hearing the musings and opinions from a man who perpetually sounds like he's one drink away from one drink too many, you can click right here, it'll take you right to him. And for the rest of you who don't mind taking the scenic route, you gotta morbid curiosity about this kind of stuff. I'll be going over a lot of the case details, includ

ing the rise of video games, microtransactions, patents and inventions designed to keep you playing and paying, as well as the effects of your brain on video games. But I'm also going to bring up the topic of vices, personal responsibility. After all, this wouldn't be the first parent that claims video games have hurt their children. Welcome to a slightly beefier Cold Take than usual, my name is Frost and most importantly, I am not a lawyer. Second Wind [Intro Music] If you don't know how civil

court lawsuits go, here's a quick rundown. Step one pleading someone files a complaint. The person filing is referred to as the plaintiff, the person being filed against is referred to as the defendant. Step two discovery, each side gets information about what the other side is going to bring up in court. Step three judgment or trial, in this case a trial by jury was requested. Keep in mind the cases can be settled at any time, that's when both parties resolve the matter on their own. If no one

settles, then the case continues and the plaintiff first has to try and prove their claims and consequences allegedly caused by the defendant. The defendant only has to prove that they can't be held legally responsible. You see in a civil case, defendants can admit to the alleged acts but can also try to justify or excuse the legal consequences. Yeah, I did what you claimed but it didn't hurt you, both parts have to stick. This is where I anticipate this case is going to get hairy if there ain't

a settlement or if it even makes it to a court hearing. Right now the case is in step one pleadings. The plaintiff is Casey Dunn, filing on behalf of herself her 13-year-old son GD and her husband Thomas Dunn. She claims video game addiction is a worldwide epidemic harming our nation's youth and young adults. She believes video game addiction is spreading because video game companies work together to engineer addiction to maximize their profits. According to her, these games use traditional tac

tics like feedback loops and reward systems alongside patented designs with addictive features engineered by neuroscientists and behavioral psychologists to keep people playing longer so they'll spend more on microtransactions. She accuses these companies of targeting minors and young adults because their not fully matured brains are most susceptible to manipulation and because a younger captive audience means they'll spend more money in the long term. And she points to all this as the cause of

her son's morbid obesity over spending, rage issues, ADHD, dyslexia and diminishing social skills which led to him needing to be homeschooled, needing a counselor and needing to be medicated which continues to loop in on itself to the point where GD experiences physical pain from fits of gamer rage, withdrawal symptoms and has put financial strain and a sense of loss of presence on the family. That is one heavily layered bean dip enough to break the chip. The way this goes if it gets to trial is

the Dunn family has got to try to make the connection from these specific companies to their games to addiction by design to targeting minors to hiding it from reasonable parents to their child specifically to his pain and suffering. And they need to cover all of that because this is a civil case not a criminal case. To increase the chance of something sticking you kind of just have to fling as much as you can. And here's the list of the people getting poo flung at him. Activision Blizzard, Inf

inity Ward, Treyarch Corp and Sledgehammer Games are specifically being sued for developing and publishing the Call of Duty series. Microsoft corporations are being sued for the Xbox Series X console, the Game Pass gaming subscription service and anything Activision is found responsible for. Because Microsoft acquired Activision on October 13, 2023, 17 days before the filing of this complaint. Bad shold sport she came with baggage. Epic Games is being sued for developing and publishing Fortnite.

Electronic Arts and its subsidiary DICE are being sued for developing and publishing the Battlefield series. Ubisoft and its subsidiaries are being sued for developing and publishing Rainbow Six Siege. On top of them all being sued separately, they're also being sued together as one unit for allegedly acting together to create an addictive marketplace that targets minors to get them to play more so they pay more. Everyone is now seated at the table. Casey Dunn and her family on one side, five m

ajor video game companies and their subsidiaries on the other. The meat of the filed complaint starts off with the rise of video games. The formalities come first. What is a game? What is a video game? You don't really have to agree on the accuracy of the definition. Just understand when the complaint says games, it is referring to a system with rules and conflict with winners and losers. Video games are like normal games but played on technology of sorts. It also makes the point that quote, "un

