Slashdot Mirror
Suing Sony for Everquest Related Suicide?
daoine writes "The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a story about how Sony could be sued by the mother of an Everquest player who recently committed suicide. The lawsuit itself doesn't seem all that interesting (she's aiming for warning labels) -- but it is interesting that Sony won't release any of the game data citing privacy policy, even if it could help unlock what exactly drove the guy to end his life."
The poor guy, three years to work his Rogue up to level 50 and then suddenly they nerf his Sneak skill! There outta be a law!
Clearly if the guy had mental problems, then playing games 12 hours a day wouldn't help...
Mother's should not allow dangerously wacko kids to play too many video games.
i wonder how long it took to prepare that brief...
Lawyer: Hey - does anyone have the old AD&D suicide brief? cool, thanks.
s/AD&D/Everquest/
s/TSR/Sony/
there, done.
... hi bingo
Shawn Woolley - who was overweight, worked in a pizza restaurant and lived alone in an apartment the last months of his life - may have depended on EverQuest to provide the life he really wanted to live.
Couldn't have been that he was a schizoid depressive maniac who didn't have any friends. Must be the game.
(Leaves comparisons to Black Sabbath and D&D to other posters....)
From the article:
A psychologist diagnosed him with depression and schizoid personality disorder, symptoms of which include a lack of desire for social relationships, little or no sex drive and a limited range of emotions in social settings.
Sounds like most Slashdot readers are in danger,
Now maybe video games will take the heat for teen suicide and Ozzy can get some rest.
you might as well kill yourself. Like my friend's roomate last year. He played Asheron's Call day and night. What kind of life is that? It's a waste of life if you ask me. Suicide isn't a good thing, and I'm really opposed to it, but at the same time who needs these people that play MMORPGs 24/7? No offense to the people who play them casually and not all the time, however few of you there are.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
She is angry that Sony Online Entertainment, which owns EverQuest, won't give her the answers she desires.
In other words, she'll appeal and appeal until Sony caves in and settles.
"The manufacturer of EverQuest purposely made it in such a way that it is more intriguing to the addict,"
Well, *duh*. Entertainment is supposed to be enjoyable...And *newsflash!* Enjoyable things are addictive! Like sports...taking walks...shopping...sex! If it wasn't, then we as humans wouldn't seek it out so often, and it wouldn't enrich our lives - We'd turn into very dull people.
Not only that, but it's in Verant/Sony's financial interests to make the game enjoyable and addictive. Since it's on a subscription-based model, they need people to *want* to continue to play, so that THEY can to continue to make money.
*FWAP* - The sound of 1,000,000 Slashdot readers simultaneously slapping their foreheads in disgust...
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
First the religious cults....
Next, a group of 10-20 people (probably a real life everquest 'group') will all kill themselves in an intricate suicided plot.
Jebus, if he had that big a problem, and it was ruining his life, couldn't his mother have intervened and uninstalled the damned thing? Or maybe take the computer away? So the guy was 21 and living in his own apartment... he wasn't exactly making the big money, so it's likely he wouldn't be able to afford a new computer... And by the looks of it, he wasn't too much brighter than his mother...
I'm looking California... but feeling Minnesota...
OK, her son got seizures from the game and she's suing to have warning labels on the game because her son killed himself? His suicide was probably seizure related. (IANAD, so that may not be possible)
Oh, and good for Sony for standing behind their privacy policy.
Monday is a horrible way to spend 1/7 of your life.
Obviously this guy wasn't a normal Everquest player, and there should be a lot of evidence for why he suicided sitting around in the ordinary world. I don't see any need to violate a privacy policy, which IMO should be inviolate.
And as George Carling once said "Mother's milk leads to everything"
Here's a warning label for you:
"Warning! Everquest won't be able to stop your children from committing suicide."
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Maybe now I can sue Sony due to the fact that now that I play Everquest I have no life.
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
Wouldn't Everquest qualify as a symptom of the illness, and not the underlying cause?
I mean, geez, have you seen an Everquest player around your local dorm/apartment lately? Some of those mofos are pretty scary.
the kid was 21 years old, an eppileptic, and clinically depressed, along with a few other psyhological disorders. IANA[insert profession here], but to me it's clear that the game was part of the problem as he was playing 12 hours/day, and once thought the characters were chasing him, but mom and the psychologist continued to let him play it. Sony's lawyers will also be quick to point out the Columbine case.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Gaming Causes Loss of Sleep, Weight Gain, Eye Strain, And May Complicate Personal Relationships. This Product Also Contains High Levels of Roleplaying. Quitting Gaming Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health.
"It's like any other addiction," Elizabeth Woolley said last week.
"Except for the chemical dependency, the violent interference with the brain's core function, the hallucinations, ability to ignore pain, increased heart rate and risk of heart failure, sexual disfunction, and massive expense, it's just like any other addiction. Addicts always look like my son: fat, sedentary losers with glasses."
From the article...
A psychologist diagnosed him with depression and schizoid personality disorder, symptoms of which include a lack of desire for social relationships, little or no sex drive and a limited range of emotions in social settings.
"This fed right into the EverQuest playing," Woolley said. "It was the perfect escape."
Now, isn't Everquest a massively online social environment?
Weddings, friendships, etc etc?
Obviously this guy had some issues, which probably just compounded by him taking EQ to seriously (You mean you are a man instead of a hot female elf!?)
Seriously, his mother really has no merit on trying to blame a game on someones own mental problems and suicide. If she cared that much, the she should have seen that he had problems already and tried to get him help.
This is like people sueing McDonalds because the coffee is hot...
Aliens? Magnetic Rings?! Bah! Who needs that when we have
C'mon, Sony, get off your asses and label it already.
Tell 'em it's addictive. Tell 'em it'll make them suicidal, depressed, happy, sad, melancholy, and maybe a touch whimisical.
Label EVERYTHING! Tell the public that anything they buy could possibly have all kinds of negative effects on them.
That way, when the next mental patient who just happened to use your product offs himself, you can point to your warning labels and say "See? You were warned."
It amazes me how people are stupid enough to believe these games would drive someone crazy enough in order to make him suicide! Thats bullshit! Ive played GTA, Carmaggedon, Duke Nuken 3D and many other games even worse and I never killed anyone, never drive into anything, never killed myself (duh, obviously)...
Tell this idiot mother to look for other problems her son might had instead of trying to get some money from Sony!
Fabio - Sumare/Sao Paulo/Brazil/South America/Earth/Solar System/Milky Way/Universe
http://www.morroida.com.br
People have to take some sort of responsibility for their own actions. If this guy had problems to the extent that he was willing to take his own life, I don't think a video game maker can be held responsible for that. Why is everything always someone else's fault?
Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
Come on!
You seriously think they keep text logs of everything everyone ever says for the entire 4 years of the game? 400,000 subscribers?
I'm a player myself, I've had to petition GM's on numerous occassions and was told "Sorry friend, we don't have access to older logs". Even in cases of account fraud, they really can't get any logged proof, with the exception of login/out times.
If anything, I'd think they would MAYBE have game text logs a week or so old, but anything more than that? I have to doubt it.
I hope the juge throwes this case out.
Maybe it's a sign that I should get out more..
Nah, I'm not overweight, I have 3 kids, so the sex drive is ok.. I have a nice house at the base of a mountain, 4 horses, a miner who's up to level 50 now..
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
If the person ignores family/friends/all responsibilites and quits his job... the person is supposed to take a warning label to heart?
Besides.. the dude probably got Britished
If you had read the article, you would have known that this guy was mentally ill with a personality disorder, which among other things contributes to a lack of sexual drive. I doubt he would have contributed to the gene pool anyway. If they put him on antidepressants, it would have only exaggerated that part of the problem.
-- Adam
Your kid was 21 fucking years old! If that's not old enough for him to be responsible for his actions, you should have had him in a home. I'm sorry for your loss, but you are making yourself look like an ass by suing Sony.
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
She has hired an attorney who plans to sue the company in an effort to get warning labels put on the games. Like what? Warning: This game may lead to losing your sanity and may cause suicide. Please Buy Me! Crack doesn't come with a warning label, but the buyers know what they re getting into. why should this game or any other be any different?
I think that it's easily shown that addiction is not necessarily limited to a certain type of thing to which one can be addicted. It's more about one's personality.
Sure, there are things like narcotics that form physical dependancies, but by FAR the majority of addictions are psychological. ANYTHING can become addictive if the right person is exposed to it. Are we going to put warning labels on carrots? on AOL CDs? (I know there's some nutjob out there that collects them) Where does it end?
Labels on products aren't going to help if the public isn't educated on the issues of addition in general.
but it is interesting that Sony won't release any of the game data citing privacy policy, even if it could help unlock what exactly drove the guy to end his life
Sony (rightly) believes that giving this case the time of day is in a way admitting possibility of fault. The simple fact is that people commit suicide over a lot of things. If someone reads a book and it depresses them to the point that they kill themselves, it's not the fault of the author. Likewise, while it's very sad that this person killed himself, it's in absolutely no way Sony's fault.
Sony (again, rightly) believes that their game data is irrelevant to the case. What would be a lot more telling is an analysis of any possible psychological problems the boy had that led to his suicide.
Lendrick
... it's compulsive behavior. Almost anything can be compulsive. Picking your nose, eating your hair, sucking your thumb, washing your hands fifty times a day, sex - they can all be compulsive, but they're not addictive.
To compare video games to things that are really addictive like smoking or crack is silly. Worse than that, it gives you an excuse not to deal with your compulsion properly. It's way to easy to say "oh, I can't quit - I'm addicted". Nonsense. Go on vacation somewhere where you have better things to do than EverQuest and you'll find your "addiction" wasn't nearly as strong as you'd thought.
As for this poor guy who committed suicide, that's sad. But he obviously had deeper problems. If EverQuest hadn't existed he would have latched on to some other way of escaping from his real life.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
what's next?
Warning: This bottle contains water. In some circumstances, water has been known to cause drowning. Enjoy this product carefully.
neopets.com
People sued bands for making songs that their kids listen to and commit suicide.
People sued authors for making stores that their kids read and commited suicide.
The key I believe is that there is no link between listening to the band and the mental state of a suicidal person. Same thing with books and people. Same thing with EQ and this player. I believe it is as simple as that. If it wasn't EQ it would have been something else. But I guess the short sighted solution would be to sue them instead.
Instead of looking for why EQ set this person on the path of self destruction the parents may want to look at why they didn't see it coming. I am under the impression suicidal behavior has many indicators that shouldn't be ignored. So why didn't they recognize something is wrong? Sure they may have not been licensed or studied anything about sucide but ignoring abnormal and extremely weird behavior is irresponsible.
And, here is the kicker folks, not the band, the author's, or EQ's fault.
While Taco was busy snotting all of us with stupid April Fools crap, K5 was busy posting intelligent stories. They ran this story yesterday with a very interesting article attached and already some very good commentary. I highly recommend everyone read this one comment that sums up, I'd say, a lot of our thoughts.
Why bother.
(tongue-in-cheek)
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a cause-and-effect if I've ever heard one.
(/tongue-in-cheek)
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Read this, any of you who buy the RPG/MUD/Everquest-leads-to-suicide line. This is as clear-cut a case of scapegoating as I've ever seen. I've now done my duty as a Good Little Karma Whore (tm), I hope :-)
I submitted this yesterday, but it seems that April Fools 'jokes' were more important. Speaking as somebody who was throughly MUD addicted in college, there really does need to be some study into this. It's perfect 'task-reward' style psychology.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
This is no different from the whole "Doom killed my kids" thing. The parents obviously feel horrible, and can't face the fact that their negligence and/or poor parenting directly contributed to their childs demise. Therefore, someoine else must be to blame. Even if he killed himself because of events in the game he OBVIOUSLY didn't have a very solid seat in reality. She should go to jail for child abuse.
Just my 2 cents.
Slashdot editors chose to run a story with the title: "Sony Sued for Everquest Related Suicide"
If you take ten seconds to scan the story, you'll find that it's actually:
Whole world of difference, I think you'll find. Sooner or later, Slashdot is going to get bitchslapped for its sloppy reporting.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Certainly it was not the individuals personal problems that caused his suicide it was the video game. Certainly it was not my lack of attention to my son that caused his suicide it was the music he listened to. Certainly it was not my fault that I spilled the hot coffee on myself it was McDonalds for serving hot coffee. Certainly I should not be responsible for my own actions.... So label the game addictive, label the coffee hot, label the music bad and pay me a few million dollars for my mistake
http://www.kubuntu.org/
...It was bound to happen sooner or later.
He had already had numerous seizures.
He had hawked a lot of his posessions, quit his job, and was spending 12 hours every day playing "ever-crack".
His mom should be the one to look at. I call it negligance on her part.
Nobody has ever killed him/herself solely because of a video game. An external factor like depression or mental sickness should be looked at before pointing your finger at a game maker. If it's his mother suing, didn't she notice his change for the worse in regards to his demeanor and social avoidance the last few months of his life? Was she somehow unaware of his mental condition, something Sony was obviously acutely aware of. It sounds disrespectful, people need to stop pointing the finger. I'm not sayng pointing it at themselves, I'm saying that the most troubling aspect of suicide is that you are left with no one to place the blame on.
This touches on something on my mind the past few days, because yesterday was my birthday (believe it or not), and one year ago yesterday an old friend of mine hung himself. A few months later, my close friend's grandfather killed himself as well. I've known a few more suicides as well (they just flock to me...).
