An 18-year-old Michigan man named Jordan Duncan has sued Roblox Corporation, Epic Games, Microsoft, and Mojang AB, claiming that trying to stop him from playing their games triggers severe withdrawal symptoms. Duncan filed the federal product-liability case on March 27, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, according to a docket report from Gambling Insider. The lawsuit describes those withdrawal symptoms as anger, injurious behavior toward himself and others, threats of self-harm, property damage, and refusal to maintain hygiene or sleep whenever someone tries to limit his access to the games, according to Esports.net's coverage of the complaint.
Official resources:
- Read Jordan Duncan's full complaint against Roblox, Epic Games, Microsoft, and Mojang — The actual federal complaint (N.D. Cal. No. 3:26-cv-02716) lets readers verify the specific withdrawal and addiction allegations for themselves.
- Read the judicial panel's order on consolidating the video-game addiction lawsuits — This official U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation order explains why the dozens of similar Fortnite/Roblox/Minecraft addiction suits were not combined into one case.
Table of Contents
- What Duncan's Lawsuit Actually Claims
- A Similar Case Already in Court
- How Many Cases Like This Exist, and How Courts Have Ruled
- What This Means If You're Watching for a Settlement
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Duncan's Lawsuit Actually Claims
Duncan's complaint says he began playing Roblox and Minecraft at age 9 and started Fortnite at 11. He now plays 12 to 14 hours a day and has been diagnosed with ADHD, Persistent Depressive Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and a learning disability — conditions his complaint partly attributes to the games, per the Gambling Insider report.
The suit pleads strict product liability on two theories, design defect and failure to warn, plus negligence. It argues the companies built variable reward schedules and other operant-conditioning-style mechanics into the games specifically to maximize engagement and spending among minors — an "addiction by design" theory, as Esports.net reported from the filing. That theory treats the games' reward systems the same way a product-defect case treats a faulty part: the claim is that the design itself, not just how someone used it, caused the harm.
A Similar Case Already in Court
Duncan's is not the first suit of this kind. Around September 16, 2025, a Maine mother named Casey Henderson filed an 83-page federal complaint against the same four companies — Roblox, Epic Games, Microsoft, and Mojang — on behalf of her 9-year-old, seeking damages exceeding $75,000, according to a Gray Media report carried by WIS10.
Henderson's complaint describes her child losing interest in other hobbies and showing diminished social interaction, along with "rage, anger, and physical outbursts" when access to the games is removed — language the filing frames as withdrawal symptoms, per the same WIS10 report. As of that September 2025 report, Roblox, Epic Games, and Microsoft had not responded to requests for comment on her allegations.
How Many Cases Like This Exist, and How Courts Have Ruled
Duncan and Henderson's cases sit inside a much larger wave. By March 2026, Roblox had been named in roughly 31 similar addictive-design lawsuits filed in the Northern District of California over the preceding two months alone, according to the Video Game Law newsletter.
Roblox has already won dismissal of at least one of those cases, on First Amendment and Section 230 grounds — the federal law that generally shields platforms from liability for third-party content and, in some rulings, for how they design user experiences, per the same newsletter. That dismissal signals the legal road ahead is contested: companies have real defenses available, and not every filing survives to trial or settlement.
What This Means If You're Watching for a Settlement
Nothing reported so far is a court ruling, a clinical diagnosis, or an admission from Roblox, Epic Games, or Microsoft. The withdrawal-symptom and addiction characterizations in both the Duncan and Henderson cases come from the plaintiffs' own complaints.
No outlet has reported a verdict or settlement in either case. That distinction matters for anyone tracking this for a possible claim. A filed complaint is an allegation, not a finding — and with one similar case already dismissed, the dozens of pending suits could produce a range of outcomes, from further dismissals to settlements to trial verdicts.
- **What to watch for next:** any ruling on motions to dismiss in the Duncan or Henderson cases, since Roblox has already succeeded with that strategy once.
- **What a dismissal would mean:** it would not end the broader wave, since each of the roughly 31 cases is filed and litigated separately.
- **What a settlement would require:** none has been reported in any of these addictive-design suits as of this writing, so there is currently no claims process tied to this specific litigation to file into.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has any court ruled on the addiction claims against Roblox?
Roblox has won dismissal of at least one similar addictive-design lawsuit on First Amendment and Section 230 grounds, but neither the Duncan nor the Henderson case has reached a ruling, verdict, or settlement.
Who else is named in Jordan Duncan's lawsuit besides Roblox?
Epic Games, Microsoft, and Mojang AB are also named as defendants, since Duncan's complaint covers Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite.
Is there a settlement fund consumers can file a claim against right now?
No. No outlet has reported a settlement or verdict in the Duncan or Henderson cases, or in the roughly 31 related suits filed against Roblox.