like traditional games of chance, video games require active, lengthy participation, during which players are exposed to the psychological techniques designed to manipulate and exploit this vulnerable population." It's claiming that video games are different from regular gambling because you're locked in and under the influence of video games for a longer period of time, relatively speaking. A few minutes playing a round of Call of Duty, Fortnite, Battlefield or Rainbow Six doesn't feel like muc

h. But compare that to how long it takes to play a hand of Blackjack, have a spin on the roulette wheel or give a tug to the old one-armed bandit. It claims video games can get away with exploiting the youths because there aren't many regulations in place beyond the ESRB. Then it lays out the fact that video games are relatively young, first being sold in the 70s and some of the oldest franchises only go back to the mid 80s. But the growth of the medium has exploded since moving from physical ca

rtridges and discs to online gaming. It also points out that in-game purchases made video games even more successful as a consumer product because companies can make more money faster than they could before. It took the video game market 35 years to grow to 35 billion dollars. However, the industry grew from 100 billion to 137 billion between 2007 and 2018. That's more growth in a third of the time. In 2023, the video game industry's revenue was 365 billion globally, making it one of the fastest

growing segments in the entertainment industry. I'm not 100% sure where they're getting their numbers from because it seems filed complaints don't need to cite that many sources until they get to the court floor, but there's enough you can find with a quick google search to back up these claims. Where I am having trouble is finding a source that confirms most of these in-game purchases are made by minors as stated. I found plenty of things to back up this claim but only on a per head basis. 100

minors can count as more individual purchases than one adult. But if the 100 minors are only spending say one dollar and the adult is spending 200 dollars, then the buying power goes to the adult. Given that adults tend to have proper jobs and minors typically don't, this begs the question where are minors getting money to spend on games they shouldn't be allowed to purchase on their own? Three out of four of these games are mature rated, meaning minors should not be able to buy them in person

and online transactions have a lot of preventative measures against minors so long as an adult didn't give them access in the first place. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. The Dunn family claims the explosive growth of the video game industry is due to patented monetization schemes targeted at minors which induces them to spend money on microtransactions. More importantly they claim there is no proper warning to make consumers or parents aware of the psychological mechanisms within the game

. The complaint is doing a thorough job of anticipating the comparison to other addictive activities and locales like gambling and casinos. This is where the lawsuits against loot boxes have stalled out for the past three years in UK courts. The UK logic is that casinos don't cause addiction and neither do video games but people with addictive personalities do tend to find themselves abusing one or the other. So metaphorical safety rails and barriers need to be put up to make people aware of the

dangers. It wasn't until June of 2023 that the UK Games Industry Trade Association agreed to issue a set of 11 industry principles designed to make people aware of loot boxes in video games and to keep minors as far away from them as possible. Among the 11 are rules to drive awareness of loot boxes showing people their odds of winning in loot boxes restricting minors from buying them and lenient refund policies. The Netherlands and Belgium outright ban any games with loot boxes like Diablo Immo

rtal for example. But other countries view this to be a government overstep and a shot in the financial foot. Maybe they'll be more willing to follow in the UK's cautious and self-regulating footsteps. As it stands, the filed complaint isn't trying to debate which vice is worse, but it is claiming that video games lack regulations and awareness, and there is precedent in other countries to back this up. Next up, the file digs into microtransactions. It defines these as instances where players ar

e able to spend real money for in-game items or perks and are often low in price, but sometimes they're bundled together in value packs or games may require players to make repeated purchases to meaningfully advance the game. The important thing here is the plaintiff claims the video game industry has focused on microtransactions because these small purchases eventually add up to more spent money in the long run than a traditional single purchase or subscription-based video game. It also states

that 30% of the total gaming revenue in the industry comes from microtransactions, and I can only find a Yahoo Finance article headline to back that up. Now it gets into monetization schemes built into video games, but not just any monetization schemes, predatory monetization schemes. These are defined as purchasing systems within the game that disguise or withhold the long-term cost of an activity until players are already committed both psychologically and financially. Predatory is the key wor