Someone's decision to end their life is NEVER the result of the influence of a freakin' game.
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even if it could help unlock what exactly drove the guy to end his life.
I Am Not A Psychiatrist, but....
Overwhelmingly suicide is the result of mental illness and/or substance use. (More than half of all suicides in the US are alchohol related). Think about it, if a guy has a heart attack while shovling snow off the driveway, learning more about the snow crystals doesn't tell you about his heart attack. He had heart disease, and the exertion of shoveling caused one of several bad things to happen inside is heart. Mental illness is a disease state - suicidiality is a symptom of the disease.
One might want engage in a bunch of Freudian analysis of this guy's game play, but, odds are, the levels of seritonin activity in his brain were out of whack. Did Everquest create stress in this guy's life that incresed the intensity of his suicidiality? (this would be the 'shoveling' int the heart attack metaphor) - maybe. But real life is generally a hell of a lot more stressful.
Come on... This is like saying D&D leads to increased suicide rates, wheras studies like this seem to indicate that people playing D&D have a lesser chance of commiting suicide.
It's all nonsense, but in the sensationalist american life, anything you can blame for your troubles is a great target for a lawsuit.
The article follows a line of reasoning that because Everquest is addictive it should come with warning labels just like alcohol and tobacco products. The problem with this analogy is that Everquest is NOT an addictive substance. I agree it can be addictive, but it follows more in rank with Gambling than drugs and alcohol. It's pure sensationalism to draw a comparison between a game and highly addictive chemical substances. However, to simply dismiss the potential harm Everquest can cause is underestimating the situation. Sure most people won't get addicted in any harmfull way. But there are those same personality types which get addicted to gambling that can find the same kind of problems from Everquest. There really needs to be more common sense in journalism these days.
However, I do have a problem with this blaming of Everquest! It's not a games fault someone does this... if a game can push someone over the edge, then that person was already severely unbalanced and the trigger could have been anything. In this case it appears to have been the game...
I have more issues with the parent who waited until after he died to get involved:
He sacrificed everything so he could play for hours, ignoring his family, quitting his job and losing himself in a 3-D virtual world where more than 400,000 people worldwide adventure in a never-ending fantasy.
Should this kind of behavior not be setting off all sorts of alarm bells here? Why did it take his suicide to provoke a reaction?
"Shawn was playing 12 hours a day, and he wasn't supposed to because he was epileptic, and the game would cause seizures," she said. "Probably the last eight times he had seizures were because of stints on the computer."
Woolley knows her son had problems beyond EverQuest, and she tried to get him help by contacting a mental health program and trying to get him to live in a group home. A psychologist diagnosed him with depression and schizoid personality disorder, symptoms of which include a lack of desire for social relationships, little or no sex drive and a limited range of emotions in social settings.
I hate to say it, but this sounds like it's largely the parents fault. It doesn't sound like they did enough to prevent him playing and get him better integrated.* Why was that computer even available? If he's having seizures from playing that machine should not even be available to play on!
* - I say sounds like it. I could be wrong... a parent cannot always prevent such actions of their children. The best they can do is try.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
In a related story, area cocaine and crack dealers are now affixing their product with warning labels to avoid similar lawsuits.
But seriously, has it gotten so bad that companies have to warn consumers that their product is of too high quality?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Books make people do bad things too.
I once read that book "The Diceman" and then did something bad, which resulted in one of my friends not speaking to me anymore. That was definately the books fault.
And didn't the guy who shot JFK read "Catcher in the Rye?". So that was the fault of a book too. And those insane terrorists were influenced by the Koran, weren't they? So books cause terrorism.
So, definately a warning label is required on books. "Warning: Reading books might make you do bad things". Something like that.
Let me get this right...
/. for making me waste hours and hours of my life?
Kids are buying these games, devoting their lives to them, then killing themselves?
Where's the problem? Thats an unemployment solution right there folks!
I say, start putting subliminal messages in the games : "Kill the parents who neglected you, kill the people who rejected you as a friend, then kill yourself. Make sure you get your whole head in front of the shotgun - thanks for playing!"
If she wins, does it set a legal precedent? Can I sue
Years ago, it was Rock 'n' Roll. Then it was Dungeons and Dragons (anyone remember the Tom Hanks movie Mazes and Monsters?) Now it's computer games. The simple fact of the matter is that certain forms of entertainment tend to appeal to certain types of people, and that for some people, it goes from entertainment to escapism to all-out addiction. Does that make gaming inherently evil? No. Does it make game manufacturers responsible for creating an environment in which people can immerse themselves?
That seems to be the point here. I would argue that Sony is no more at fault than NASCAR is for unsafe teenage driving. The vast majority of people out there can distinguish between fantasy and reality. Those who cannot have serious mental problems and require serious care and support. Unfortunately, in the United States the infrastructure for dealing with mental health issues varies greatly from state to state, and a lot of places are not equipped to handle people with social and behavioral disorders. Sony is no more at fault for creating an online multiplayer universe than Ford is for building a car that can go fast. Unfortunately, Sony is an easy target here. The real solution, however, is not to go after symptom, but rather the actual disease. I feel confident in saying that if not Everquest, something else would have taken its place. The only real solution is proper identification and treatment of social disorders, an area still vastly underdeveloped and carrying too much of a stigma to be effective.
----------
Something cleverWarning Labels are great! I LOVE warning labels. Especially those Explicit Lyrics warning labels. It makes it easier for me to find the GOOD stuff. *grin* Hell, if I saw a game with a label on it that said "WARNING! THis game may be addictive!" I'd buy it in a heartbeat! Might be a cool game! :)
What if the kid was addicted to masterbating? so if he decided to spend 36 hours masterbating w/out sleep/food/water to, say for example, Playboy, does that give warrant to sue Playboy Magazine for damages? or to force Playboy to make their magazine "less addictive"?
"It was penguin lust...at its worst." --someone
Even though this guy is dead and has questionable privacy rights, I would bet she is looking for information on who he interacted with in the game. Those people are very much alive (presumably) and will be the targets of lawsuits from this angry mother for ... I don't even know what, but I wouldn't be surprised to see her sue Sony for the people's names and then sue them for encouraging her son to die or some such thing.
I feel sorry for the woman and can understand her need to lash out at something, but it also looks like she is just looking for money.
at least as far as the witholding of information goes. My father committed suicide 11 years ago, and one of the last things he did was get sent to a detox center to "dry out". It didn't work, and we wanted to get his medical records and other information about him from the center so we could piece together, as best we could, what the path was that he was on.
The center was having none of it, politely and compassionately but firmly refusing to release any of his information. This is primarily because they don't want to expose themselves to lawsuits, which can be tremendous, if there's any shred of a sign that something could have been done - which, with 20/20 hindsight, there always is.
If our society was less litigous, things like this might be more likely, but despite the fact that we weren't looking for anyone to blame, just for understanding, and even offered to sign a promise not to sue under any circumstances, they still had to say no. My lawyer told me I can't sign away my right to sue in any legally binding fashion, even of my own free will.
It's not their fault, and I don't blame them, but there's a hole in the picture we have of his last weeks that will never be filled in. The information is out there, but we're not allowed to get it under any circumstances or at any point. The fact that the family of the victim, whose interest in that kind of information is primal, primary and undeniable, is the ONE group of people who can't get it is just a testament to how whacked we all are.
Of course, the system is that way because so many of us feel that there must be a REASON why someone commits suicide that could be traced to something blameable outside of them. There's a real risk that I could try to sue the detox center, the school where he taught, the whiskey manufacturers, the gun manufacturers, the gas station where he filled up the night before... it's just absurd. My father killed himself because he was depressed, and his alcoholism didn't help. He wasn't victimized by anybody in ways that could be reined in by legislation - and TEEN suicide is tragic and widespread, and happens for reasons we often can't begin to fathom.
Suing a game company because a suicide victim played the game before killing himself is just as absurd as anything I might have tried to do. He didn't kill himself because he played a game. However, the game company SHOULD be able to release the information to the victim's family without fearing being blamed or sued into nothingness; plenty of people play that game without killing or harming themselves or others. Unfortunatly, the state of our hyper-litigous society means lots of good people are kept in the dark about things like this by simple financial necessity, because we all look for other people to blame/sue for our misfortunes. It's madness.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
"but it is interesting that Sony won't release any of the game data citing privacy policy, even if it could help unlock what exactly drove the guy to end his life."
As if there is any data in there that would lead us to think 'Ah. That makes sense. His 78th level character died and he lost his powerful HackMaster +12 sword. That must be what drove him over the brink!'
The sad fact is probably that he came to the stark realization that EQ only brought temporary relief to his days of quiet desperation.
If I'm not mistaken, every computer dork (myself included) was just described as a depressed schizoid. I'm not sure if I should be proud or if I should feel more depressed.
and insist all women have warning labels installed across their foreheads
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
This is a plea to someone out there planning suicide..
First off, are you sure that your temporary problems are worth a permanent solution?
That being said, if you do go through with it, would you *please* make certain you are playing Mozart's requiem for the dead, and obsess over Edgar Allen Poe, and Macbeth before you go?
Maybe if these pinheads see someone committing suicide to the tune of classical music and literature, they will wake up, and frantically wave down the clue bus. (Thanks for the quote Tweety)
-Zaphod
First is the usual "we can't understand the gamer" / "games kill" stance. This isn't anything new to the Slashdot crowd, I'm sure. Heck - I've been in the middle of a lot of these things through my entire life (D&D, Arcade games, FPS Shooters, MUDs, Paintball, etc). So yea. Shake your head at in awe. Collectively yawn. Nothing new here.
Where it becomes interesting is that this is NOT a kid. This was a 21-year old adult. Living on his own. He had been diagnosed with several conditions (eplileptic, depression, schizoid personality disorder) but it doesn't appear that he was a ward of his parents or anyone else. He was his own person. His own responsibility.
Sony is right in refusing to release information on his account. This information belonged to the player alone. Unless there is a legal reason to do otherwise (ie: police investigation with appropriate warrent), Sony would be breaching their customers privacy by releasing any details.
oh, sorry....
well now i can use warning labels to gauge how good a game is, just like i use violence labels to gauge how good a movie is.
suing for warning labels is just idiotic.
She would make more money auctioning his character on e-bay. After all that game time its stats and kit must be superb.
Wow, you mean people use laws other than the DMCA to bring baseless lawsuits against others? I guess we should repeal these laws, because they are obviously restricting free speech.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
guns don't kill people, large, flying gryphons kill people?
*grin*
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
...but as far as I'm concerned, it's Darwin in action.
$0.02 (CDN)
From the article: "schizoid personality disorder, symptoms of which include [...] a limited range of emotions in social settings"
What does that mean anyway?
"The 21-year-old Hudson man was addicted to EverQuest, says his mother, Elizabeth Woolley of Osceola. He sacrificed everything so he could play for hours, ignoring his family, quitting his job and losing himself in a 3-D virtual world where more than 400,000 people worldwide adventure in a never-ending fantasy.
"
Lets see
A full grown adult commits sucide. who do we blame?
I dont know about you but if your grip on reality is so weak that everquest makes you lose your job and become distant from everything else then I imagine ANY other game or BOOK would do the same. Geez. How did the guy support himself if he lost his job?
""It's like any other addiction," Elizabeth Woolley said last week. "Either you die, go insane or you quit. My son died.""
Or you manage it and keep it under control. I know plenty of people who are addicted to everquest but still maintain a fulltime job and don't commit sucide. (one is a level 56 enchanter I believe) I also know some college students who are addicted to speed and such but keep it under some control while they try and use it to thier benfit.
""Shawn was playing 12 hours a day, and he wasn't supposed to because he was epileptic, and the game would cause seizures," she said. "Probably the last eight times he had seizures were because of stints on the computer.""
so he had a previous problem with seizures and yet he kept playing the game. I dont know about you but when a adult chooses to try something they KNOW will or could harm them often they hold nooone but themself responcible.
""After playing the game for 36 hours straight, he had a psychotic break because of sleep deprivation, Parker said.""
Rofl. So he plays a game for 36hr and suffers. What is different from lack of sleep from a game and lack of sleep due to out partying.
""He thought the characters had come out of the game and were chasing him," Parker said. "He was running through his neighborhood having hallucinations. I can't think of a drug he could have taken where he would have disintegrated in 15 weeks.""
Sadly has this woman ever heard of many drugs like Crack, Acid or even herion? 15 weeks is long enough time for any drug or any thing taken into excess to hurt you significant.
"A call for warning labels"
I can see it now.
WARNING. Playing of this game can lead to having no social life if you can't control yourself. People who have lots of free time and addictive personality should not play this game. People who lack a LIFE to fall back upon when the servers crash need to also avoid this game.
Sigh.
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
Even if the game data did include his interaction with others, it is not illegal (AFAIK) to talk to someone in a manner that depresses them, which is about the extent of what someone could do to you via EQ.
And WRT privacy, it isn't necessarily the privacy of the dead at stake here, but the privacy of those still living. In addition, as has been pointed out, any admission that this is a reasonable case would give the appearance of liability, so if they did give out any information, then that may pave the way for others who feel harmed by EQ to demand information about players that they wouldn't normally be able to get.
It is tragic that her son died, and I might even consider the use of labels reasonable (except that I don't think they will actually affect anything in the end), but I totally disagree with suing for damages in this case.
I used to feel the same way, then I moved out of Wisconsin.
