Bullock Legal Group: Video Game Addiction Lawsuit Dismissals

Bullock Legal Group, the Atlanta mass tort firm founded by attorney Tina Bullock, filed most of the earliest federal cases in what has become the video game addiction lawsuit push against companies including Epic Games, Roblox, Microsoft, and Activision. The claims allege that developers and console makers deliberately engineered games to addict children. As of mid-2026, more than 100 cases are coordinated in a California state proceeding, federal consolidation has been denied twice, and several federal judges have dismissed claims on First Amendment and Section 230 grounds.¹

Who Bullock Legal Group Is

Tina Bullock holds a law degree from Nova Southeastern University and a bachelor’s in accounting from Mississippi State University. She is licensed in Georgia, Mississippi, and multiple federal courts, and her firm describes her as having over a decade of experience in complex mass tort and medical malpractice work. Her recognitions include an ALM Managing Partner of the Year award, a National Trial Lawyers Top 100 designation, and a Super Lawyers Mid-South Rising Star selection.²

The firm positions itself as the pioneer of video game addiction litigation, and reporting from Law.com confirmed that most of the earliest federal complaints were filed by Bullock’s office.¹ The firm also handles social media addiction cases, Roblox sexual abuse claims, pharmaceutical litigation, and school-district suits seeking to recover costs tied to student addiction.³

What the Lawsuits Allege

The core theory is that developers and console manufacturers knowingly designed their games to exploit psychological vulnerabilities in children and young adults whose brains are still developing. The complaints are pled as product liability actions, alleging defective design, failure to warn, negligence, and in some cases fraud and consumer protection violations.⁴

Specific mechanics are singled out. Variable reward schedules, progression systems, time-limited events, and social competition features are described as tools built to keep players engaged compulsively. Loot boxes draw particular attention, with plaintiffs arguing they function like slot machines by offering randomized rewards for real money in a way that triggers dopamine responses comparable to gambling.⁵ Microtransactions and in-game currency systems are characterized as predatory monetization that encourages compulsive spending, especially by minors.⁶

Plaintiffs also allege that companies used behavioral psychologists and neuroscientists to refine these engagement strategies and failed to implement meaningful age verification, parental controls, or health warnings.⁵ The harms alleged include depression, anxiety, social isolation, sleep disruption, academic decline, aggressive behavior, and in some cases structural brain changes visible on neuroimaging. A December 2025 federal filing in the Northern District of California alleged that a child experienced structural brain changes from prolonged exposure to Roblox and Fortnite.⁷

The scientific footing rests largely on the World Health Organization’s 2018 addition of “gaming disorder” to the International Classification of Diseases and the American Psychiatric Association’s recognition of Internet Gaming Disorder as a condition meriting further study in the DSM-5. The Entertainment Software Association disputes the validity of the gaming disorder classification, arguing the diagnostic framework lacks objective scientific support.⁴

Who Has Been Sued

The list of corporate defendants covers most of the mainstream gaming industry. The most frequently named companies include Epic Games (Fortnite), Roblox Corporation, Microsoft and its subsidiary Mojang Studios (Minecraft, Xbox), Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty), Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto), Sony Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation), Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Google, and Apple. Meta Platforms (Oculus), Innersloth (Among Us), and Rec Room have also appeared in various complaints.⁵

Where the Cases Are Being Heard

Plaintiffs asked the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to centralize the federal cases under a single judge. The panel refused in a December 10, 2025 order (MDL No. 3168), concluding that centralization would not serve the convenience of the parties and that the cases were too diffuse for one judge to manage. Informal coordination, the panel said, remained a workable alternative.⁸ Federal cases continue in their respective district courts.

The main center of gravity is now in state court. California’s Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding No. 5363 was established on May 7, 2025 in Los Angeles Superior Court.⁹ More than 100 lawsuits have been folded into the proceeding, which centralizes pretrial work including discovery and expert testimony across cases filed in multiple California counties. In July 2025, Judge Lawrence P. Riff approved the addition of 18 Roblox-related lawsuits, with a case management conference set for August 2025.¹⁰ No trial dates have been set.

Federal Dismissals Have Been the Big Setback

Gaming companies have mounted aggressive motions to dismiss, and several federal courts have sided with them.

In Angelilli v. Activision Blizzard, Inc. (N.D. Ill., April 2025), the court dismissed all nineteen causes of action against Roblox. The judge ruled that Roblox’s characters, skins, and game-creation tools were protected expression under the First Amendment, and that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shielded the platform from claims based on its users’ social interactions. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ attempt to recharacterize interactive design features as “conduct” rather than “content.” Leave to amend was granted, but the court signaled skepticism that plaintiffs could clear the constitutional bar.¹¹

In Courtright v. Epic Games, Inc. (W.D. Mo., August 2025), Google and Roblox won dismissal under Section 230, with the judge finding that making games available through Google Play or the Roblox platform was protected publishing activity. Developers Another Axiom and Banana Analytics won dismissal on First Amendment grounds after the court held that the allegedly addictive features were protected video game content and that mandatory warning labels would unconstitutionally compel speech.¹²

In Sayers v. Microsoft Corp. in the Southern District of Georgia, the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed claims against Nintendo and Epic Games in October 2024.¹³ In September 2025, a federal judge dismissed the remaining claims against Google and Roblox without prejudice, calling the plaintiff’s 200-plus-page complaint “too broad and vague.”¹⁴

Arbitration Fights

Whether young plaintiffs can be forced into private arbitration is a recurring issue. In Orellana v. Roblox Corp. (M.D. Fla., March 2025), the court sent claims by minor plaintiffs who had accepted the game’s terms of service to arbitration, ruling that “minority status is a defense to enforcement, not a condition of formation.” One minor who never agreed to the terms was allowed to stay in court.¹⁵ A July 2025 ruling in Murphy v. Roblox Corp. (S.D. Cal.) went the other way, denying Roblox’s motion to compel arbitration because the company could not prove the parents had agreed to the arbitration clause. Roblox has appealed to the Ninth Circuit.¹²

Outside Pressure on the Industry

Two developments outside the Bullock cases could shape how courts view the addiction claims.