d here. You're allowed to make money, you just can't be too dishonest about it. One example of this would be when a game lets you pay a couple bucks to upgrade a character to the next level. The future upgrades require more money to upgrade. If a game told you outright that a full upgrade would cost around $120, you'd be less likely to purchase it, so it hides that from you at the start. At some point you will become aware of how much you've spent and how much more the upgrades will cost you, bu

t by that point you'll think you're this deep in you might as well see it through to the end, even if you're no longer enjoying yourself. What is the Sunk Cost Fallacy? Humans are really bad at dealing with this in and outside of video games for multiple personal reasons, ranging from completionism to believing they can eventually get their money's worth in the end. But the trick is, if you can get someone in deep enough, they have a hard time getting themselves out of the mental hole. The compl

aint doesn't only mention the Sunk Cost Effect, it also brings up the near-miss event, which is when you put an animation in front of the player to let them know just how close they were to winning. This is blatantly disingenuous when it comes to loot boxes or any game of chance, virtual or none. If we're flipping a truly random coin and it lands on heads five times in a row, what do you think it'll show on the sixth flip? You can say either heads or tails because the odds are 50-50 either way.

But if you think heads because you believe the hot streak will continue, or you want to switch to tails because there's no way it keeps on being heads, then you've committed the gambler's fallacy. In a truly random scenario, your past results do not affect your future results. You cannot nearly win. You can only win or lose. Interestingly enough, some games do not give out rewards in a truly random manner. Hearthstone, for example, uses pseudo-randomness and has what is referred to as a "pity ti

mer". In Hearthstone, you open card packs to receive five cards of varying rarity, but you guarantee the least one card of rare value or higher. And the longer you go without getting a legendary, the rarest of all the cards, the better your chances are when you open the next pack. This internal timer makes it so you are guaranteed to get a legendary card within 361 packs. But community members have calculated that on average you'll get one within about 50 card packs before you ever get to the fu

ll pity timer. While the transparency is commendable, showing the odds in this manner is likely to increase the sunk cost and near miss effect because each time you dig into a card pack you are actually getting closer to a payout. There is no gambler's fallacy, you are in fact nearly missing and your past results are impacting your future results. But the complaint isn't just about loot boxes or card pack openings, it includes the whole gaming experience itself. For example, Call of Duty shows i

ts best performers at the end of the match, as do many competitively structured events like sports. It shows the best player in the lobby, followed by the next two. Or Accolade celebrating the winner of a game the same as showing everyone else a near miss event meant to entice them to spend more time playing so as to increase the chances that they spend more money. The lines blur from time to time in this file when bringing up things like chasing, which is when games encourage players to keep pl

aying to get back any money they just lost, which I suppose could be a loose feature within battle passes. The file also separates FOMO, the fear of missing out and exclusivity, but in my mind they blend a lot. Video games introduce a lot of fake scarcity by saying that items will disappear after a specific period of time, thus making them more exclusive, thus kicking in the fear of missing out. Locking content out after a certain period of time goes by is almost expected in online multiplayer s

paces. Fortnite, Call of Duty, Battlefield and Rainbow Six all have cosmetics and battle passes that can no longer be acquired. Games like Deep Rock Galactic have battle passes as well, but players aren't locked out of rewards if they aren't earned in a timely fashion, showing it's not necessary to lock players out of content, but it is a choice companies have made. Entrapments also mention, that's when a game convinces you that you're accumulating awards, but if you stop playing you'll miss out

on collecting them. I keep thinking they're referring to battle passes here or the actual game design itself, because the worst abusers of these types of systems are mobile games, but no mobile games are being sued. The complaint doesn't always distinguish between addictive design for the sake of being addictive and game design that happens to be addictive because as we are aware, games are made to keep you playing and enjoying yourself. The distinction would then be, what if the game keeps you

playing even when you aren't enjoying yourself? On that matter, the complaint brings up the collection and use of individual player data to manipulate the nature and presentation of purchasing offers in ways that maximize the likelihood of the player spending money. The claim is that video game companies use your data from connected platforms to figure out your ideal spending habits so they can present you with custom deals in a way you'll be more willing to purchase. Reflexively I figured what