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
<sarcasm> I can picture it now... 14-year-old walks into [MegaComputerStoreOfTheFuture!], picks up the box for Everquest:PlanesOfWhippedCreamAndJello, and screams in horror at the black-and-white sticker that says "Warning, excessive play may exacerbate your insanity.", flinging it back to the shelf.
Oh yes, obviously warning labels are the perfect solution.</sarcasm>
One more example of an idiot shooting himself. That's all it is.
Maybe it will just help the game sell better, certainly among the adolescent population. I remember being a teen and if it had a warning label on it that was immediately more appealing. So I suppose it could be a boon for Sony in some ways.
And like the old expression goes, "No publicity is bad publicity."
Everquest boasts a user population of over 300,000.
.sig
The national rate for suicide is 1 in 10,000.
If only one person committed suicide after playing Everquest,
then Everquest players are 97% less likely to commit suicide.
I'd guess there are 30 suicides among Everquest players each year,
but the families don't think of blaming Sony for them.
-- this is not a
I spend hours a day on these boards posting and trying to get karma. It seems like it's rewarded randomly and at the stupidest times. Does this mean I can sue Slashdot for making an addictive online game experience?
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Egads people, the when I read the article I did not take that the mother was trying to BLAME Sony, she was just trying to figure out what pushed her son over the edge. She was aware he had a lot of problems, she tried to get him to go to a group home, but you know what, he was 21, a legal adult, he could do what he wanted.
It's like a drug addict, you can try to pursuade them to get help but if they don't you can't do anything.
People want some labels, that's not such a bad idea. What if my kid has some mental problems, but likes to play video games. I don't have the time to go out and research every possible video game they could be playing. You can try to be as aware as possible but things slip through, and you know what, if this guy was as dependant on EverQuest as it sounds, just pulling it away probably would have led him to another psychotic episode.
There's nothing wrong with putting a label on games that lend themselves to being immersive that says something to the effect "Warning: Over use of this game has been known to lead to a dependance in some individuals, and can be a hazard to your health".
Then some poor computer illiterate mother or father can read it and say, oh geez, that can lead to an addiction? My son has an addictive personality, I'd better not get him it as a birthday present.
--- I used to moderate, then I read the -1 articles and decided having to filter through them was not worth it.
I never played Everquest, and for good reason, but I did play Ultima Online after it was released. A LOT. A bare minimum of 8 hours a day on weekdays and Upwards of 16 hours a day on weekends. I dropped out of classes one semester because I didnt' want to stop playing long enough to go to class.
And the funny thing about it was, I HATED that game. It was driving me insane. The server crashes/timewarps/cheating/looting/disrepectful players/etc etc made the game extremely undesireable, and yet I wanted to play it all the more because of it. Talk about an addiction if I ever heard of one.
But one day I decided to quit, and I quit cold turkey, and never looked back. I never missed it, I never thought about firing it up just for a little while. I was done, I put it behind me, and I discovered Linux. Which is a whole different sort of addiction, but I digress.
However, I doubt the game, UO or everquest is to blame for any of mine, or anyone else's problems. You choose to play it. And if you choose to play it for hours a day, then you deserve what you get. Its sad to see someone drivin to suicide, but as the article clearly states, he had serious problems beyond the world of Everquest. To say that it was Everquest that pushed him over the edge is the same as blaming the gun someone uses to kill themselves with.
And what WARNING will Everquest put on its box anyways?? "This game is so much fun, you might get addicted?" It would probably work to their advantage to do so. It would be like warnings on cigarrete packs. Everyone knows they're gonna kill you, but millions of smokers ignore it anyways.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
"Warning: This product may or may not have addictive effects, and may or may not harm a user physically, emotionally, mentally or socially. Possible side effects of using this product could be just about anything you can imagine. We're really not sure. If you begin to be affected in any negative way STOP USING THIS PRODUCT."
Put that label on all products, and that way people with no common sense can't sue.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
"We're trying to whack them with a verdict significantly large so that they, out of fiscal self-interest, will put warning labels on," he said. "We're trying to get them to act responsibly. They know this is an addictive game."
For the love of Pete, people. Cigarettes are addictive because of nicotene, which is a chemical agent that acts on the brain. Warning labels go on cigarettes because the smoke causes long-term damage to one's lungs, and more. Lawsuits are being levied against the tobacco industry because they've been knowingly increasing the levels of nicotine in their products to increase addiction, marketing to children who may not be aware of the dangers of the product, and have for years denied any knowledge of the dangers their products cause.
None of these arguments apply to video games.
It's a virtual world, people. The problems here are as old as IRC, BBSes and even Ms. Pac-Man arcade machines. Heck, gamblers have for centuries had the same problems. If it's fun, people can and do get addicted. But that's not Sony's fault, nor is it (to be bluntly honest) their problem.
Sony is NOT deliberately manipulating their games or online worlds to make people play longer. They are NOT adding subliminal messages saying "Play more EverQuest" or installing Trojan horses that log you on when you're trying to do productive work. They don't offer any incentive to play, other than virtual money and level powers. The fact that people sell high-powered characters on eBay for real money is something Sony has even tried to prevent in court themselves.
They know the game is popular, but there is no way a sane person can argue they are KNOWINGLY addicting people to this thing.
Elizabeth Woolley of Osceola: I hate to say it, but the game had nothing to do with your son's suicide. The suicide and his addiction to the game doubtless had the same cause -- "A psychologist diagnosed him with depression and schizoid personality disorder," according to the article -- but you cannot hold Sony responsible for keeping him from playing as often as he liked.
The game is popular, it is fun, but it's not designed to be addictive any more than any other video, board, or card game. With all due respect to your tragedy, you're looking for blame in exactly the wrong place.
...for a while, anyway.
I mean, this guy was an epileptic, schizoid, overweight, sex-deprived (what the hell is 'sexual anorexia' anyway?) manic-depressive who worked at a pizza place. His life really sucked. Who can blame him for wanting to escape into a world where he's fit, good-looking, powerful and respected? And who knows, maybe playing EQ was the only thing that kept this guy interested in living as long as he did?
He obviously needed help, and it's very sad that it ended this way. Apparently there weren't any people around who were willing to take enough of an interest to get him the help he needed, but why blame the game?
The obvious answer is that his mom knows that she should have helped him, and didn't, but doesn't want to accept it so she'd rather blame the faceless corporation that may, arguably, have brought this guy what little joy he had.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I'd say that I miss objective journalism, but I've become cynical: I no longer believe there ever was any.
Ellen
mods metamodded as "Unfair"
A Shaman named Rathgar once told me, "There's three kinds of people who play this game, elves, non elves, and me." Looking back I think there are only two kinds of people who play. Normal people and abnormal people.
I personally witnessed the self destruction of more than one person while playing the game and I saw many people put trust in people who they didn't know only to lose all of their in game posessions. For those people who would spend 12 hours a day for more than a year in game only to lose it all because they thought they had a friend it is very devistating. No more different than giving someone you meet in real life the key to your apartment only to come home one day and find all your stuff gone, save a few pennies scattered on the rug.
Everquest is addicting and there is a point where you realize, at least there was for me, that you've spent nnn hours in game and have yyyy treasure. You can quit now and lose it which makes you realize that the nnn hours were all pretty much a waste or you can keep playing until you find something better to do with your time that will make you forget about the waste of nnn hours and the loss of yyyy treasure. Some people quit and come back to the game several times before quitting for good. Others will do something to get banned from the game to ensure that they will be quitting for good. I think this is where you see people getting ripped off by so called friends because the people who do this are caught and they do get banned.
I think Everquest can be a very dangerous game for some people. It is only a game but it has people interacting and bad people do play it. I definatly wouldn't let a child play it and would advise against a mentally ill person playing it as there seem to be enough of those playing already. On the other hand, I have heard great things about how some people with physical handicaps have used the game to give them a life they couldn't normally have.
'Same speed C but faster'
quote: I can't think of a drug he could have taken where he would have disintegrated in 15 weeks.
This is a challenge to all drug chemists/dealers out there. You're losing market share to the evil corporate machine! They're using these games to subvert your customers into other interests, and the games aren't even subject to the legal issues that the Man imposes on your products either.
You must quickly find something more addictive and easier (legally speaking) to distribute that will allow you to compete in the new "e"-conomy.
Fight the Man, freedom to da peeps!
Folks,
Some of you may not remember the MUDs from the early 90's, but this was the same kind of thing. I was in college and my freshman year I saw guys that were more than willing to stay up until 4 AM waiting for a campaign to start. So many guys wanted so badly to become gods on the games that classes and life in general didn't matter. It really isn't like this is a new thing. It just has taken on a more public for with Ultima Online and EverQuest. No, I never got into the games. I tried, but it wasn't for me. I did have a computer though and that made me the guy to wake at 2 AM asking if I minded them playing for a while.
It really used to be hard to find the MUDs before they got shut down. Now you shell out to these people to get a bunch of pretty pictures to go with the adventure.
I'll never be as good as I want to be. I can only be as good as I am.
Said the silly woman:
"It's like any other addiction. Either you die, go insane or you quit. My son died."
Said me, the matter-of-fact Slashdot poster:
Quite frankly lady, your son did all three at once. He went insane and had no choice but to quit because he chose to frag himself.
Icephreak One
Toronto, Canada
I doubt it, but I did read a statistic about Dungeons and Dragons suicide rates from the book "Innumeracy" and it's lower than the national rate.
Add that to the labels on McDonald's coffee (may be hot), electrical equipment (do not use in the shower), cigarettes (cancer), vending machines (tipping/shaking will not give free product/may result in death), soap (not to be taken internally), etc, etc, etc.
I fully expect to see this warning label attached to the front of buses in the near future: "Warning: Standing in front of this bus while it is in motion may result in severe injury or death. By standing in front of this bus, you agree to hold harmless the bus driver, operating company, manufacturer, city, state, and passengers."
Anything can be dangerous if consumed extensively. Eating like 100 bananas, 100 hotdogs, 100 fishes in a day can be hazardeous to your health. I don't see such a warning on food, so why should a game put a warning?
I mean comon poor guy lost his job and suddenly he found out the extra $$ he wouldn't be able to afford it.
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
This is so sick and sad I don't want to study the details. Mom was aware of the problem. She could have resolved this. Trash the computer if she had too. What a waste. And you!--go out and take a walk, see the sky smell a flower--talk to someone.
PegQuin--I've got a sneakin' suspicion
If Everquest is an embracing virtual reality, and the lawsuit is founded on events that happened therein, doesn't this set a bad precedent? As our worlds become virtual, those who maintain the fabric of those worlds shouldn't be held liabel for incidents that happen within its rule structure.
When bad things happen in the real world, these people would sue God except they can't serve the subpeona.
Kevin Fox
It's brilliant marketing. I've seen fake warning labels like this before, but they've never carried the weight of the law behind them. With this, people will *know* it's true when the box says :
"Warning : This game is extremely addictive and may cause some players to go for days without food or sleep."
Last post!
On the nature of parents' responsibility vs. society vs. the person who actually does the deed:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=28994&cid=3114 492
"The manufacturer of EverQuest purposely made it in such a way that it is more intriguing to the addict,"
It was so addictive the person took their own life. Wait... if it's so addictive then why would they kill themselves? Shouldn't they still be playing?
I have several thoughts about this but I don't like to type alot at once so...
1) The boy already had problems. I'm sorry about what happened to him but you can't blame a game for his pre-existing condition.
2) I'm torn between different forms of online privacy. I don't want anyone peeking into what I do while I'm on the web. I don't do anything illegal, but it's no one else's business. Now with this game maybe the logs or whatever could show specifically what led to this (MAYBE!) and help his mother find closure. And it's not like this is web surfing, emails, or anything...it's a game. But then that opens all kinds of cans of worms about what should be public and not...
3) This sounds horrible but this article makes me wanna play the game. I bought Everquest awhile back but never signed up for it. I'm rather curious right now.
Am I morbid??
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
I need a new SBS for my druid. Anyone know if I could get one?
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
I graduated high school with Shawn from Osceola in 1998. He seemed like any other geek/nerd, myself included. I don't think anyone I went to school with, especially in such a small town, knew that Shawn had any of his diagnosed problems. From what I understand, most teenagers suffer depression, and many have internet addictions. I feel that if Shawn's mother knew of his many problems, and is atiment enough to sue over his game-related suicide, she should face herself for not having done more to prevent it. Quoted from the article, "Woolley knows her son had problems beyond EverQuest, and she tried to get him help by contacting a mental health program and trying to get him to live in a group home." There are things called interventions. I think that most people understand that a game is a game, including Shawn. If his mother knew it caused seizers in him, maybe she should've removed him from the situation, being it's such a huge issue to her now. I guess the big thing here is prevention. Shawn was diagnosed with unstable clinical problems, not due to a computer game. The internet is a place for geeks alike to feel welcome and accepted. I've expericed the same. Perhaps Everquest was the only escape and joy Shawn had from his problemed life.
