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No One Can Confirm If a Lawsuit Alleging Fallout 4 'Addiction' Is Real

There’s more questions than answers regarding that “man sues Bethesda over Fallout” story that’s floating around.
Image: Bethesda Softworks

Last Thursday, Russia Today reported that a Siberian man was suing the creators of Fallout 4 for some $7,000 because the game was so addictive that he lost his job and broke up with his wife. The story was picked up all over the place—internet king Matt Drudge even linked to it—and there are now experts piggybacking off the story offering themselves to journalists to discuss the dangers of addiction:

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you bet your aluminum can lying on the ground i opened this email pic.twitter.com/Uv3pfhCQBL
— Caitlin Kelly (@atotalmonet) December 22, 2015

A quick check on Google News finds more than 100 stories discussing this alleged lawsuit, from straight stories saying "this is apparently happening" to more thoughtful pieces describing whether or not there's more that can be done to combat video game addiction. And that's not including the barrage of tweets, Facebook comments, and message board posts discussing the alleged lawsuit.

Image: Nicholas Deleon

But there's a whole lot about this lawsuit we still don't know about.

For starters, the original Russia Today story doesn't identify the name of the person bringing the suit, or his law firm, which allegedly said it wanted to "see how far" it could go with the lawsuit. The original story also claimed that the unnamed man was suing not only the game's creators, US video game developer and publisher Bethesda, but also the company responsible for the game's Russian localization.

That company is called SoftClub, which, according to its website, handles Russian localization for a number of high-profile videos games, including Call of Duty Black Ops III, Metal Gear Solid V, and Destiny.

Motherboard contacted SoftClub, and was told that the company didn't "have official confirmation of this lawsuit," before it deferred to Bethesda for further comment.

Bethesda, for its part, is staying mum, and has so far ignored Motherboard's repeated requests for comment over a span of several days.

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Now, it's not unusual for companies to decline to comment on the details pending litigation, but it is unusual for companies to either A) be unable to confirm if they've been sued or not or B) ignore repeated requests for clarification.

It's also entirely possible that a single, random lawsuit floating around the Russian legal system may exist without there necessarily being any shenanigans involved, and that the parties involved (Bethesda and SoftClub) would rather the issue go away quietly than address it any further.

What's perhaps most interesting is why this alleged lawsuit, of all the lawsuits that are threatened on the planet on any given day, has picked up so much steam online. I suspect it's a combination of several things: one, Fallout 4 is one of the biggest games of the year (so big that PornHub said that its traffic fell 10 percent on the day it came out), which naturally suggests a non-zero level of built-in interest. I'm also of the impression, having read many of the online comments the story generated, that it gives people the opportunity to gloat how they're able to play video games for hours on end without any negative effects. It's the ultimate humblebrag.

In the meantime, be sure to listen to Motherboard's recent podcast in which we discussed the Ins and Outs of Bethesda's latest open world epic.