's the problem with a system that uses my information to promote things I might want to buy instead of things I don't. I don't want to see Bunyan Cream show me chairs that won't feel like I was kickboxing Optimus Prime. But the problem, as stated, is this creates information asymmetry and can be leveraged by the company to alter a person's perceived reality, which is the basis for the current lawsuit against meta slash Facebook. It's no secret that a lot of money goes into finding ways to manipu

late people into sticking around even when they are miserable. After that strategy is to make them miserable in the first place and offer the solution, cause and cure in the same bottle. This brings us to patents. This is when someone tries to apply for ownership of an invention. You can see these publicly at any time by browsing the patent public search website. What exactly are the ways companies have developed to keep people glued to gaming to get more money out of them? Let's start with the

ones made specifically by the companies being sued. Keep in mind that just because the patents were made does not mean that they are actively being used. Activision, the publisher of Call of Duty, made a system that uses a player's information to send them customized messages. If you're a low skilled player, the game will try to help you. If you're a higher skilled player, they'll try to keep you engaged. If you don't end up buying something because of these messages, then it will send you fewer

messages. But if you buy more, it will show you more. The thing is, while the inventions framed by Activision as a means to help bad players and consistently challenge good players, they routinely offer spending money as the solution to their respective problems. I'm not going to read you the whole thing, feel free to read it for yourself, but in their own examples they say things like, "If a high skilled player prematurely quits out of three matches in a row, then that's considered a sign of b

oredom or dissatisfaction." So that may trigger messages that include two microtransaction coupons, one news article, and one message regarding a new product and or new feature overview. If you're a low skilled player and you quit out prematurely, then that's an indicator of lacking knowledge about the game, so it may send you three instructional tips and one message regarding a new product and or new feature. If you're bored, spend money. If you suck, spend money. If you spend money, spend more

money. With this patent, the only players it won't solicit from are people marked as non-spenders, but they'll still use that person's information to attract other players. Your behavioral data will be collected, that's all the stuff you do in the game, like what mode you play, when you play, who you play with, your spending habits within the game, and it mentions using your profile information such as your gender, age, or geographic location. It doesn't say anything about connected accounts li

ke your social medias, even though you can link those to the game so you can share clips, screenshots, and whatnot. The next patent coming specifically from Activision is much more plain and straightforward, called the System and Method for Driving Microtransactions in Multiplayer Video Games. In most competitive games, you're matched based on your connection and your skill. This invention makes it so you can be matched in a way that compels you to spend money. A player can be put in a match wit

h or against a much more skilled player who has paid for cosmetics because the lesser skilled player may wish to emulate the better player. Interesting that the better players are labeled as the expert slash marquee. Marquee is a word to mean the person with the starring role, the star of the show, the person designated to be the best. Instead of matching you with players of your skill, you're placed with players who are calculated to be the main character in your match so that you'll want to bu

y what they buy to be like them. Activision justifies this skewed matchmaking as a way to fight boredom first and foremost, and once again the solution is to spend money. Perhaps rigged is too harsh of a word, but in my opinion this sounds like match fixing at worst and unsportsmanlike conduct at best. There is no integrity in a system such as this when people are expecting to find competitive matches. I'm being thrown into the deep end because I might be bored in the hopes that I'll buy a flota

tion device doesn't sit right with me. Two patents were mentioned for Electronic Arts, both of them seem to be for mobile games and one is abandoned. The first one is an invention to adjust the prices for helping players based on skill. Lower skilled players could be charged less while higher skilled players were charged a premium. The second invention makes it so players can pay to reduce their wait times in games. I imagine this patent was abandoned because it's used so much in mobile games th

at it's difficult for any one body to claim ownership. More examples are included but those are the only ones made by the companies that are being sued. However, there is nothing stopping one company from paying to use another's patented inventions, a process called licensing and they frequently do. Kabam Inc. are mentioned six times for inventions. One provides an exclusive virtual area to high spenders. Another changes pricing based on a player's progress in a game. Another sets balance goals