Wine is fine, but whiskey's quicker Suicide is slow with liquer Take a bottle, drown your sorrows Then it floods away tommorows Away tommorows
Evil thoughts and evil doings Cold, alone you hang in ruins Thought that you'd escape the reaper You can't escape the master keeper
'Cos you feel life's unreal, and you're living a lie Such a shame, who's to blame, and you're wondering why Then you ask from your cask, is there life after birth What you saw can mean hell on this earth Hell on this earth
Now you live inside a bottle The reaper's travelling at full throttle It's catching you, but you don't see The reaper's you, and the reaper is me
Breaking laws, knocking doors But there's no one at home Made your bed, rest your head But you lie there and moan Where to hide, suicide is the only way out Don't you know what it's really about
Wine is fine, but whiskey's quicker Suicide is slow with liquer Take a bottle, drown your sorrows Then it floods away tomorrows
I basically agree with the personal responsibility theory, but one point which, I believe, has not been raised, is the possible actions of other people around him in EQ. The mother wants "a record of the son's conversations", which might actually be important, methinks. I can easily imagine a situation where Shawn Woolley, with his mental instability and obvious problems, is influenced by actual suggestions from his friends or guildmembers online. Chatting in or out of EQ with other people is usually a fun experience, but it can also be detrimental.
I strongly suspect that Shawn suggested he was about to commit suicide online. I also suspect that someone he knew online knew enough about him to have contacted game admins/police before his suicide, but didn't.
Ah, here we go: "Elizabeth Woolley remembers when her son was betrayed by an EverQuest associate he had been adventuring with for six months. Shawn's online brother-in-arms stole all the money from his character and refused to give it back. "He was so upset, he was in tears," she said."
If we are responsible netizens we could at least find out Shawn's characters and ask about them on his server, or we could encourage the release of his conversations. We hear about wackos on AOL all the time. Isn't it possible that a similarly manipulative or malevolent writer could have played a role in Shawn's death?
When I watch a movie and cry, can I sue the producers for emotional damage?
The interesting point the article raised was, if and to what extent multiplayer games are addictive. Apparently that guy spent nearly all his time and money to the game, even although it caused him seizures. This seems to indicate that he really was addicted to the game, and that in itself is also a problem that could affect many people, when those games become more popular and more realistic (so it will be even easier to immerse oneself in it and forget the real world). So i think it's important to examine, how addictive games like EverQuest are (if so), what that addiction can do to affected persons, how it can be diagnosed, if it's necessary to do something about it, and if so, how.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
However, I must admit it does make me rather upset that a large portion of the game industry is shifting away from games that were actually fun for their own sake to basically creating carrot-on-a-stick obsessive-compulsive disorder actuators.
While I don't play these types of games (I stick more with the murder simulators myself, ones that I can play a quick game of without disrupting my somewhat busy lifestyle) I know a lot of people who do, and I do have to admit its kind of frightning how many people I've met who proclaim to hate the game (be it EverQuest, Asheron's Call or whatever else) yet play it for 20 hours or more a week.
Of course, I don't think Sony is culpable in this man's death...
I'm curious about something. I'm not suggesting doing anything illegal, I'm just curious. Has anybody in your family or your family friends considered getting a job at that institution for the purpose of slyly grabbing the records? They probably don't leave the records just lying around, but then again, maybe they do. Some of those places aren't exactly Fort Knox about security. Most of the places I've temped had info that was supposedly highly secret, but any temp off the street could get it.
While this story is sad, there is a good chance it wasn't EQ that pushed him to suicide. Look at the medicine Accutaine (sp), they say it causes people to commit suicide because of one case in which a boy who lost his girlfriend during prom and had a history of depression killed himself. What it comes down to is this guy had some heavy mental problems that needed treatment and it really is his own fault. He was an adult; he chooses what to do for himself. His mother could have helped but not paying for EQ or Baker Acting him into a clinic getting him help if he wanted or not, but she didn't.
Also, why would anyone release information on an adult to another adult cause they want it? By law they can't anyways. I know when I turned 18 my mom couldn't ask for my college records to be trnasfered to another college because she had no right to do so (or even see what they were).
As a society, we have seen people addicted to everything from Maalox, to shopping, to water (Yes, you can find stories about people who drink so much water that they physically hurt themselves).
Before the advent of the current iteration of the internet, many people were addicted to Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs). There were no graphics, but there was a definite social structure. Some current MUDs, keep stats on who is on the highest percentage of the time Some even allow special powers or privileges to people who spend most of their time logged into the systems.
The point is that if we as humans are not careful, we as individuals can become addicted. And, we can't put warning labels on everything. Are you willing to have a tattoo put on your body just in case someone becomes "addicted" to it and kills themselves?
So, while I feel sorry for this mother's loss of her son, I don't personally feel that Sony is liable for this issue. If it hadn't been Everquest, in probably would have been something else.
Uh, how about:
Don't misunderstand, I love america, but it seems that american society and law is protecting the weak and the stupid. Parents of failing students blame the schools and teachers; criminals blame the "other man's laws"; depresed people say "my parents used to hit me....." columbine victims blame movies and video games. Cigarette smokers blame the tobacco companies for their addiction (like they forced you to light up).
What ever happened to people taking responsibility for themselves? If you screw up; blame yourself and then do something about the problem.
Dennis Leary for president!
It would be interesting for Sony to counter sue for the diaries of both the child and the mother in order to defend their case. If the mother wishes to sue on the grounds that it was Sony's fault, the counter suit should attempt to prove that it was hers for neglect. She clearly should already know what level/class/guild her child was associating with. My guess is she didn't or she would have plenty of people online to talk to about her child.
At the end of the day, parents don't want any blame on themselves.
So what? being sued is a small price to pay for the amount of publicity this will bring, and you know the game's gotta be good with a warning label telling of it's addictive nature! Hell, I feel like signing up just after hearing this!
Here's some layman data on it...
I know of two cases of suicide in the last 3 years blamed primarily on EQ, and one murder blamed on it.
There are 400,000 active EQ accounts. How many people are there in the US, and how many suicides per year?
Info pulled from CDC.gov:
Age-Adjusted Death Rate: 10 deaths per 100,000 population (1998)
EQ-related deaths of 2 per 400,000 (or 0.5 per 100,000) is a lot lower than the national average.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Mothers overreact; we all want someone to blame when somebody dies; when a friend or worse a child kills themselves we're prone to blame ourselves.
On the matter of not divulging his private data I fully agree with Sony - I wouldn't want my mother poking around in my private stuff, even if I am dead - frankly it would be for her own good.
Online interactive games are very addictive, but there is no special design involved really, they're compelling in themselves. Single player games are too. How about this, when I get into a good book I let everything else slide.
Addiction - you die, quit or go insane. Really? Not true, certainly not when it comes to a physical addiction. Even psychological addiction, there are degrees, it is never all or nothing. And unfortunately the small minority go off the deep end one way or another; we can never save them, although it is always worth trying.
I have a problem with considering interacting over a network to be non-social. Funny how hardly anyone makes that claim about the telephone, but I recall such gripes arose when it was the new thing. You know many people suffer a great deal in direct face to face socialising, many even when using the telephone, and before the internet they would not interact with other people at all - if you haven't been there you cannot comment on what it is like. Socialising via a safer medium is far better than no socialising at all, but typically psychologists and social workers have a narrow view of the world, what is right, what is not, what is normal and what is abnormal. Most often they have no concept of their patient's world because they have never been there.
And frankly I've yet to meet a drug counsellor who was qualified to comment on anything. I'm still waiting for the day when I meet one who actually has the remotest clue about addiction.
I would be ecstatic if I was the cause of someone in UO to kill themself IRL... www.pk-hq.com Player Killers' headquarters
This is obviously evolution at work.
The only sad thing about it is that our system
of advancement has degraded such that only those
who can't manage to not kill themselves are
removed from the gene pool.
"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."
I'd love to play this game, but I have never done so for two reasons...
1. I realize that the real world is more importiant than a make believe virtual world. Placing more importiance in the latter will lead to destructive results in the previous, like ignoring your family, playing instead of working, not to mention poor personal hygiene. Eventually, you will have to deal with it.
2. Having a good character means having to compete with the other players in game, so that means you have to be a fanatic to have a comparable character with 80% of the other players. Then we're back at the problems induced by #1.
However, I do not attribute this to the makers of the game at all, they made the best game they could and it worked! If the player cannot control himself and play the game in moderation, then he is at fault. This lady seems to think they could have made the game less addictive, well, doesn't that imply that the game would not be as fun? Like I said, it's hard to play the game in moderation though, sort of a paradox.
Of course, I could be worng, since I've never played. But I know people who do and they spend way more time than I ever could. So I assume I could never have as good of a character.
T
I would be ecstatic if I caused sombody in UO to kill themself IRL... www.pk-hq.com The Player Killer Headquarters
... and all I got was this lousy lawsuit.
Speak truth to power.
Do we really need this? With all the warning labels being slapped on everyday items, it seems the entire population (of the world, not just the US) is being dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. I say tell Sony to fuck the warning label and go in with the arguement he was an adult and able to determine what course of action to take - not to mention being counseled and the counselor and mother not trying and curb (or wean) him off of EverQuest.
It is a very sad time and if I lost someone, not just like this but any way, I'd be pissed and might try to blame someone else - until I realized it was no one's fault but their own.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
"She has a list of names her son scrawled while playing the game: "Phargun." "Occuler." "Cybernine." But Woolley is not sure if they are names of online friends, places he explored in the game or treasures his character may have captured in quests."
Sorry to say, there are only about a million people who know the answer to that - and that's anybody who's ever played EQ. Here's a hint - they aren't items or places (and one of those names technically violates EQ's character name policy). It really isn't so tough to buy a copy of EQ, log on and start asking around...
Honestly, he'd probably have committed suicide weeks if not months earlier if not for the game... The game obviously gave him something he was lacking elsewhere. So why didn't his mom sit him down and talk about it, maybe hang out with him while he played it, and helped him make the emotional connections outside the game he made inside the game? RPGs online and off can be a big help! One of my good friends is bipolar(manic depressive) and his psychologist actively encourages RPGs as a creative outlet and a way to help him deal with his problems. And you know what- IT WORKED. He was far from perfectly stable, but he was dealing with it quite well and getting better almost daily. Rather than demonizing the game, she should have used it to help her son.
Its a pity he died, but its not EQ's fault. Its more the moms fault for not stepping in and either cutting her son off entirely, or better yet learning about the game and using it to show her son "See that elf you made friends with? You can do the same with the cute girl at work! Just approach and say hi!"
I suppose if you've got mounting bills, or are going to go to jail for embezzlement and want to take the easy way out, but still leave your family with money and a nest-egg, you should invest $40 in a MMORPG, play for 40 hours, then put the bullet through your head. The company will fork up millions.
Software companies (gaming companies, etc.) should not be the new form of life insurance for bereaved families that were too stupid to go to any lengths to help the victim of a suicide. Pure and simple.
blog |
Many mentally ill people won't admit or don't know they are. Labels won't do much good, most people would play or let their kids play the game any way.
My ten year old is getting way into MUD's (retromud being the current leader) Once he saw Everquest he wanted it, not surprisingly. So the question is: What is the 'best' roleplaying internet game (appropriate for young people of course) that DOESN'T COST MONEY and is perhaps even open to developers, etc.? This whole issue of parental involvement is a tough one - I like to think I am on top of things, but once my son has spent a few days on something like Retromud, he is so far ahead of me that I have very little idea of what is really going on. So trust and good judgement have to be involved.
Oh hey, my wife works for the Journal (I keep forgetting), I'll see if I can scan it :)
Found it..Death of a game addict from the 30th
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Warning: If you start playing this game, you will be unable to stop. Your every waking moment away from the game will be filled with desire to get back. You will lose friends, family, your job, and your health. You won't need them: you'll have the game.
Hell, sign me up for two.
Addiction is defined as "a continued behavior despite mounting negative consequences." There is nothing in that definition which requires a physiological dependence for addiction to take place. Also notice that there is a clear line between a compulsive behavior and an addiction; namely the requirement that there be negative consequences which get worse over time.
There are plenty of gambling addicts who would take offense at how you've minimized their disease. Having spent some time around problem gamblers, I can assure you that they are in just as much pain as the problem drinkers and drug abusers...and causing just as much pain to those around them.
One last thing -- addiction is largely a matter of genetics. If your family has a history of addiction, you run the risk of having those same genes. Your only real choice is whether to trigger the addictive behavior with your choices or not.
"she says i'm lousy conversation. as if that's supposed to help."
... Dennis Leary ... does this mean I
can sue the creators of Gauntlet for turning me
into a pansy and not getting laid for the first
half of the 90s?
Now I despise Verant, but it isn't their fault.
Once again parents look for a scape goat for their
lack of attentiveness.
C7H5O2Na
if you s/pizza restaurant/cube farm, you've effectively described atleast half of EverQuest players.. Does that mean they're all suicidal?
I play about maybe 4-10 hours a week, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. There have been many studies, quite a few which have been posted on this website. Most of which say the same thing, which coincidentally is the same reason many are addicted to IM, IRC, or join gangs. It is because it offers a sense of belonging for those that don't seem to fit in socially. Think about how many people are on Everquest at a given time. Wow! That is a lot of people to be socially interactive with. Someone that isn't socially active, has a low self-esteem, or are perpetually depressed are probably going to base their value on such a game. Do the freaking logic! I am sorry that the lady's son committed suicide, and yes it was probably a direct result of someone flaming him, but I have to side with Sony. They are definately doing the right thing, and are protecting all players from a potential lawsuit that was probably based on something as small as someone telling the guy they didn't like him, or he fell in love with one of the toons and he was dissed. If this is what he was basing his value or success on he would have more than likely committed suicide if had been a face to face encounter in REAL LIFE. If anyone sides with this lawsuit give that some thought. If he wouldn't have been playing this he would have probably committed suicide because of some other factor anyway.
Sounds like a natural selection filter. Buy game, bcome addicted, stupidly ignore life, punch out, end of story. Wonder where he thinks he is going to end up? Neriak maybe? Some would say the plane of fire...
