Lineage II Addiction Lawsuit Makes It Past the EULA

We recently discussed a man who sued NCsoft for making Lineage II "too addictive" after he spent 20,000 hours over five years playing it. Now, several readers have pointed out that the lawsuit has progressed past its first major hurdle: the EULA. Quoting: "NC Interactive has responded the way most software companies and online services have for more than a decade: it argued that the claims are barred by its end-user license agreement, which in this case capped the company's liability to the amount Smallwood paid in fees over six months prior to his filing his complaint (or thereabouts). One portion of the EULA specifically stated that lawsuits could only be brought in Texas state court in Travis County, where NC Interactive is located. ... But the judge in this case, US District Judge Alan C. Kay, noted that both Texas and Hawaii law bar contract provisions that waive in advance the ability to make gross-negligence claims. He also declined to dismiss Smallwood's claims for negligence, defamation, and negligent infliction of emotional distress."

Re:Eaugh.

[Richard_at_work]

NCsoft should settle and give him vouchers for play time - its about all he deserves, and is better for NCSoft than paying out loads in lawyer fees.

It must be nice!

[uxbn_kuribo]

So basically, he's suing for 3 million dollars over 5 years because he's addicted to a video game? If he won, that would make him the first person to make $600,000 a year playing video games. At 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, that averages out to $288.46 cents an hour for playing Lineage 2. Most of us will never make that sort of money doing anything, let alone for playing an MMO.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

doing the math?

[wilborne]

Ok. He claims to have spent 20000 hours over the course of 5 years. 20000 hours / 24 = 833.33 days played 833.33 days/ 365 = 2.28 Years So in the past 5 years, he has spent nearly 50% of his time playing this game. Is it a sign of addiction or just plan sad

Re:I keep forgetting

[Skuld-Chan]

I have a feeling that if NCSoft put "warning this game has been proven by Court Precident to be extremely addicting" more people would pick it up.

Seriously though - while I believe this lawsuit is pretty dumb (this is right up there with suing a crack dealer because he/she didn't warn you about how addictive it is) some people take addictions differently. I've experimented with various recreational drugs/alcohol etc - many of which are potentially addictive and walked away in each case never to do it again, but I played World of Warcraft since launch up until recently 10-20 hours a week and didn't really realize how much I'd lost up until that time. People I've skipped out on, girlfriends I've ignored, vacations I never did but planned - stuff like that.

What changed was a Chinese hacker raped my account, and while Blizzard fixed everything - I didn't play for like 2 weeks and had realized what happened over the last few years. The bad thing is - if my friends ever moved away or my girlfriend left me I'd probably relapse, but I hope not. Thank you Chinese hacker.

Re:Eaugh.

[Quirkz]

Well, the previous discussion had some points about this guy being banned from the game for selling in-game items for real-world money, which is possibly what caused to sue as a sort of revenge. I suspect they don't really want to encourage banned players to keep playing their game. Nor players who are in an adversarial relationship with them.

Re:I keep forgetting

[grumbel]

And why exactly shouldn't NCsoft we responsible for their actions or lack their off too?

Assume for a moment that MMORPGs can be addictive for some people and assume further that NCsoft has hard data on that. Then that means that they would knowingly let people run into addiction issues and do nothing about it, quite the opposite, they would happily continue to collect the monthly fee. Isn't that negligence or at least not far off? Especially considering that it would be rather simple to do something about it (present a warning after more then X hours a month, start chat with counsellor, lock account or something else).

If you distribute something that destroys peoples life and you know about that (at 11h/day over 5 years it should be rather obvious), you should at least take some responsibility.