Craig Smallwood, a Lineage II addict, who had spent around 20K hours playing the game between 2004-2009, has come to the conclusion that the game’s creator, NC Soft, is responsible for his addiction and he wouldn’t have played the game in the first place if he was warned about its addictive nature. He claims that due to his apparent addiction he was “unable to function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends.”
It absolutely baffles me that developers are now being sued for making a game addictive, but according to Craig’s statement,
The company acted negligently in failing to warn or instruct or adequately warn or instruct plaintiff and other players of Lineage II of its dangerous and defective characteristics, and of the safe and proper method of using the game.
A federal judge has allowed the suit to proceed against the South Korean publisher, stating that “the court finds that plaintiff has stated a claim for both negligence and gross negligence.” NCsoft has appealed and asked the judge to dismiss the case. Interestingly enough Smallwood had his Lineage II accounts banned for alleged grey market RMT activity, although he claims that it was a ploy by NCsoft to force players including himself to move over to Aion.
Lineage II is a fantasy MMORPG developed by South Korea based developers, NC Soft, and has been quite popular since it was released back in 2003.