Dibs on his stuff.
Fast machines, powerfull AI, impulsive invention,... All I lack is a good espresso machine!
Maybe it would be cheaper for Sony to hire a proctologist to help her find it ;)
I don't want my name on TV now or after I'm dead. Look at the poor bastard in the article. Do you think this is what he would have wanted? "Please discuss all of my social and mental problems in a public forum after I killed myself over my failure in a computer game. My life wasn't pitiful enough."
"Frustrated Windows user takes his own life..."
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Come on, if you were sony, and you created a game and some fucking moron commits suicide, is it fair for them to sue you?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
People with Asperger's Syndrome have a lot of these symptoms, and as a result of contact with society, may even develop the others. It sounds to me if this guy was better diagnosed, he would have been offered better coping skills.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Then Jay is a pretty ignorant chemical dependency councellor, because you can fuck yourself up in a lot fewer than 15 weeks by binge abuse of anything. The Government actually says that cocaine isn't actually that big a deal. The problem - as with any addiction - is binge abuse and the associated screwing up of your life and that of those around you. Yes kids, doing anything for 36 hours straight can fuck you up. Cocaine, alcohol, EverQuest, hacking, screwing, car mechanics, drinking water, praying.
At some point we have got to stop making arbitrary decisions to slap "good" and "bad" labels on various substances and activities. Because - with a few noticable exceptions - the problem is generally the abusive behaviour and not the substance or activity being abused.
OK, let's look at the cocaine analogy, because it keeps getting raked up. Cocaine (a non physiologically addicting substance, as used by the President of the United States) was used widely and legally for fifty years by perfectly ordinary average people, until a series of frenzied newspaper stories in the 1910's stirred up an irrational campaign to have it banned because of all the "Negro Cocaine Fiends" running around raping white women (the police also increased the standard caliber of their guns from .32 to .38 because "The cocaine nigger sure is hard to kill," if you want to know where that scene in Alien Nation came from). This, of course, does not form part of standard drug education in schools, because drugs are bad, and we can't give any context that might dilute that message, like "Drugs are bad (when abused by people with abusive personalities)".
Similarly, there is a very real danger of games going the same way. It only takes a few genuine and tragic reports of binge abuse to trigger a frenzy of supposition and speculation that leads to knee jerk legislation that will never, ever be taken off the books, because black markets and Wars on Whatever are great for incumbent governments looking for a long term unwinnable but popular crusade. Remember, circa 1900, the vast majority of the population enjoyed cocaine, in small, dilute quantities, just as now, the vast majority of the population enjoys playing games, computer or otherwise, with no ill effects. If we don't learn the lessons of the past, then in eighty years, we might be in a world where Disney games are the only legal ones and people gather in dirty back rooms to share virus ridden copies of Quake 13 in huge debilitating weekend binges. It's unthinkable? Ask anyone from 1900 about the possibility of cocaine being viewed as more dangerous than a rabid pit bull with a flick-knife, and they'd laugh in your face.
Let's have some consistency. If EverQuest really is dangerous when abused in binges by sad, desperate people with no life or hope, then let's ban it outright, because god knows that's worked in the War on Drugs, right? If not, legalise cocaine and put a warning on it to only buy approved, over the counter non-cut (virussed) versions, and not to binge abuse it, especially if you have a medical condition that makes you very succeptible (like epilepsy or schizophrenia with games).
And while we're at it, if I go on a 36 hour prayer binge and start having hallucinations, do we put a warning label on rosary beads? If not, why not? Because paranoid solipsistic visions are "good" when they feature commands from Baby Jesus, whereas the same messages coming from EverQuest Eric are "bad"? Hmmm.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This is probably redundant but...
This is how I see it. He was 21 years old (an adult) with a mental disorder and epilepsy that played a video game for long periods of time. Although he probably shouldn't have been playing the game, he did anyway. Although he probably should have been on meds is even besides the point right now. All that really matters is that he got depressed one day and killed himself. Over something that happened in a video game? Quite possibly. He might have been killed off by a "friend" in the game, or just somebody else, and that depressed him, and so he killed himself.
No matter how you look at it, he died because of his mental disorder. It didn't cause his heart to stop, but it caused him to kill himself. That much is pretty much not in dispute.
What really is in dispute is who is at fault. The mother? Sony? The suicidal man? His doctors (if he had any at that point)?
Society says that the man had a mental disorder, and that he wasn't at fault for his actions. Ok. So then who was?
In my view, society.
Sure, because he wasn't thinking properly due to his illness, but then again, if you have a mental illness, how are you supposed to get help, if you don't realize it?
IANAL, but can't his mom, for example, have tried to prove her son's mental incompetience and possibility for suicide and looked into legal options? Couldn't depression and schizoid personality disorder be used to force him to get treatment? Can't society force people for treatment with disorders, such as these? Of course, it'd be expensive and stressful on the system, and probably illegal somehow.
I think society has to take more responsability for itself and stop blaming others. He didn't want help, she he didn't get help. Society doesn't want to force him to get help (for legal reasons or we're just too damn lazy), so he killed himself.
If it is society's fault, what do we do?
When someone commits suicide its never anyones fault but their own.
No one can ever drive anyone or force anyone into suicide, suicide is a specific state of mind that SOME not ALL people go through;.Not everyones a manic depressed person, not everyone has bipolar disorder, and even out of the ones who do, not all of them are willing to harm themselves or anyone else because not everyone is violent.
Weaker people who cant handle life and reality, commit suicide. I'm not the strongest perosn on the planet, but i'm not suicidal, i dont even believe in the concept of suicide
You cant blame the parents if a kid is violent and murders someone else, you cant blame the parents if the kid kills himself, thats just a disturbed kid,
When i was a kid, i did the same thing, played games all the damn time, and I never commited suicide, parents dont kill kids, games dont kill kids, KIDS kill KIDS.
Dont blame it on the games, dont blame it on the parents, unless the parent put the gun in the kids hand and told assisted.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
A few random analogies (heading in different directions) that also come to mind ... should a bartender turn off the tap to someone that's drinking themselves to death? Is a busline responsible if they sell a ticket to a runaway? How far should owners of a baseball park go to discourage leaning out from the upper tiers for pop fouls? Where is the line between respectfulness and handing out a Darwin Award?
For a moment, let us set aside legalities, the responsibility for one's own actions, the grief and blame. Someone has died. Surely we can agree that in a civilized society we should step back and reflect on whether there is anything that could be done to prevent it from happening again? This game was a big part of this person's life. It represents an opportunity to have made a difference.
There are two questions that come to mind in these situations: was there any reasonable way of avoiding the distress? did the people running the game profit?
I think the majority here would agree that games don't cause mental instability. They may attract it, but correlation is not causation. However the game encourages players to invest their emotions in the character. Whether it's genetic, memetic, developed or just a moment of weakness, some people react too strongly to that stimulus. Having checks, like a message (that can be disabled) that pops up saying "do you realise you've been playing 4 hours straight?" or a methods of easing the real grief which is felt when a fictional character is killed or crippled are just a nice, civilized things to do.
How is the producer of the game rewarded? If there's a flat rate beyond a certain point, they've got no reward in keeping people glued to the screen beyond sane levels. Flat rates help defuse the conflict between ethics and profits.
(A lot of words, but I speak as someone who lost a best friend to a similar situation years ago when I was the one running the game)
Help is usually a bunch of pills, doctors tried to give me pills
pills dont help they hide.
The only way to help, is for you to be strong and help yourself. Getting help is just sitting talking to someone whos paid to listen to you, this guy had the net, so he had people willing to listen to him, he didnt use it. He had everquest for his escape, he didnt use it
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Mother of suicide victim goes insane after avenging her son's death.
Mother of Shawn Woolley, a 21-year-old Hudson man who killed himself over an EverQuest addiction, killed herself after trying to determine the cause of her sons death. After her son's death, Elizabeth Woolley became addicted to EverQuest as she tried to unfold her son's adventures to determine why his addiction caused him to commit suicide.
Elizabeth started with only a few words her son scratched on a pad of paper, "Phargun." "Occuler." "Cybernine." Woolley spent the past year submerged in the fantasy world. She sacrificed everything so she could play for hours, ignoring her family, quitting her job and losing herself in a 3-D virtual world where more than 400,000 people worldwide adventure in a never-ending fantasy.
Jay Parker, a chemical dependency counselor and co-founder of Internet/Computer Addiction Services in Redmond, Wash., blames the game for both Woolley's suicides. Walker plans to prove Sony Online Entertainment, the owner of EverQuest, has placed subliminal suicide messages in their game. Despite the Woolley family's history of mental health problems, Parker insists this is not a coincidence.
http://www.askthevoid.com
I've seen this elsewhere today, but it cannot be overstated...
Everquest uses a randomized rewards system, meaning that you do not consistently get responses for repeating the same behaviour. If you kill a monster you may get experience, but not always. This is intermittant reinforcement which is a highly effective method of conditioning behavior. And, like advertising*, it works works very well whether you believe it is affecting you or not. Just repeat, over and over, stimulus-response, stimulus-response... there is a reason for the nickname Evercrack!
* If you don't believe that you are affected by advertising, spend a few days working at a direct marketing company or ad agency... it is very scary how effective ad 'tricks' can be on any audience. The only advertising question what is the right stimulus for the audience.
You act like kids are mindless zombies.
Thats bullshit, My parents may have taught me right from wrong, but when i got a certain age (around 15) I began to think for myself, I figured out what REALLY was right and wrong.
This kid if hes 21 and cant think for himself was just a useless sheep anyway.
I mean if someone can tell you to kill yourself and you listen. or someone can tell you to do drugs and you do it, if someone tells you to kill someone, or jump off a roof for fun, and you get in trouble or die
Its your fucking fault, not theirs, its your fault for not thinking for yourself.
Now i agree, parents shouldnt give kids guns and stuff like that, but thats because i dont think all kids know right from wrong.
When i was his age, i sat in front of a computer 12 hours a day, hell i still do it now sometimes.
People should do whatever makes them happy, you cannot tell other people how they are supposed to live, this guy wanted to kill himself, he has every right to end his life if he didnt like it.
If you want to blame someone, you can blame christianity for teaching people theres an afterlife, how about you blame islam for creating terrorists eh?
Go ahead. Put the blame on books that are thousands of years old
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
On google, that is..
sexual anorexia sounds as damaging a problem as anything else they mention in the article.
Sexual anorexics are obsessed with sexual avoidance, and often have other obsessive/compulsive/addictive behavioral problems.
Yeesh. If they're just dropping syndromes, that's a pretty strong one to be using. It's an anorexia because the people who suffer from it act the same way as people with eating disorders, may have the same problems with self-image, may have a history of sexual exploitation or abuse.
Oh happy day. :(
--mandi
It'd become marketing - video game makers wouldn't bother to release games without the sticker.
And of course, this is the same kind of legal action that makes it so that a cup of coffee now has a warning on it - 'Warning - this beverage is extremely hot'.
My, oh my. The title did read:
And now, as if by magic, it reads:
OK, we're getting the idea. Thing is, this is the web. It's all cached somewhere. Maybe an idea to acknowledge the correction when you screw up, rather than trying to cover it up. You're writing for the record here, guys.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Has anybody in your family or your family friends considered getting a job at that institution for the purpose of slyly grabbing the records?
:)
I've heard crazier ideas!
As I mentioned in another reply, I think ultimately I may just be better off not having that information. From a grim, deterministic perspective, if he had wanted me/us to have that information, there are plenty of ways he could have given it to us: retained copies, left a note, etc. He either didn't want us to know, or it didn't occur to him that we might want to know, and ultimately it was all his decision and choices. As painful as it all is, there probably isn't much healing to be had in that folder of information; it's just the "why?!" reflex that makes me want to see it. Maybe it's best to just move on.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
If people can't take care of themselves then let the government do it. If someone dies (because he/she shouldn't have been doing it in the first place) then blame the manufacturer!
Like the case where a moron used his lawn mower to trim his bushes and lost some fingers or arms. He sued the maker of the lawn mower (and won) because the company didn't put a warning label on the mower telling him not to do that.
As the mother says in the article: "Shawn was playing 12 hours a day, and he wasn't supposed to because he was epileptic, and the game would cause seizures," she said. "Probably the last eight times he had seizures were because of stints on the computer."
If he wasn't supposed to be playing then why did you let him play you stupid bitch? (man that frustrates me!) Who was going to make him stop playing the game? The police? FBI? Sony? Guess what, lady. YOU were the only one that knew about his condition. YOU were the one that let him keep playing (even after you knew that he was playing 12 and 36 hours in a row). YOU were the one who neglected to do anything about his game playing. The fault is yours, not Sony's.
Wake up and smell the fucking coffee!
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I'd just like to point out, since I see a lot of posts comparing this to the coffee lawsuit, that most people don't have all the information on this.
:)
That coffee was not just hot. It was near boiling. Do you really think that normal coffee would burn you so badly as to require major reconstructive surgery on your crotch?
Not only was it far too hot, but the lid wasn't secured as it was meant to be. It was simply set on top of the coffee cup; so if she had tried to drink from it as people do normally, it would have dumped all over her lap.. and even assuming she successfully drank from the cup, she probably would have ended up without a sense of taste for the next month or so.
I'm not saying that a little more caution couldn't have prevented this. I'm saying that the employee was COMPLETELY incompetent and should have been held at least partially responsible.
