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Debbie Vitany is fighting a lost battle against Fortnite.
Carson, his 17-year-old son, spends 12 hours a day playing video games, looking for weapons and resources in a post-apocalyptic world where the goal is to be the last no one standing. Teachers complain that he fell asleep in clbad and that his grades dropped.
"We have made some progress to convince him to reduce his fortified hours and sleep better, but he has regained his habits," said Vitany, who lives near Saginaw, Michigan, during an interview. "I have never seen a game that kind of controls the minds of children."
Vitany's anguish echoes an army of parents, teachers and bosses around the world struggling with a game that takes a lot of time for players – sometimes at the expense of other activities. More than 200 million people have signed up to play Fortnite, which has become a billion dollar company for its creator, Epic Games Inc. Some desperate parents have sent their children to rehab.
"This game is like heroin," said Lorrine Marer, a British behavior specialist who works with children who are addicted to gambling. "Once you're hooked, it's hard to get off the hook."
Epic has issued warnings in the past about the need to avoid Fortnite fraudsters, but declined to comment on the problem of addiction.
Video game addiction is not new: parents and teachers are concerned about distracted children – and their hands stirred by a joystick – since the days of Atari consoles. But the omnipresence of Fortnite has created a more widespread threat. And this is occurring in the context of broader concerns over the overuse of social media and smartphones.
Stimulate breaks
Fortnite, launched for the first time in its popular "Royal Battle" mode in September 2017, does not only cause problems for children. An online divorce service in the UK indicates that 200 petitions have cited Fortnite and other video games this year as the reason for the breakup of marriages.
Professional athletes also become hooked. The Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League have had so much trouble getting players to meetings and dinners they banned at Fortnite on the road. David Price, star thrower of the Boston Red Sox, winner of the World Series Major League Baseball, was struck out of the May match against the New York Yankees because of wrist problems exacerbated by the game Fortnite.
Professional baseball players are so obsessed with Fortnite that they linked the game to the Jumbotron video system at their stadium to play it while waiting to practice batting.
Randy Kulman, a child psychologist in Wakefield, Rhode Island, has seen an increase in the number of parents taking their children to counseling because of video games addiction.
Three hundred victories
"In my office, a 13-year-old said that he had won 300 victories in Fortnite," Kulman said. "I had to stop a minute and calculate what he had to invest to get it."
Michael Jacobus, who works with children suffering from video game addiction, said that about 60% of the 120 children he had counseled in camps in Santa Barbara, California and Asheville, North Carolina said that Last summer were playing excessively at Fortnite. The treatment involves a detoxification technology (their appliances are removed), combined with a healthy diet, sleep and group therapy. Next summer, he plans to work with more than twice as many children, including Texas, Indiana, and New York.
Fort Adnan is particularly convincing because the battle-royal version is free and available on many devices ranging from phones to game consoles, rating Cam Adair, who left high school at age 15 due to his addiction to video games and now. speak on the subject to schools and other groups. Fortnite players fight in fights of 100 people until the last one is standing – matches that make it hard to abandon once they've started.
"Third World War"
"It's World War III if a parent asks his son to come to dinner because if they leave, they lose," Adair said.
Although the game is free, Epic has created opportunities to sell hundreds of dollars worth of add-ons – including exotic weapons and "skins," such as Dark Voyager, a black space suit with reflective stripes – on cards credit. The company recently partnered with the National Football League to sell jerseys inspired by the players' favorite teams.
"Parents have lost significant amounts of money by not paying attention to the fact that their credit card is linked to the game console," said Marer, a behavior specialist.
In October, Epic capitalized on Fortnite's popularity by raising $ 1.25 billion from a group of investors including KKR & Co., Vulcan Capital and Kleiner Perkins. The transaction values the private company at $ 15 billion.
Grand Theft Auto
Video games have already provoked negative reactions. The Grand Theft Auto series, produced by Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., has been banned worldwide for its extreme violence and badual content. The industry has also sparked criticism as a result of mbad shootings involving individuals related to video games.
In April, the Dutch gaming regulatory authorities published a study that "loot boxes", in which players buy products in a game without knowing exactly what they are getting, are playable. and can create an addiction.
For now, Fortnite is the game of choice. Recently, this afternoon, the game was the most watched on Twitch streaming service from Amazon.com, 250,000 people watched others play.
According to Paul Weigle, a psychiatrist in Mansfield Center, Connecticut, the World Health Organization has labeled "gambling disorder" as a disease for the first time in June, which could help parents to seek care. reimbursement of their treatment with an insurer.
Weigle, who meets about 20 compulsive Fortnite players, recommends that parents prevent children under the age of 10 from playing video games. And parents must set limits when they play. As games become more sophisticated in their ability to attract fans, he sees that the problem of addiction is growing.
"It will be more of a problem than it is now," said Weigle.
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