for a player to reach like acquiring 600 premium currencies within the next four hours for a reward kind of thing. Another provides rewards for cross-platform play. Another creates event-based currency that you can buy with real money but it expires after the event is over. And one more Kabam Inc. invention adjusts pricing based on a player's spending sensitivities. A simple browsing of Kabam Inc. shows they are known for mobile games with hefty paywalls and have ties in the AAA gaming space as

well as Hollywood. A lot of these features have been used almost to the point of being commonplace in freemium mobile games. More mentions of inventions include Leviathan Entertainment encouraging players to use real money to overcome difficult scenarios like killing a tough monster. Hasbro has the patent that lets players earn in-game points by scanning codes that come with purchases of their physical toys. Aftershock services have a patent that decreases the value of offers the more people buy

them. So you want to hurry to be the first to buy them to get the most value. Sony is seeking out a patent on an invention that would suggest microtransactions to players who get stuck in games. There's many more patents designed to get money out of players but these are the examples cited by the complaint. However, it ain't illegal to make these sorts of inventions and file for patents. Unless disclosed, we don't even know if any of these are currently in use but it does establish a method. Th

e filed complaint then outlines the motive, the reason for using predatory monetization to attract whales. Whales are the biggest spenders in a video game. At any given time, a game can have a few hundred or thousand players that spend upwards of hundreds and thousands of dollars. Gamma Doyle, the vice president of Zynga stated in a 2023 interview that it's possible this smaller bunch of players with deeper pockets than the rest can make up to 70% or even 90% of a free-to-play game's revenue. Th

e rest of the interview provides more thorough details about attracting and maintaining whales while also converting lower spenders into whales. By his own admission, Doyle, similar to the companies being sued, believes that they are providing a service to people. He believes whales exist as a matter of fact and a video game operation can only find them and take care of them. If they were to stop providing their services, then the whales would just drift elsewhere to spend their money. The diffe

rence is that Doyle from Zynga is transparent about being a virtual casino while the defendants in this case are not. To the point the filed complaint was trying to make, attracting people who tend to spend a lot of money and turning people into compulsive spenders are two different things. However, this does get addressed in the next section marked effects of video games on adolescent brains. One specific part of the brain mentioned is the prefrontal cortex. This bit isn't finished developing u

ntil mid to late 20s and is responsible for reasoning, planning, judgment, and impulse control. Until then, teenagers rely more on the emotion-based part of the brain known as the amygdala. The complaint cites multiple studies done on the state of the brain on video games and the similarities with drug and or gambling addicts such as dopamine imbalances that can lead to ADHD, depression, aggression, and lack of impulse control. Pictures are shown of brains with reduced white matter and gray matt

er after prolonged exposure to gaming. What I can't find out is what games these brains were playing. Certain video games have been shown to boost cognitive performance in children, but those are usually word games, puzzle games, or anything with logic and reasoning like say portal. Competitive multiplayer shooter games even show an increase in hippocampal gray matter when in 3D because your mental processes are devoting themselves to moving through a virtual environment. To the contrary, stress

-inducing video games like competitive games increase the level of cortisol in your body which has negative effects if maintained for too long, like fatigue, increased blood pressure, weight gain, headaches, and irritability. These are all things afflicting Casey Dunn's son, GD. He's been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia and has also experienced the following as a result of gaming addiction. Physical pain in his hands, elbow and shoulders, increased weight and

morbid obesity, diminished social interactions, a drop in his grades, an inability to attend school, depression, a lack of interest in other sports or hobbies, a loss and or lack of friends at school when able to attend, withdrawal symptoms such as rage, anger, and physical outbursts, and other emotional distress, mental anguish, pain, and suffering. And quote, "Despite parental efforts to limit game time, GD plays video games 12 to 14 hours per day. GD's mother has lost hope in her ability to

control GD's game-playing time and fears GD when she attempts to take games away. GD's father is only able to interact with his son by playing video games with him. GD has lost interest in all social and physical activities leading to their current weight of 300 pounds. He has frequent bouts of gamers rage where he throws game controllers and breaks them, and he's spending approximately $350 per month on gaming, and has spent $3,000 on in-game transactions and downloadable content. The file then

