Real Safety AI Foundation / Research

Platform Harm, Addictive Design, and Accountability

The Manufactured Dependency: Engineered Compulsion in Games as a Service and Four Doctrines That Now Reach It

Publisher: Real Safety AI Foundation

Working draft. Not peer reviewed.

Written
June 2026
Version
v2
Pages
13
Download PDFPlain language slides (PDF)Export BibTeXExport RIS

Abstract

For years, the claim that games built as a service engineer compulsion and profit from it was treated as a cultural grievance with no legal handle. That has changed. This article argues that manufactured dependency, the deliberate engineering of compulsive engagement and its monetization through mechanics structured like gambling, is now actionable across four independent legal vectors: negligent and defective design, consumer protection and deception, gambling aimed at minors, and contract unconscionability. Each vector is independently sufficient, and a single stretch of 2026 produced a jury verdict holding addictive design a substantial factor in a minor’s injury. The article then develops a disability axis that rides alongside the four vectors. Rather than forcing a plaintiff through the statutory exclusion for compulsive gambling, it routes through a cleanly covered disability and treats the clinical picture as evidence of harm. It also identifies a judicial estoppel trap. A defendant that invokes the gambling exclusion to defeat a disability claim must characterize its own product as gambling, which is the admission the gambling and consumer protection vectors need. The empirical predicate is not incidental. The evidence indicates that loot box spending, and therefore revenue, concentrates in the players who show problem gambling behavior. The dependence is the revenue engine, not a side effect.

Keywords

  • manufactured dependency
  • loot boxes
  • addictive design
  • product liability
  • consumer protection
  • unconscionability
  • Americans with Disabilities Act
  • games as a service

Plain language slides

First slide of the plain language summary of The Manufactured Dependency: Engineered Compulsion in Games as a Service and Four Doctrines That Now Reach ItOpen the 19-slide summary (PDF)

Suggested citation

Gilly, Travis. "The Manufactured Dependency: Engineered Compulsion in Games as a Service and Four Doctrines That Now Reach It." Real Safety AI Foundation Working Draft, June 2026. https://realsafetyai.org/research/2t9abj/

Other versions

This paper is also posted on SSRN.

SSRN version

References (22)

This paper cites its sources in footnotes. Each authority is listed once, where it is first cited, with its footnote number.

  1. Footnote 1.David Zendle, Rachel Meyer & Harriet Over, Adolescents and Loot Boxes: Links with Problem Gambling and Motivations for Purchase, 6 Royal Soc’y Open Sci. 190049 (2019).
  2. Footnote 2.Stuart Gordon Spicer et al., Loot Boxes, Problem Gambling and Problem Video Gaming: A Systematic Review and Meta-Synthesis, 24 New Media & Soc’y 1001 (2021).
  3. Footnote 3.Aaron Drummond & James D. Sauer, Video Game Loot Boxes Are Psychologically Akin to Gambling, 2 Nature Hum. Behav. 530 (2018).
  4. Footnote 4.David Zendle, Rachel Meyer & Paul Cairns, The Prevalence of Loot Boxes in Mobile and Desktop Games, 115 Addiction 1768 (2020).
  5. Footnote 8.Coffee v. Google LLC, No. 20-cv-03901, 2022 WL 94986, at *12 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 10, 2022) (loot boxes are not illegal slot machines under California law because the virtual prizes are not a thing of value under Cal. Penal Code §330b)
  6. Footnote 8.Mai v. Supercell Oy, 648 F. Supp. 3d 1130 (N.D. Cal. 2023) (same; subjective enjoyment is not a thing of value where the terms of service bar resale)
  7. Footnote 8.Taylor v. Apple, Inc., No. 20-cv-03906-RS, 2022 WL 35601, at *2–3 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 4, 2022).
  8. Footnote 8.886 F.3d 784, 788 n.2 (9th Cir. 2018) (a virtual item is not a thing of value where the terms of use bar its sale for cash).
  9. Footnote 9.Jury Verdict, Social Media Cases, Cal. Super. Ct., L.A. Cnty. (Mar. 25, 2026) (addictive design found a substantial factor in a minor plaintiff’s harm; compensatory and punitive damages awarded).
  10. Footnote 10.In re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, 702 F. Supp. 3d 809 (N.D. Cal. 2023).
  11. Footnote 12.Patterson v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 2025 N.Y. Slip Op. 04385 (App. Div. 2025).
  12. Footnote 13.Modisette v. Apple, Inc., 30 Cal. App. 5th 136 (2018).
  13. Footnote 14.Torrez v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. D-101-CV-2023-02838 (1st Jud. Dist. Ct., Santa Fe Cnty., N.M., verdict returned Mar. 24, 2026) (special verdict finding Meta liable for willful violations of the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act on both the unfair or deceptive trade practice prong and the unconscionable trade practice prong, with 37,500 willful violations found under each prong at a civil penalty of $5,000 per violation, for aggregate exposure of $375,000,000)
  14. Footnote 14.Order Correcting Verdict Form (Mar. 26, 2026) (Biedscheid, C.J.).
  15. Footnote 15.In re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, No. 4:22-md-03047-YGR (N.D. Cal.) (Gonzalez Rogers, J.) (orders denying in relevant part the motions to dismiss the state attorneys general consumer protection claims).
  16. Footnote 16.Fed. Trade Comm’n, Bringing Dark Patterns to Light (2022) (staff report cataloguing manipulative design practices in consumer interfaces).
  17. Footnote 17.42 U.S.C. §12211(b)(2).
  18. Footnote 18.Comb v. PayPal, Inc., 218 F. Supp. 2d 1165 (N.D. Cal. 2002).
  19. Footnote 19.MDY Indus., LLC v. Blizzard Entm’t, Inc., 629 F.3d 928 (9th Cir. 2010).
  20. Footnote 20.Davidson & Assocs. v. Jung, 422 F.3d 630 (8th Cir. 2005).
  21. Footnote 21.42 U.S.C. §12210.
  22. Footnote 22.World Health Org., International Classification of Diseases 6C51 (11th rev. 2022) (Gaming disorder).

All research