(And the warning label "Coffee is hot" was put on there after as an attempt by McD's to avoid having to pay this lawsuit. Please note also that the suit was only for the costs of her reconstructive surgery, which her insurance deemed "cosmetic". Don't ask me how having your genitalia destroyed is cosmetic, but hey, the insurance companies are pretty evil too...)
In this case, the comparison doesn't even apply.
Now that I'm done ranting about that, my two cents on EQ: I've played it on and off for the last, oh, 3 years. For some reason, I do this cycle with MMORPGs. I'll play one for about a month, it becomes too tedious, and I'll quit. Addictive? Not unless you have a mindset that applies. Maybe with NWN, I'll be addicted, but that's just because I play D&D all the time anyway
BEWARE SOL.EXE!!!!!
So how's everyone's "false relationships" going on out there in Slashdot-land? And by the way, apparently since you don't know my name, none of you are my friends. :)
Ivan
There is no graceful way to eat an egg salad sandwich.
Even if she was able to find out what any of these names meant, I doubt it would really provide her with any insight. She was an outsider to this fantasy world and is likely to remain so even if provided with all that fantasy's details. That's assuming Sony would be able to provide her with much more than what is already jotted down on notes on her son's desk and/or computer.
In the end, it was simply a fantasy world. It may seem odd and mysterious to the outsider. But then, squaredancing seems pretty odd to me too. It doesn't mean there's any additional meaning to it.
The son may have preferred a fantasy world. But the cause of his death is rooted firmly in the mundane.
I know this guy was an adult (age 21), but still this case reeks of every case from Columbine to the next one we will read about - lack of any sort of intervention by parential figures. People, get a clue, if you don't have involement in your siblings lives, regardless of age, you are doing more damage than any game can ever do.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
Picking your nose, eating your hair, sucking your thumb, washing your hands fifty times a day, sex...
Clicking Refresh on April Fools hoping for real news.
No sig for you!!
...and the game would cause seizures
I'm an epileptic. Have been all my life. I've had my brain picked constantly from the age of two by neurosurgeons and neurologists from far and wide. I've had a segment of my left temporal lobe excised in a failed attempt to remove scarring causative of epilepsy. I think I've read everything there is to read on epilepsy, and I simply do not know how a game can cause it. Certainly, photo-sensitive epilepsy (i.e., the variety of epilepsy in which light can provoke seizures) can be provoked by viewing of a monitor, especially at a lower refresh rate. The same goes for flourescent lighting. But I've never known a photo-sensitive epileptic who could not come up with any solution to the monitor problem. And "the game" isn't provoking the seizure in that case anyway. If that were the case, the mother should be suing her monitor manufacturer, or perhaps just giving herself a whack in the head for letting her unprecedentedly and dubiously photo-sensitive son use a screen of any sort. Sleep deprivation can often increase the frequency of seizures - it was in fact subtly recommended to me by a neurologist when I was once under observation for two weeks, waiting for a seizure to occur so that the neurologists might observe it that sleep deprivation might speed up the process - and MMORPGs can deprive one of sleep, but that doesn't precisely constitute "the game" causing seizures, either, anymore than ill-health due to sleep deprivation constitutes Everquest causing the common cold. Frankly, I think the mother is just looking for pity, here. And she's making specious arguments about her son's serious medical condition in order to further her profit-seeking. You don't have to be any sort of medical professional to conclude that Everquest doesn't "cause", in any precise sense, seizures.
No, the game data stored on the servers contains none of this data. The most they could tell her was what guild he was in, and what his chars stats and equipment was. Even in game friends lists are stored on the local computer, and NOT on the server.. The only time something is logged to the server is if someone uses the /report option to record the last 10 lines of their screen display.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
I usually stop playing such a game when vision of said game appear in my sleep... that's just too freaky for me.
A couple of years ago, the company I worked for set up a network gaming centre in a local funfair (don't ask). "Testing" involved basically a 3-day LAN party, with 12 people bashing away at Quake 2 for 18 hours at a time, fuelled by beer and pizza.
The crunch came when after all this was done, and after I'd slept off the beer and pizza, I drove round to a friend's house. I parked my car on the first floor of a nearby multi-storey car park, which had open railings all the way up, so you could see in.
As I was walking back to the car, I looked up at the familiar square snout of my trusty steed, and though "Bugger the stairs, I'll just rocket-jump up there and get it..."
Will somebody please accept responsibility for their own actions!
From the Newspaper article:
Woolley knows her son had problems beyond EverQuest, and she tried to get him help by contacting a mental health program and trying to get him to live in a group home. A psychologist diagnosed him with depression and schizoid personality disorder, symptoms of which include a lack of desire for social relationships, little or no sex drive and a limited range of emotions in social settings.
The guy had problems before playing the game. With the problems stated, anything could have set him off. Perhaps he played the game before offing himself in an attempt to cheer himself up after some other thing upset him. Maybe the mother should have done a better job at keeping him from playing a game that triggered his seizures.
Perhaps she should have made sure he stayed on his meds.
Maybe if she had paid more attention to him while he was alive she could have seen that something was about to happen.
Frankly it's a sad thing that this guy commited suicide, but rather than putting the blame on everyone or everything else, maybe they should look in the mirror and ask if they did everything they could have done to prevent it.
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
but "Parker said people who are isolated, prone to boredom, lonely or sexually anorexic are much more susceptible to becoming addicted to online games."
.......
does this sound like a definition of anyone you know?
...sounds like the ultimate politically correct definition of a geek to me. i like the wordage of "sexually anorexic" - haha. almost as if they chose to be. granted, some people, due to depression can't control this, but we're talking about the majority here.
moox. for a new generation.
Let's continue the cocaine analogy.
/., the prevailing attitude is "toughen up, only the strong survive, technology is good, nothing can stop the future." Typical.
In 1900, cocaine was mainly taken orally in a dilute liquid solution or by chewing coca leaves. Lye or potash would be added to the leaf to increase the absorption rate. Sometimes, a very dilute liquid solution would be injected a la Sherlock Holmes.
As the purity and quality of the cocaine increased, use by snorting became possible. The rush to the brain was much faster this way because of the added exchange surfaces of the mucous membranes. This rapid rewarding rush is one of the hallmarks of addictive drugs.
In the early 80s in the Bahamas, some coke user discovered that baking cocaine make it a different trip altogether. Smoking crack gives an even faster, higher, but shorter lasting rush. Plus, burning the coke produces all kinds of new chemicals.
Let's compare to Pong, Space Invaders, SMB, Quake, and EverCRACK. The users call it crack, for heaven's sake. Quake 13 is going to look like that visor game the chick spy gave to Riker in that episode of TNG where Wesley saves the Enterprise again. Game development involves the finest artists, programmers and applied psychologists money can buy to develop games you will want to play, play, play. Sony freely advertises that the Playstation 9 is going to involve inhaled chemicals. Since this is
Get off it
Perhaps a photo of when he still worked at the pizza place?
Whammo!
We all have our bad days [or good ones, depending on how you think he'll finish off the leftovers.]
Don't eat your soul to fill your belly.
conesus.com
IANAL but i am a few credits away from a degree in Psychology. There is one main reason why Sony will prevail. "A psychologist diagnosed him with depression and schizoid personality disorder", this means they already knew that this person was a threat to himself and should have been receiving treatment. His mother might as well have handed him a loaded gun to play with, he would have killed himself anyway (his mother would have then tried to sue Smith & Wesson). His mother is completely to blame, and she knows it. At some point she made the decision not to force him into a hospital. A good analogy would be like a blind man going for a drive, and when he drives off a cliff, his family sues Ford, demanding they put warning stickers that say "Do not drive if you are blind". Frivolous lawsuits like this probably happen everyday, we just don't hear about them.
Ok... I have to agree with those people that have had the common sense to realise that all these lawsuits are downright dumb. I mean really, anything can cause a health problem, or even kill you. I choked on a Whopper earlier. Does that mean I should sue Hershey for making a product that someone could potentially choke on? NO! I opened that box of whoppers knowing that they are not the largest of foods and that it is possible to choke on a whopper. So, with this jackass kid. I'm sorry he's dead... no, wait, I'm not sorry he's dead. He was the one that was dumb enough to sit in front of a computer screen being completely unproductive 12 hours a day. I won't say that he deserved to die, but geez, whatever happened to natural selection? The good news is that now this jackass won't be procreating. Warning labels are one of the biggest kinks in evolution that there is. If there had been warning labels back in the days of the dinosaurs, we might not be here today. "Warning: Big meteor might hit earth, live underground" eh... Fact is, know what you're getting into. Everyone is responsible for their own actions, and no one should be punished unless they DIRECTLY caused harm to another person or business entity. Sony did not put a gun up to this kid's head, in fact, Sony didn't even suggest that the kid think about suicide. This kid was a product of natural selection, pure and simple. He didn't have what it took to procreate, so he didn't procreate.
wackyballs
I bet i've had a more difficult life than most people here.
Not everyone has a breaking point. When I was a kid, I did think about suicide once, the reason i thought about it was because at that time, i believed there was a heaven, and life after death and all that crap.
This was programming from my PARENTS.
When I learned to think for myself, I realized this is the only life I have, the only life i'll ever have, and that I'm never going to allow ANYONE to take it away.
I dont believe in suicide, you see, If you believe theres a heaven, then it sorta makes this life pointless, theres an escape, why not take it?
But if you dont believe theres anything else as most educated people begin to realize, then you learn to make the best out of what you have, because there is NO escape, theres no other option.
People who want to end their life because their lives are difficult, are weak. They let the world and society drive them to suicide.They give up, they quit.
Its not in my nature to do that. Besides, my fear of death will keep me from ever commiting suicide, while i may learn to dislike this life, its the only life i've got, or ever will have, so better to have a life you dont like than no life at all.
Its not how hard your life is, theres lots of people who have hard lives who never commit suicide, its not how much you've been bullied or how society treats you, its how strong or weak you are inside which decides if you will be suicidal or not.
Suicidal is a state of mind, as is murder, and its not a normal state of mind, not everyone can be suicidal just like not everyonne can be a murderer, a serial killer, etc. Diffrent people think diffrently, some people dont think for themselves at all, religion can easily program someone into being suicidal, the books all say theres an after life, a heaven, a better place than this, so why stay here if you dont like it?
When you learn to think for yourself instead of listen to others, then you decide if theres life after death or not, and if you think theres not, then you'll value life more because you realize that you'll never get another chance, anyone or anything you kill will never get another chance, you understand that death is final and you wont like death anymore, you wont murder, and you wont be suicidal
Some people recognize this fact, but kill anyway because they hate, once again not everyone hates, only certain people hate, everyone dislikes, certain ones hate.
Extremes are not normal, and no one can drive you to extremes if you arent programmed for it, or if you dont believe in it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
This woman is an idiot. Really, what would the warning labels say? "Warning:Depressed teenagers may commit suicide"? How about "Warning:Those who cannot discern fantasy from reality should avoid fantasy"? That's almost as dumb as demanding condoms have warning labels -- I'm certain sex has caused more suicides by far than a game for obsessive RPG addicts.
It's been a long time.
This guy obviously had no life.
With apologies to Denis Leary:
Let me make sure I'm crystal clear on this issue, ok? Everquest fans are buying Everquest software, taking it home, locking themselves in their rooms and playing 24/7 then killing themselves? Where's the problem!? That's an unemployment solution right there, folks! It's called natural selection. It's the bottom of the food chain, ok? I say we put more addictive games out there...
I mean, REALLY. A *WARNING LABEL*? Do we really need a warning label to tell us, "Don't play a game for 24/7, don't become obsessive about something so dumb?"
If we as a society need warning labels to tell us this, then a lot more of us diserve to die.
:wq
Its awful that someone lost their life over a game.
But I must agree that this individual had deeper problems. Whenever something bad happens people always look for someone else to blame. Take responsibility for your actions people!
Maybe we all need to get psychological examinations before we are allowed to play?
Do you think that this will hurt the sales of EverQuest??? Nope probably sell better than hot cakes now.
"You're on my side and the dark side, like Lando Calrissian?" --Gimpy, Undergrads
Read between the lines and you'll see that it's nothing more than a cash grab based upon the circumstances surrounding the person's suicide.
It raises one interesting question. If the person in question was diagnosed as having severe psychological conditions, why wasn't his activity being monitored more carefully?
Hypothetically speaking, if a person loves to play with butter knives, should the manufacturer [of said knives] be sued because there was no warning label stating "Sharp object. May kill." on it?
While I can sympathize with the mother, I don't think that she has any just reason for pursuing this issue.
If you believe in "I am my brother's keeper," (as I do) then that is good. But such caring should be freely given, not required.
However, if it was my kid, I'd still want to know exactly what was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Problem is, this particular straw would end up being used against them in court.
Anyway, what I'd like to know is how far all of this is going to go? What'll happen if we end up in a world where you can be sued for, say, breaking up with someone who has psychological problems, prompting them to hurt or kill themselves? More and more nowadays, it seems like litigation is something that bereaved families use to lash out and place blame, rather than dealing with their grief.
It's very hard to talk about all this without coming across as an uncaring bastard. I don't want to make light of someone's loss, but spreading misery isn't a good way to deal with these sorts of things.
Lendrick
Hard-core music, D&D, science-fiction books. They've been associated with suicides in a causal relationship when they are simply coincidental or perhaps in some instances contributory.