turns into an itemized list of examples from each game. The parents claim it's harmed GD, so I'm not going to recap all that. But then it ends the allegations on the topic of minors accessing the defendant's products. The Dunn family alleges that a minor can just create gaming accounts by entering an email address, creating a password, and adding a name. Simple as that. Then they have access to a virtual casino more potent than any casino in existence. One that messes with their brain chemistry

to keep you playing and spending while hiding the addictive nature from reasonably responsible people. And this particular casino doesn't discriminate against minors. To the contrary, it seeks out minors because they are more susceptible and will provide more money in the long term. All of this for the bottom line. Grab a drink, is it to pinion time? Firstly, I wish this complainant focused in on the types of game they're suing. This ain't against Stardew Valley, Portal, or God of War. This ain

't suing Cozy Life Sim's 3D Puzzle Platformers or these new cinematic adventure games. This is against Fortnite, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six, and Battlefield, which to the degree the child is using them, are online multiplayer shooters. You could even say "competitive online multiplayer shooters" because Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Rainbow Six have their own ranked modes and esports scenes promoted within the games themselves. The kids got a type, but the file bounces from a vague definition of vi

deo games to mobile games to microtransactions and throws out words like freemium and pay to win. I feel the reason digital regulations lag behind in court is because the people being sued like Activision are some of the most well-funded and well-researched in video games. And the people doing the suing are not, as in the know, I'll say. There's different lawyers that specialize in business, taxes, immigration, whatever. Maybe it's time you grab one that's specialized in video games. The microtr

ansaction boogeyman ain't gonna work every time because it gets compared to gambling and the matter ends there. If physical casinos get a pass, then virtual casinos will too. If the items cosmetics and loot have no impact on gameplay, then I don't care about people buying loot boxes, battle passes, or microtransactions. I don't even care if purchases do impact gameplay in a single-player environment where you do in the game you purchase that affects no one else's your business. I'm even willing

to let paid advantages in competitive games slide so long as everyone is aware that a game is pay to win before they begin. I'd sooner pay for cigarettes than Magic the Gathering cards. At least cigarettes actually warn you about what you're getting into on the packaging and minors aren't allowed to buy those. The thing I care about as much as the product is the transparency, clarity to a reasonable extent, what's in the sausage. Video game companies do the bare minimum, if even that, to disclos

e what's in their game aside from game. This leaves a wide window of opportunity open for business bandits to make off with as much money as possible with no regards to the damage they might cause. If you need proof of that, you only have to look and see that the video game industry is now at 8,000 layoffs for the year and climbing. This is 2,000 more layoffs than what I said two weeks ago. That doesn't seem like much of a dent to the 268,000 employed at the start of the year, but it's a lot whe

n you consider the biggest games take around 400 people to make, and the smaller studios operate on a few hundred or dozens. I think another reason regulations are slow is because people don't like it when things that make them feel warm and fuzzy on the inside are accused of being problematic, even if it is true. I understand that. If I get a Little Caesars pizza, the last thing I want to hear is someone going, "Oh man, that pizza is bad and bad for you, you should feel bad." First off, telling

people how they should feel never works, even if you are 100% true, justified, and trying to be nice about it. Secondly, you're telling me this budget bread, questionable cheese, metallic taste in sauce pizza ain't nutritious? My doctor's going to be pissed, because I am still going to eat it. If I cared about nutrition, I wouldn't be eating at Little Caesars. I get why some people say it if they're not judging you. They can't help but care. Maybe you're not as aware or you're in denial about t

he nutrition of pizza. I was involved in the culinary industry for a while, and even I didn't know as much about nutrition as I should have. And I've also met people who get very defensive about their pizza. There's protein in the cheese, the sauce is made of tomatoes, oh yeah, practically a salad. If there was a label on the box that said this pizza is high in sodium, high in calories, and high in sugars. I would still gladly reach in for a slice. I already know these things, this changes nothi

