Online Casino Style: News - A Case to Watch

09/04/2010		Online Casino Style - News: A Case to Watch
Home History Games News Dictionary		It’s undeniable that the world of online gambling comes with some risks, and even so much as to carry the possibility of developing an addiction to internet casinos, if a player isn’t responsible with how they choose to play. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the same temptations to play so much that it disrupts one’s lifestyle; a whole range of technologies that connect to the world of virtual gaming come with similar risks. That being said, one case is developing in the US that could potentially have huge effects on the internet gambling world’s standards for responsible gaming should the plaintiff win. A claim has been filed by a man addicted not to online casinos, but rather to role-playing games, saying that the software developer is to be held accountable for the addiction, that lasted five years, and has affected every plane of his life. Craig Smallwood has filed a lawsuit against the US gaming developer NC Soft. He has been an player of their game Lineage II, a fantasy role playing game set in Korea, and classified as a MMO internet game. Smallwood claims that his life has been irreversibly damaged by the game, to which has been addicted to for the last five years, logging more than 20,000 hours of play. The game is a very popular one as MMO games go, attracting hundreds of thousands of players to the online site on which it is hosted every month, according to the online publication Wired. Smallwood is the first and only to claim that his participation in the hobby has resulting in his inability to “…function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends." He claims negligence on NC Soft’s part, as they failed to disclose the addictive nature of the game, not unlike what is necessary for the purchase of cigarettes. Though some might be tempted to dismiss the case as a silly attempt at taking advantage of fine print, District Court Judge Alan Kay did not seem to take the litigation so lightly, refusing to dismiss the case, and by allowing it to proceed to the next level.

09/04/2010

Online Casino Style - News:
A Case to Watch

It’s undeniable that the world of online gambling comes with some risks, and even so much as to carry the possibility of developing an addiction to internet casinos, if a player isn’t responsible with how they choose to play. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the same temptations to play so much that it disrupts one’s lifestyle; a whole range of technologies that connect to the world of virtual gaming come with similar risks.

That being said, one case is developing in the US that could potentially have huge effects on the internet gambling world’s standards for responsible gaming should the plaintiff win. A claim has been filed by a man addicted not to online casinos, but rather to role-playing games, saying that the software developer is to be held accountable for the addiction, that lasted five years, and has affected every plane of his life.

Craig Smallwood has filed a lawsuit against the US gaming developer NC Soft. He has been an player of their game Lineage II, a fantasy role playing game set in Korea, and classified as a MMO internet game. Smallwood claims that his life has been irreversibly damaged by the game, to which has been addicted to for the last five years, logging more than 20,000 hours of play.

The game is a very popular one as MMO games go, attracting hundreds of thousands of players to the online site on which it is hosted every month, according to the online publication Wired. Smallwood is the first and only to claim that his participation in the hobby has resulting in his inability to “…function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends." He claims negligence on NC Soft’s part, as they failed to disclose the addictive nature of the game, not unlike what is necessary for the purchase of cigarettes.

Though some might be tempted to dismiss the case as a silly attempt at taking advantage of fine print, District Court Judge Alan Kay did not seem to take the litigation so lightly, refusing to dismiss the case, and by allowing it to proceed to the next level.