Some psychological, sometimes physical, need is going unmet. That circumstance leads the individual to find a surrogate. The surrogate is not filling the need, but may be displacing it temporarily. When the situation progresses, the individual displaces more of life with the surrogate, to the point of social or physical disfunction. When there is a breakdown, the surrogate is blamed as a cause.
The game is not addictive. The nature of its play will not induce unrestrained indulgence in every paritcular individual if exposed for a sufficient length of time. It may have a predilection for abuse. It may be the object of a compulsion, but that compulsion most probably stems from personality and environmental factors.
If Mom had worked half as hard at taking care of her son's known problems, spent half as much money on therapy for him, as she's going to on this fight for warning labels, Junior would probably have lost weight, found a job that's not an enabling factor in his depression, and perhaps have matured beyond his reliance on video games as a separation from reality.
- Sig this!
Cocaine (a non physiologically addicting substance...
Uh, you're kidding me right? It most certainly is physiologically addictive. Rats addicted to it will forgo sex, sleep, food, water, caring for their young...all to get the next fix. It's not so odd that people will do the same thing. Because it's addictive! Yes, "physiologically"!
BTW, I want to go on record as saying that this guy was messed UP and Sony is in no way responsible. These types of things are fueled by a nation of people who fear the Internet and technology that they don't understand.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Over the Christmas holiday, we all got together for a few days. He brought his tower computer, monitor, modem, etc. home and set it up in the living room. Now, despite being repeatedly asked NOT to tie up the phone line during the day, he played EverQuest during all his waking hours during the holiday. 10 people were staying in the house and could not make or receive calls.
But that wasn't the worst of it. Since so many people were there, I was sleeping on the floor 20 feet away from him with no walls in between us. He refused to turn off his speakers and the contstant tap-tap-tap of his keyboard was keeping me awake. It did not seem to make sense to him that others might want to sleep at 4 AM.
At midnight, then 1:30, then 3 AM, I asked him to turn it off and he refused. My mom came down and told him to turn it off and go to bed. Two hours later he was still playing. I told him to turn it off and he refused, so I pulled the plug out of the wall. This resulted in him screaming "You a-hole I was about to kill the blah blah monster and it only appears once a day and I wanted the blah blah enchanted armor" or some nonsense.
Of course the whole house was awakened. My mom came down and sat with him, explaining why he could not play anymore. You would think that would be the end and we all could finally sleep, right? Wrong. For the next half hour he sat there, CRYING LIKE A BABY while my mother tried to console him. I mean really crying, sobbing with tears and sniffles. He just could not cope with not being able to play anymore!
Let me remind you, he is 22 years old.
The time he spent playing EverQuest should have been spent enjoying the company of his family over the holiday, but he "choose" to spend it playing EQ.
Why? He is addicted. If he doesn't wake up and realize this, he probably will not graduate from University, but he does not care.
Everquest reminds me of a study in which a pigeon is rewarded for pecking a button X times. As the researchers doubled and tripled X, the pigeon would keep on pecking the button, until the bird was pecking a huge number of times for each reward. The behaviour acquired with strong positive feedback persisted even after the feedback was gone.
Compare this to VLT gambling - press a button, maybe win a prize. If you don't win this time, perhaps the next big strike is a button push away, and you just can't afford to miss that chance.
Everquest has this kinds of feedback system.
The player is immersed in an online social group of people who do the same thing, and encourage each other to play longer. It feels like you're letting down your friends when you leave, and that your friends are depending on you to come back soon.
I played for about a month, in progressively longer and longer sessions. It's fortunate that I didn't have any obligations, being unemployed at the time, but the desire to play outweighed the necessity of finding work. It's only because I've been sucked in by this kind of compulsion before that I recognized it, and I deleted my character and never played again.
Some people can play the game for a couple hours a week and be happy with that. Some people can sit down at a VLT and play a few rounds for fun. Many people cannot, though, and many areas are banning VLTs because of the damage it causes to these people.
Let me get this out first hand. The lawsuit is out there. Been tried, been shot down, she won't win.
Now that that's out there, think about this. All of you Slashdotters who have kids. Think about one of them offing himself/herself. Would you be so quick to assume that it was their own defect that drove them to it? Would you declare them unfit for this world, and move on to have another one? Would it be that easy for you to let go of them? I myself would move heaven and earth looking for a reason that it happened. Any reason.
Then, to make things worse, they won't cooperate by allowing her access to her son's EverQuest stuff. It is so hard to conceive that this is what brought on the lawsuit in the first place? And to those of you who will cry "Personal Privacy!"... Her son committed suicide.
"She's angry...", "...warning labels..." - These could easily be taken out of context or chalked up to journalistic license. I'm not saying where The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel falls in the spectrum denoted by the Midnight Star and the New York Times, but is it inconceivable that liberties were taken?
Bottom line: Yes, the lawsuit has little merit. But will it help her find out why her son died? Probably. That's reason enough for me.
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
Note that the player was 21. This isn't about a kid. This is about an adult.
This was posted yesterday, I would have loved to see who whined about AF stories, and to post some real ones.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
One of the most addictive substances (quite possibly _the_ most addictive substance) on the planet is Crystal Methamphetamine. It has a worse relapse rate than even Heroin. But it is zero physiological addiction. Just because rats get addicted to it doesn't mean that humans will nor does it mean that it is a physiological addiction. You can't prove to me or anybody that rats have no capability for psychological addiction. In fact, I'd be willing to bet money that rats are more susceptible to psychological addiction than humans are.
Karma: Non-Heinous
playing EQ gave him a tiny bit of happiness in an otherwise miserable existence.
While EQ, or any other game for that matter, can be a good stress reliever it can also be kinda stressful. So, it's hard to say whether playing the game was good or bad for his condition.
One thing is for sure, he most likely would have done the "eternal shutdown procedure" if he was playing EQ, Doom or even Pac-Man!
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
wrong...
/.
Problem is not Games, Drugs, Cigars or
Problem is that live. Think yourself where is the All World going...
Probably you found good job, lotsa friends, perhaps a nice Girl/Guy. Perhaps you can buy exepensive objects to make your life more rich...
But is that enough ???
Ask yourself... Are u happy for living this life... Are you happy situation of this world...
Did u like see hunger peoples? Did u want see innoncent peoples killing because somebody elses political reasons... Did u like your taxes going to some dumbass goverment program?
People start to escape this world. This world does not offer much more than working like donkey,
spend like monkey.
Thats not enough.. Sadly online games is part of that damn system. They work like drugs... But all of them legal...
Online gaming is not problem. Problem is that system is worthless. It noting to give humanity.
That system does not feed Human brain...
So... Peoples start to escape...
Look that everquest graps etc it not good enough... But it makes somting.
When Virtual Reality becomes Reality, everyone start to escape VR worlds...
Because that stupid system is not for us. That desinged some Rich S.O.B's play ground...
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
In an interesting turn of events, sex is outlawed due to its addictive properties.
World panic ensues! All goats run for cover!
This is sad, suicide isn't a laughing matter.
I don't agree with his mother, at all. She compares the games addicting powers to drugs, and that's not a valid comparison. The game is only addictive if the user let's it be addictive. It was the guys fault, completely, not sony's, but I still understand his mothers concern. It sounds as if Sony is almost completely ignoring her, which isn't right.
I could easily say, going to work everyday and posting on slashdot is a waste of life, I could say the only way to enjoy life is to go to raves and parties every night.
Who am I tell other people how to spend their lives?
Its people like you, constantly telling this weak minded person that their lifes a waste, that most likely caused this guy to commit suicide in the first place.
Imagine everyone telling you how you are wasting your life because you refuse to live like they do,
lets see, doctors, teachers, people like you, your own mother, a weak minded person can easily be influenced by other people and might commit suicide.
My advice to you, never tell anyone their life is a waste.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
nah, the weak kill themselves.
The real world sucks, thats obvious, but that doesnt mean commiting suicide is better.
If the SSSCA or whatever law passes, the whole online escape will be ruined for me,
it doesnt mean i'll commit suicide, because there WAS a time when i didnt have this online escape, I'll just have to find a new escape.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I mean... I spend a lot of time on IRC...
And from reading the posts thus far, the people on IRC are trying to do a lot of what some people on Everquest are doing. Finding a place where they fit in, finding a comfortable social situation.
However, I have then pushed that forward and have met a good percentage of my friends from IRC in real life and consider several of them good friends... It seems that this is the outcome which would actually show the community being helpful to the social outcast...
Does this happen much among Everquest players?
I just modded this up - good comment re comparing it to poker. But now it's at a point less. Somebedy else modding it down?
Yeah, the D & D suicide attacks are specious, and we know it. Lawyers fight for their clients, not for the truth.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/d_a_d.htm
Michael Stackpole calculated expected suicide rates by gamers during the early years of Dungeons and Dragons. He used B.A.D.D.'s estimate of 4 million gamers worldwide. Assuming that fantasy role game playing had no effect on youth suicide rate, one would have expected about 500 gamers would have committed suicide each year. As of 1987, B.A.D.D. had documented an average of 7 per year. It would appear that playing D & D could be promoted as a public health measure, because it would seem to drastically lower the suicide rate among youth.
Emphasis mine.
A social game means you're dealing with people. Sometimes that means you despair over a bad relationship, but despairing over loneliness is a far greater risk.
[
Dungeon and dragon style games have always been the rage with mamas boys, and losers who have no life. Now you can play them on computers, totally isolating yourself from human interaction and reality. Eventually, many of these losers who have no life figure out that this is what they are, and commit suicide. Th game didn't make him crazy. He liked the game enough to get hooked BECAUSE he was crazy.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
EOM
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
Well, some people kinda are addicted to getting high on pot, I knew a couple of them back in college...of course, I know plenty of people addicted to watching hockey, and some people addicted to dancing...the thing is, you can get addicted to ANYTHING.
;-)
So what we need to do, obviously, is blame everything, and put warning labels on absolutely everything in existance, manufactured or not.
Hell...warning labels are highly addictive
You can't take the sky from me...
There is a world of difference between causing seizures and causing suicide.
And if the seizures can cause personality disorder (which he suffered) or suicidal behavior (any doctors care to comment if that is possible) then that should be in any new warning labels.
I am a libertarian, but I believe people should be made aware of any risks that are known.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Don't assume just because you couldn't "construct a moral framework" at 15, does not mean others can't. Around 15 I had a pretty damn good idea what was really right and wrong. Maybe not everything, but I had a vey decent "moral framework".
This reminded me of South Park where mothers will never blame themselves or their children. Their angles are never responsible, it's always the EVIL outside influences. Mothers Against Sony!
I understand the Mother's desrire to find out information about her son's thoughts right before he took his own life, and I understand Sony's desire to keep that information private to protest itself. Most of the posts so far have concentrated on how playing EQ is addicting, as all fun things can be to the right (wrong) personality types.
However, I am more of the opinion that he went online right before commiting suicide to look for compainionship and help. If the story on the dude is correct, he was a recluse and anti-social. So, his only "real" friends would be online friends.
The sad thing is, the one thing being on the net for any length of time will teach you is that people can be heartless and ruthless when they are anonymous. You can make friends online, but if you are looking for encouragement from some anonymous person in an online game, get ready for a possible HUGE disappointment.
This movie is an amazing look at what happens behind the keyboards in chat rooms.
Todd
Not long ago the parents of a 34 year-old tried to sue
hey, this would've been a great april fools joke...
Seriously, speaking from experience here, part of the reason for blaming someone else for this sort of thing is that it takes the blame off of you. The woman just needs to realise that blaming of any kind is fruitless and try to just accept what happened. No, it's not easy, and trust me, it never goes away, but hey! Whoever said life wasn't a struggle? The way I look at it, if you're not suffering somehow, you're probably not living.
c-hack.com |
Now people want us to have "addictiveness" warnings? How are we ever supposed to do that?
If we start warning about video games that are "addictive", where does it end? I've got about a dozen books I've read 3-4 times in a row that I'm happy to say I'm addicted to. Shall we place addictiveness warnings on The Lord of the Rings because of its engrossing nature, or warnings of possible depression on Tolstoy? Or how about a forewarning of existential confusion on Camus? Dickinson's poems make me almost deliriously happy -- I'm sure there's a warning for that. How many people have killed themselves because they couldn't measure up to Nietsche's ideal? I'm sure it must be more than one.
Turning to my DVD collection, God, I watch so many great films so many times, I'm sure I'm just about to put a noose about my neck. Citizen Kane is all too liable to make me see the futility of acquiring things at the loss of one's humanity - I'm sure it'll send me into a death spiral of despair any moment now.
For God's sake, are we now going to legislate and put a warning label on anything engaging, anything engrossing, anything that captures the interest and imagination of the human mind? The day I see a warning that my entertainment might actually entertain me is the day I pack off for a desert island.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
If her son was so emotionally frail, isolated, and having problems with his epilepsy then why was she ignoring the huge amount of time he was spending playing the game? If it was so obvious that it was a problem now why wasn't it so obvious then? She sounds like she just threw up her hands and said "Let him do whatever he wants, I don't know what to do with him" then when something DID happen she immediately looks for scapegoats.
Sorry but my sympathy for her dissapears when she starts pointing a finger at others.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Thats bullshit.
Age has nothing to do with Maturity. I know people in their 40s, even their 60s who are less mature than me, and I know people who are younger than me who are more mature.
Learning right from wrong happens when you learn to think for yourself, everyone becomes aware at a diffrent age, some never become aware.
The keys to deciding right and wrong.
Cause and Effect, understanding responsibility, understanding that other people have feelings too.