ng for me. Some people who didn't know this might also not care. Others might be thankful for the information and choose to not eat it. But there is a group who would be offended and consider this level of clarity to be a gross overstep. I understand why the business is trying to sell me the pizza we think the government is going to for. They might sell less pizza if people knew what was in it. I don't fully understand why the people who are only buying the pizza get insulted. My theory is the c

ognitive dissonance is just too much to handle. Only good things feel good, only bad things feel bad. Good people do good things, bad people do bad things. It can't be a bad thing because I am doing it and I don't do bad things because I am not a bad person. If you're claiming this thing is bad then you're claiming I am bad but I know I'm not because I am good and it feels good so it's good. You're lying. The nuance is lacking. Whether something feels good or bad does not make it good or bad and

it does not make you a good or bad person. Other countries like Mexico and Chile do put big black octagon stickers on food with excess calories, high sodium or warn about giving caffeine to children. The obesity rates in these countries used to be higher than the United States and have dropped lower since the implementation of these stickers. The foods aren't banned, you can still buy them but there is an 8% snack tax on foods that are considered non-essential and highly processed. Firstly, I d

on't mind paying more for things that aren't important for my survival. I know the difference between a need and a want. Recreational lettuce is taxed anywhere from 10% to 35% in the states. This money gets reinvested into drug awareness and to fight substance abuse while also enforcing quality control. I understand the idea that this tax seems like a tax on the poor who can't afford simple luxuries. I too grew up rough. The tax especially benefits the poor because regulations mean you won't buy

garbage nonsense or hazardous substances from non-regulated businesses or backdoor dealers. It keeps you safe even when you're not being safe and it's way cheaper than when I used to sneak wrinkled 20s for skunking seeds in my neighbor's backyard. I think as a culture we shouldn't be so shy, so defensive, we should be willing to have the conversation that may be the things we love. Including video games have potential pitfalls and could use a warning sign to help people not in the know or for c

hildren to avoid these pitfalls. I am one who believes that irresponsible use of video games like the irresponsible use of just about anything can mess with your brain. And it's easier to form a long-term habit with gaming without realizing when it becomes a problem because a core pillar of video game design is engagement. Another core pillar is hiding that engagement. It's like any joy in life. You don't want to think too much about the processes going on. That's not romantic. It takes away par

t of the magic. But I'm also the opinion that if you're an adult who wishes to partake in any medium knowing fully well what's in store for you, then who am I to stop you if it doesn't hurt anyone else? There's a multitude of joys in life. Not all of them are good for your health. Alcohol, recreational drugs, sugar, and caffeine even. I'm not gonna police you on your poison of choice, but I draw the line of kids. That's why I'm bringing this up. I'm not a centrist. I'm a man of extremes as extre

mes average out and on one extreme I've got companies whose only concern is making as much money as possible. To them what's a few kitties getting caught into the wheels of the money machine? The saving grace there is it's easier to hook a person if a game is good, so there has to be a compromise between quality and liquidity. The games mentioned Fortnite, Battlefield, Call of Duty, and Rainbow Six have received backlash from their respective communities and buckle to their demands at times when

the feedback is strong and the player numbers drop. Who is beholden to who there? I don't like the direction games have been going in regards to monetization, especially from these five that are getting sued. I'd love to believe if they were dissolved then clear skies would return. But I think the reality is people are fine with this as is. Some people do have more money than time, and for people who have more time than money, free-to-play games offer the luxury of video games in countries that

can't afford to pay for consoles, PCs, and standalone games. To be mad at free-to-play games is a first world indignation. On the other extreme where is the line for personal responsibility? What about the children? They can't keep themselves safe, nor does anyone really want the government baby-proofing everything. I'll be honest, reading about the child did strike a nerve here and there. Kids 13. Fresh to the world. I thought I knew everything at 13 and didn't need anyone. In spite of their b

est efforts, they couldn't stop a 13-year-old from playing video games for 14 hours a day. Full disclosure, I have no kids of my own. Maybe that disqualifies me entirely from an opinion. As some of you may know, I am Mexican and I am 28, which means I was a child when the phrase "gentle parenting" meant getting hit with my mother's foam flip-flop instead of my father's heavy-duty chancla. My younger siblings were not raised in that manner, so I know it is possible to guide and discipline childre

