This story has been going around, it even made a TV News presence at times. An ex-Lineage 2 player Craig Smallwood is suing NCSoft claiming that Lineage 2 is “too addicting” to the point that it destroyed his life. It is reported that he spent about 20,000 hours over the past 5 years (2004-2009), averaging at about 11 hours a day.
Smallwood says that he was not warned that the game would become addicting, and that the game is built to become so. He also alleged that “NCsoft 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.” Smallwood says that had he known that the game would be that addicting, he wouldn’t have even purchased it.
This claim has convinced a Federal Judge to allow the suit against NCSoft, saying “the court finds that plaintiff has stated a claim for both negligence and gross negligence.” NCSoft appealed the suit, requesting the judge throw it out. Smallwood is asking for a $3 million dollar payout from NCSoft.
Lineage 2 like most other games does not actually give warning before purchase of become addicting, but it does show a system message every hour stating that you should consider taking a break, as seen above. To complicate things, Smallwood was actually banned from Lineage 2 for RMT (likely buying adena), he claims this was part of a large scale action for NCSoft to move gamers to their new game at the time, Aion.
Before you look at this guy as a nut, what he is saying actually has merit. Most MMO’s are designed to keep the user playing in order to keep a constant money flow to the developer. I presume this suit will likely end with much lower than asked for cash settlement between NCSoft and Smallwood, and that you will start seeing warning messages in the “small text” on game boxes or in manuals that come with games.
News Source: http://www.qj.net/qjnet/mmorpg/ncsoft-sued-for-addicting-lineage-ii.html
Strange story… I’m not sure if this player can sue NCSoft on grounds like this. Actually, being interesting is the main point of every game. What makes it addictive is online interaction with other players. So, in the end it all depends on how much are you involved in this interaction.