Lawyers behind a raft of video game addiction lawsuits pin some blame on AI, say 'robots' don’t get First Amendment protections

The game industry, meanwhile, says even loot boxes are free speech

Photo: Glenn Carsten-Peters / Unsplash

A law firm backing a half-dozen video game addiction cases in Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois—largely filed in 2023 and brought by parents on behalf of their kids—says many of the world’s biggest game makers are fueling a “mental health epidemic” with the creation and release of addicting video games.

They’ve said, among other things, that such games violate product safety laws, like a defective appliance.

In recent weeks, video game industry lawyers have been playing defense. In early March they said, among other things, that, no, video games are expressive media protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and are intangible, therefore not subject to product liability laws.

The law firm for these suits shot back just last week with a litany of counter-arguments. Among them, this creative take: Actually, games widely use AI, at times to analyze player purchase patterns and to better train in-game bots that challenge players. AI are robots, they argue, and are subject to different laws than humans.