n without resorting to flinging footwear. Not to backseat parent, but if any of us were a little too glued to the screen to the point where it impacted our schooling, the router would disappear. Cables would go missing, controllers were hidden, parental controls would pop up, subscriptions were cancelled. They definitely didn't feed into our whims. At 13 years old, I did not have the money to afford a gaming hobby, let alone a gaming addiction that led to expenses of $350 per month and $3,000 in

total, so that's about 8 months. You know what, now that I'm thinking about it, I don't even spend that much now. I've never spent that much on gaming. But back then, I had no bank account and no consistent income, I couldn't sign up for an internet plan, my parents bought my consoles and my games. The complaint states there was nothing stopping children from just accessing these platforms and games. The doors to the world's most potent, unregulated casino are wide open, but we know that's not

true. It's true, once you're in the casino, it's easy to continue spending. After the first purchase, these games, consoles, and services save your credentials if you let them, and a child can just press okay and okay. But who initiated the first purchase and how was this allowed to go on for 8 months? I'm not above thinking this can happen in Fortnite, it's the only game that isn't mature rated and you can buy its in-game currency in real stores. Epic Games already settled for $245 million beca

use they wouldn't give refunds to people disputing wrongful charges on their credit cards. I am for sure not on their side. I am on the side of transparency, clarity, and children. I feel the parents are maybe not being as transparent with their parenting and this only hurts the child. I read the filed complaint multiple times, I've played enough and researched enough Fortnite Call of Duty Rainbow Six and Battlefield to know these games are developed to be as engaging as possible. Part of that c

omes down to solid core gameplay design that I'd say is unintentionally addictive but a consistent feature in video games. But the part these games love to put on the face of the game nowadays is the content you can buy and the grind, to keep you busy as you wait for the next thing to grind or buy. And I don't mind grinding for something to do or paying for things because you have the money. The part I do find rather dirty is the competitive care it being dangled over the player base. They give

off the idea that the games are balanced and a way to reach money and prestige. But the complaint didn't get into any of that because they're not well versed in competitive online shooters. What do I expect them to know about esports? Regardless, I think if enough consenting adults are willing to play these games then I don't care what they do with their time or money. The problem, as usual for me, is I don't think there's enough information for people to understand what they are consenting to.

I love transparency to an affordable degree. I don't need to be told everything that's happening as it's happening but as soon as you put a price tag on something I want to know what's on sale. I believe you can never be 100% understood by 100% of people. But I think you should try to be so annoyingly clear that a person could only blame themselves and not say they weren't warned enough. I love when video games say "this game was designed to be played with a controller. A person can still play w

ith a keyboard and mouse and if they don't like how a game handles they have only themselves to blame. You were warned by the controller wet floor sign. I want wet floor signs everywhere. But you know where wet floor signs don't make sense? Water slides. Pools. What are they supposed to say? Warning wet when wet? Adults can understand inherent risks. Children can't. That obligation is on their parents. Aside from Fortnite, there's a lot of gates stopping a minor from getting in. Once they're let

in, the child can run rampant and have a good time or like in the case of GD, hurt themselves. I think maybe a few parts of the complaint will stick. At best I hope some meaningful regulations come through. At worst, this gets thrown out almost immediately. And I know there's a saying that goes "there's no harm in trying." That doesn't apply in court. Every failed case builds precedent and makes it harder for the next similar case to stick. And if it just turns out to be case after case of irre

sponsible parenting, this is gonna be a difficult wet floor sign to get put up. I'm sorry if the ice in your drink melted. I've felt a lot about this topic. Does it mean every video is gonna be like this from here on in? Does it mean I'll never do this again? Sometimes it's a deep dive. Sometimes waiting in the kiddie pool. Maybe it's a review. Maybe it's an interrogation. Stay tuned. Support Cold Take at PATREON.COM/SECONDWINDGROUP THIS VIDEO WAS MADE POSSIBLE BY Closed Captions by @willcblogs