14 DAY TRIAL // Online games offer a lot of interesting moments. Besides the joy of winning a game based on your own efforts or on the efforts of your team, you also get to experience some unique moments thanks to the other players and their own reactions to the events unfolding in the game.
One such “interesting” player is Erik Estavillo of San Jose, who spent his free time playing Resistance: Fall of Man, on the PlayStation Network. But it seems that, during one of these matches, he was banned by a moderator, effectively cutting off his access to the PSN and to every other multiplayer game.
Estavillo believed that this move wasn't right – as he suffered from agoraphobia, and the PSN was one of the few ways for him to interact with others – and has now sued Sony Computer Entertainment America for suppressing his free speech rights and causing him pain and suffering by limiting his access to the online service.
“The pain and suffering was caused by the defendant, Sony, banning the plaintiff's account on the PlayStation 3 Network, in which the plaintiff relies on to socialize with other people, since it's the only way the plaintiff can truly socialize since he also suffers from Agoraphobia,” revealed the complaint forwarded by Estavillo.
“The ban is supposedly due to the behavior of the plaintiff when he plays the video game "Resistance: Fall of Man," which Sony owns and employs moderators for its online play. These moderators kick and ban players that they feel deserve it; though their biases to a player seem to be what determines the kick or ban. The plaintiff was exercising his First Amendment Rights to Freedom of Speech on the game's public forum when he was banned, not only from Resistance, but also from playing all other games online via the PlayStation Network.”
The plaintiff is suing for a total of $55,000 in punitive damages and hopes that Sony will realize just what a mistake it has made. As of yet, though, the company hasn't made any comments about this “unique” complaint.