Champion school district files suit against Roblox, others, alleging addiction in children
The Champion Local School District has filed a suit in the Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division Court against Roblox Corporation, Microsoft Corporation and Mojang AB, alleging that some video game products they have created are harmful to the district's students.
Roblox Corporation, Microsoft Corporation and Mojang AB are alleged to have created video game products that have implemented "addiction-generation behavior modification" and hid the dangers of excessive video game use.
Microsoft Corporation and Mojang AB, a subsidiary of Microsoft, are noted to be companies that have produced and distributed games such as Minecraft and other Xbox games.
The suit alleges that all of the Defendants' video game products incorporated psychological techniques that aimed to intentionally make their products addictive to children in order to profit from children's video game play.
Additionally, the suit goes on to claim that the Defendants knew of the harms connected with these features and with continuous gameplay and did not disclose this to the school district or the public at large.
Statistics are outlined in the suit on how video game usage impacts a young person's brain.
"For almost two decades, research on the interaction between video game usage and the adolescent brain has shown that extensive usage has a severe impact on the adolescent brain, including loss of grey matter," as stated in the suit.
These effects can be indicators or consequences of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD).
Brain imaging studies have been conducted related to IGD, and have shown structural changes in the brain, particularly related to white matter areas, which transmit signals from the cerebellum to other regions of the brain, and the grey matter, which includes emotion, perception, memory and motor control areas.
A picture of those changes can be viewed below:
The Champion Local School District, a district that contains three schools and serves over 1,300 students, claims that they have diverted "already-limited resources to address the mental health crisis" the Defendants have caused to students, in an effort to mitigate and address some of those harms, including:
- Expanding counseling
- Learning support
- Efforts to curb excessive in-school gaming and its harmful effects
Furthermore, the suit alleges that the Defendants misrepresented video game products as educational, beneficial for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) curricula and that these games were safe for students, even those under the advertised age limit.
Overall, the suit aims to hold the Defendants accountable for using these "behavioral modification systems" without giving a warning to schools or communities, thus contributing to America's youth and schools.
The district filed the suit in federal court, noting that the matter affects districts in states all across the country. No specific dollar amount is listed, but it says "that injuries and damages within the state of Ohio that exceed the sum or value of $75,000.00, exclusive of interest and costs."
Furthermore, the Plaintiffs seek the following additional retributions:
- For all general and special damages caused by the Defendants
- For court costs and attorney fees
- For exemplary fees or punitive damages
- For other and further relief which the Court deems appropriate
The suit was filed with the court on February 21, 2026.
21 News has reached out to Champion Local School District, but has not received word back on the specifics of the suit outlined at this time.
