A Russian man is suing videogame developers Bethesda Game Studios after losing his job and wife to his gaming addiction.
After initially downloading newly released videogame Fallout 4 onto his computer, the 28-year-old man only intended to play it for a few evenings before falling into a three-week-long gaming binge.
He began skipping work in order to play and was subsequently fired. As the gaming session continued he stopped speaking to and meeting up with friends, his wife left him and he stopped eating and sleeping, instead spending his time within the virtual world.
He claims there wasn't adequate warning the hotly anticipated Fallout 4 would be so addictive.
"If I knew that this game could have become so addictive, I would have become a lot more wary of it. I would not have bought it, or I would have left it until I was on holiday or until the New Year holidays," a statement from the man read, according to Russian Today.
He is now taking US-based Bethesda Game Studios and the Russian localisation firm to court for 500,000 roubles (NZ$10,300) for "emotional distress".
It is reported the law firm representing the gamer wanted to "see how far [they] can go regarding this case".
Fallout 4 is an open-world game where the player controls a character entering a post-apocalyptic world devastated by a nuclear war. Its worldwide launch in November sold more than US$750 million of physical copies in 24 hours.
Upon Fallout 4's release, online pornography website PornHub noted a significant drop in traffic, which they attributed to the game's launch.
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