On February 25, 2026, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Valve Corporation in state court in Manhattan, alleging that the loot box systems in Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2 constitute illegal gambling under the New York Constitution and penal law.¹⁶ The complaint describes players paying $2.49 for a key to open a box that randomly awards virtual items, which can then be sold for real money on Valve’s Steam Community Market, where Valve collects a 15% commission. The state seeks an injunction, restitution, and a fine equal to three times Valve’s alleged illegal gains.¹⁷ A proposed nationwide class action against Valve followed on March 9, 2026 in the Western District of Washington, brought by Ohio and Illinois consumers under Washington’s gambling-recovery statute and consumer protection act.¹⁸

On May 20, 2026, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a Surgeon General’s advisory warning about the harms of screen use among children and adolescents. It explicitly includes video games in its definition of the “digital ecosystem” and warns that many tech platforms incorporate features “deliberately built to promote engagement,” which for some young people becomes “a path to addiction-like behavior.” The advisory flags the “gamblification” of video games — the integration of gambling-like mechanics such as chance-based rewards into non-gambling products — and notes research linking these features to problem gambling.¹⁹

Who Can File

These are individual cases, not class actions. Attorneys have explained that the injuries and damages are considered severe enough to warrant individual treatment, whereas class actions are typically reserved for large groups suffering small, standardized losses.⁶ Each family files its own complaint detailing the child’s gaming history, diagnosis, and damages. The California proceeding pools pretrial work without merging the cases.

Qualification criteria vary by firm, but the general requirements reported across intake sources include:

The affected person was generally a minor when they began playing and is typically 25 or younger at the time of filing.
The plaintiff played internet-based or multiplayer games with microtransactions for a sustained period.
A formal diagnosis from a medical or mental health professional is strongly emphasized. Relevant conditions include gaming disorder, depression, anxiety, ADHD, and physical injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
Supporting evidence such as medical records, gaming logs, financial records showing in-game spending, and statements from family or educators.

Filing deadlines depend on the statute of limitations in each state. No universal deadline has been announced, and attorneys handling these cases have stressed urgency because limitations periods vary and can expire while litigation is still developing.⁶

The Firm’s Dispute With Its Former Funder

In April 2026, Bullock Legal Group sued litigation financier Archetype Capital Partners in Georgia federal court, alleging that Archetype “extorted the law firm for hundreds of millions of dollars” and stole work product to falsely claim credit for inventing video game addiction litigation.²⁰ The dispute is separate from the underlying video game cases but adds an unusual layer of internal conflict on the plaintiffs’ side.

What Comes Next

No case has gone to trial, no settlement has been reached, and the federal dismissals on constitutional grounds are a serious obstacle. The courts that have ruled so far have been skeptical that game design features can be separated from protected creative expression, and the First Amendment defense has proven potent. At the same time, the California coordinated proceeding continues to grow, new individual lawsuits keep being filed, and regulatory actions like the New York attorney general’s suit against Valve are adding external pressure on the industry. The next significant markers will likely come from the California proceeding’s pretrial schedule and from appellate decisions on the First Amendment and Section 230 questions that have driven the federal rulings so far.

1
Law.com. Lawsuits Allege Kids Got Addicted to Video Games
2
MTMP. Tina Bullock Speaker Profile
3
Bullock Legal Group. Bullock Legal Group Homepage
4
Harvard JOLT Digest. Video Game Addiction Lawsuits
5
Lawsuit Information Center. Video Game Addiction Lawsuits
6
ClassAction.org. Video Game Addiction Lawsuit
7
Vident Partners. Video Game Addiction Litigation: An Early Stage Mass Tort With Growing Momentum
8
U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. MDL-3168 Order Denying Transfer
9
TruLaw. Microsoft Lawsuit for Video Game Addiction
10
AboutLawsuits.com. Roblox Addiction Lawsuits Coordinated in California JCCP
11
Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP. Game Addiction Litigation
12
Eric Goldman’s Blog. Google and Roblox Defeat Videogame Addiction Lawsuit
13
Brooklyn Law School Sports & Entertainment Blog. Video Game Users Fight to Hold Large Companies Liable for Gaming Addictions
14
Law360. Google, Roblox Beat Gamer’s Addiction Suit in Ga. for Now
15
Eric Goldman’s Blog. Video Game Addiction Case Mostly Sent to Arbitration
16
Reuters. New York Sues Video Game Developer Valve, Says Its Loot Boxes Are Gambling
17
New York Attorney General. Attorney General James Sues Game Developer Promoting Illegal Gambling
18
Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. Consumers Sue Valve Corporation Claiming Illegal Gambling Enterprise in Video Game Loot Boxes
19
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Surgeon General’s Warning on the Harms of Screen Use
20
Law.com Daily Report Online. Mass Tort Firm Clashes With Litigation Financer in Trade Secret Dispute