I'll explain the basic rules.
Never do to someone else what you would not want done to yourself.
Never deliberately cause harm to anyone else.
Be aware of everything you do, and the effects which they can cause, because the world is like an ocean, everything you do creates waves, and some waves can have devistating effects.
Be true to yourself, this means never lie to yourself.
These are basic rules, a 15 year old can learn them, I started to become aware at 15, I learned the basic rules, by 18 I was following these rules completely, I learned to not let others think for me, I learned that what I think of myself matters not what everyone else thinks of me, I learned to respect everyone even those who I do not like unless they disprespect me or others who I respect.
The rules are simple, age has nothing to do with it, just like theres some kids who are math genius's at 12, and theres some kids who get degrees at 14, Some people learn right from wrong and mature.
I didnt mature until around 18, but i learned the rules of right and wrong at 15. It took me a while to follow them, at 15-16-17 I was still a kid, trying to have fun, i knew the rules, and I obeyed them, but I was still a kid in how i was thinking.
18 I began thinking like a man, because at that time I was not only aware of my inner self, but I had awareness of others.
Now I am 21, while most people are out partying, I'm studying, I know who and who not to hang with because I'm aware of people outside of myself, I know if you hang with the wrong crowd, it can have an effect on you.
I'm not going to explain my whole life philosophy to you, It will only confuse you unless YOU are actually on my level and mature enough to grasp what I'm saying.
The main point is, age has nothing to do with it,
Older people act immature as hell, getting in fights, trying to put on a show for women, self centered types, and so on and so forth. Ignorance isnt an age thing, emotional and mental maturity is not an age thing, age creates wisdom, but it doesnt mean the mind is capable of understanding the knowledge it gathers.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
First of all, the mother isn't suing Sony saying that EQ caused her son to kill himself. So you can stop the speculation on whether she'll win, because it isn't an issue.
Second, Everquest is addictive. Not chemically addictive, but neither is marijuana, which is the perfect comparison.
Smoking pot makes you not really care about the world. You smoke a bowl and just sit around doing anything. No sense of "I should be doing something productive" or "hmm...sitting around here playing video games isn't really that fun, maybe I should go see what my friends are up to".
It's exactly the same thing with Everquest, except it works in a different way. You log on, you play the game, and you accomplish things in the game. You gain a level, or you get some new item, and that makes you feel like you've accomplished something. And you have. Getting to a high level in Everquest takes hard work and long hours. And because it takes the same sort of qualities that real accomplishments take to achieve, it seems like you're being productive.
To summarize: pot makes you do nothing but smoke pot because you don't care about accomplishing anything. EQ makes you do nothing by play EQ because it seems like you're accomplishing stuff.
Success in Everquest is a lot easier than in the real world. There's no random setbacks, your sword won't suddenly break, you can't get fired from your job, some dot com isn't going to collapse right after promoting you, and so on. It gives you a chance to socialize with people without the hassle of actually making friends.
Everquest is a perfectly fine diversion, but it's very very easy to get caught up in it and it become more than a diversion. What'll I do tonight? Well, I could go out to a club, have a few drinks...but...maybe I won't have a good time. I'll just play Everquest. Anyway, I started playing Everquest a lot while I was unemployed. Why not, since I didn't have anything else I needed to do? But the thing is that that sense of accomplishment from the game keeps you from being motivated to go accomplish anything in real life, so I'm quitting at least until I have my real life more in order.
Putting warning labels on these games is going absolutely too far. "Warning, playing too much of this game could be hazardous to your health"? Was that a joke? We could put warnings on cars stating that overdriving could be hazardous to your health, or warning labels on keyboards, or on phones, televisions, heck, why stop there? Put little warning labels on pens stating that overuse could generate hand cramps.
Too many warning labels leads to a neutralization of all other labels - labels that might even be important.
This is about as pathetic as the woman who sued McDonalds because she spilt coffee on herself and wasn't properly warned the coffee might actually be hot. Does this warning actually help anyone? Likely not, but the millions she got out of the settlement probably helped her a bit =)
It's the Hunt for Blame again, this mother cannot come to grips that she probably didn't raise her son the best she could have and she's looking to find someone to point at.
The sad thing is we'll probably begin seeing a lot more of this in the future.
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Way back in the late 1980's a japanese graphical multiplayer game existed. It didn't have a real currency but players could collect different heads. A real market for heads developed, people held parties to show their friends their head collections. A marfia existed that would target new players and steal their heads. It was clear even then that people were getting hooked.
The comparison of multi-player games to chemical additions is wrong only in the mechanism. It's much closer to gambling on races, sports events, or at casinos. You have the same ideas of wealth, and the risk of something with a promise of reward. You can build a 'life' that is different to your real world. Going to Vegas is appealing not just for the gambling but also for the total disconnect from your real life. For a couple of days you can be in a glamorous life where people (casino staff) treat you well.
The companies that host and develop these games do indead build into them things that appeal to the players. It is unfortunate that these things are also the same things that addictive personalities get hooked by.
The real question is whether these companies have a responsibility to society. We as a society have placed requirements on casinos to watch out for excessive gamblers. Race tracks have lists of people for whom the courts have banned placing bets. Bars are required to cut off drunks and can be held liable for drunk drivers.
All of the above we as a society have decided are the responsibility of the companies that provide these pleasures. Multi-player game companies will eventually have to accept some form of social responsibility to help stop the addicts.
I do not believe Sony is responisble for this suicide. I do believe that the courts should be able to get the records related to a player for the investigation of death or crimes. I also believe that we as a society will require these companies to do something to protect the addicts from themselves, not because the companies are at fault but because we consider the cost to society too high.
- AndrewN
Does she really believe that a warning label would have saved him? Apparently he followed all the episipsy warning labels to the T...
"In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve." -Winston Churchill
If they guy had a prior mental issue, then EverQuest as his 'addiction' was just one of thousands of possible things.
People can be addicted to reckless driving, dangerous sexual behavior, self-mutilation, spending sprees, alcohol, drugs, stamp collecting, television etc etc.
So now are we gonna put warning labels on credit cards and TV sets when they are bought?
This is frivolous beyond belief and more bandwagoning about video games being bad.
Anything in moderation is ok. When it gets to extremes, then a problem arises. If this guy DID have an EQ addiction, why didn't anyone intervene on his behalf? Like maybe his mother...
- Nothing is true, everything is permitted
Used to spend hours a day playing around with Photoshop. It affected me so much that one time
during an art class I screwed up my painting and reached for CTRL-Z to undo my mistake.
That was a said moment indeed.
Casual Games/Downloads
most depressed people arent depressed because of a chemical imbalance, theres reasons.
yes some people are depressed because they are genetically designed to be depressed, but i'd say only about 10 percent of the people who get treatment for depression have chemical problems.
Most depressed people simply have, difficult lives, life is depressing, thats just reality, pills do not solve life problems, doctors tried the pill crap on me and it never solved a damn thing, i'm not going to change myself because of some pill because i dont believe I'm the problem, i believe the world is the problem.
If i am not social, its because i dont like people, its not because i hate myself or because ive got some chemical imbalance.
If i play a game all day, its because i like the game, and because the game is more fun than all the other alternatives in the real world.
Lets see, School, Work, being harrassed by annoying immature people all day, dealing with family, or the game.
Well, I guess its easy to see why someone would choose a game. The real world just is not much fun.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
It's strange, in a sense... the mother seems to be doing the same thing that the son apparently did.
He clinged (again, apparently -- he's not here to defend himself) to a game to fill a gap.. and I believe the mother is doing the same. She's clinging to a big lawsuit to fill what she lost. Perhaps she was responsible -- perhaps she never saw it coming. Either way.. it's sad she's doing this, because Sony isn't responsible I don't believe.
Of course, what is a judge to decide? She'll get some money. It's hardly fair -- why should Sony pay for someone they've never heard of? But that's how it may go. I'm nevertheless sorry she lost her son.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
When someone finds an escape from YOU, and the real world, if you remove their one escape from you, You'll essentially make their life living hell.
This guy commited suicide not because of his escape, but because of his emotional instability.
Everyone needs an escape, perhaps he had nothing else which he enjoyed more than that game
You have to understand everyone deals with life diffrently, yes its stupid to spend all your time playing a game when you are 21 years old
but when you are a teenager, or at least when i was, thats all i would do. Play video games, watch tv, and go to school.
Eventually it became, Computer, and go to school,
Now I'm 21, Its work,study, computer, and go to school where theres more computers.
This kid, unlike me, did not make the transition from fantasy to reality, what i did was used my fantasy escape to modify my reality, and base my reality around that fantasy.
I liked computers, i liked games, i'll make a career in computers, and go to school for computers, use computers to motivate me to be successful, and work with computers and get paid.
I admit, you can say i have no life, because i do the same thing every day, but i know people with lives much worse, some people work doing a job they hate, every day, and then go to a second job and do it again, then sleep.
When i look at people living worse than I am, I start to think things arent as bad as they could be.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
You missed the point. Sony cannot release information just because someone asks. They have a responsibility to protect the privacy of their users. I wouldn't expect them to do any less. In order to get past the privacy agreement, they need a court order. Therefore, the mother must sue them.
"Won't someone PLEASE think of the children!"
-- Mrs. Lovejoy
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Since the beginning of time, people have not taken blame for themselves. When cavemen didn't have enough to eat, it was the next cave's fault. Not taking responsibility is nothing new.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
You have had mental problems for years and are all pilled up, yet it is still the game that was to blame? It is your disorder that made the game addictive. I wouldn't be surprised if you had genuine reasons to be sad, and NOT clinical depression when you were first pilled up, and then the pills caused a permanent medical condition that shrinks are making a mint "Treating." Most shrinks are quacks. Psychological meds crete insanity, they don't cure it. I wonder how many people who are under constant treatment could be made better if they were taken off the pills and detoxed.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
How long before your front door carries a sticker saying "WARNING: Opening this device could seriously shorten your life span".
... see where I am leading?
I play EQ, or did... I get bored every few weeks and quit for a while... then I miss my "friends who aren't really friends" and start playing again... i think what happened to this guy is tragic, any loss of human life is a terrible thing but if it wasn't EQ it would have been chat rooms, or phone-sex lines, or really bad b-movies, or...
So EQ start putting warning labels on the box, then chocolate companies put warning stickers on bars of chocolate, then pizza hut put warnings on the door, where the hell does it end? Do people really need all these messages telling them what to do and what not to do?
Obviously you don't believe in common sense then. I believe at a certain point you are responsible for being able to use logic and willpower to make decisions. I don't need a label on every sheet of glass warning me not to shove my face into it but your reasoning implies that such a warning is needed because I shouldn't be expected to figure that out on my own. Legally adults are pathetic infants who need to have their hands held forever.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
...I'd probably kill myself too.
Hmm, when I order HOT coffee I expect it to be HOT. How is serving your coffee hot a problem? Sounds more like something you do better than your competitors.
Anyway, I just heard on the radio the other day that a judge in Europe laughed a similar case out of court. His comment went something along the lines of you ordered hot coffee, what did you expect it to be?
At least there are some people left with a shred of common sense.
"I went into hypnosis therapy and I found out my parents used to hit me."
"Hey, MY parents used to beat the living shit out of me, looking back on it i'm glad they did and i'm looking forward to beating the shit out of my kids aren't you?"
Ah, the whole quagmire of legal issues vs. the right thing.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
This guy was a 21 year old weirdo to begin with. The psych eval cited on that page is pure spin... all the 'symptoms' they mention aren't really symptoms, the guy was just a fat introverted nerd with a flaky upbringing. Everquest might have accelerated his descent into madness, but it didn't create the problem in the first place. According to his headshrinker, we're all epileptic schizos.
It's just common sense folks. Everquest is a game, and some people can't tell the difference between fiction and RL, so they end up doing crazy shit like this. You've got millions of other players who are doing just fine, giving it an hour or two per evening and going on with their normal lives. Not all minds are created equal, the weak ones should watch out, that's all.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
They don't have to release anything and they can still help this woman. I can repeat myself or you can go back and read the third or fourth paragraph in my post.
'Same speed C but faster'
first off....this whole case is crap..
secondly...who actually pays attention to warning labels....does the smoker look at a pack of smokes and thinks to him/herself...SHIT! these can kill me! i better stop.....uh...NO....same with alcohol...sure it has some health side affects if abused...but take a look around any college campus (where we are assumed to be "educated") and youll clearly see that it is promply ignored.
so really...piss off....you were a shitty parent and you turned your kid into what he became...sue your fucking self and quit turning your bad parenting into a paycheck
admit defeat, live in decline, be the victim of our own design
What are you confused about?
Cannabis sp. is a plant. It contains cannaboids. People imbibe it to get high. However, it's not physically addictive in the way that nicotine is. But because it produces pleasure, it can be psychologically addictive.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Good idea, we all know how well that cigarette warning works.
posted yesterday; 4/1.
Spider Robinson had you beat. He wrote a book called Mindkiller...in it, people have the shunt into the head, allowing them to hook right into VR. Of course, this theme has been covered in depth by many authors. Oddly enough, I think your concern would be more addressed by reading Frankenstein, rather than any SF. I just hope our ethics are capable of at least keeping up with science before the ability to shunt in becomes a reality.
I'm sorry, but this has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen concerning EQ... The guy was epiletic, and the game DOES have a epiletic warning! HELLO! Plus there's the psychologist diagnosis, the guy wasn't stable in the first place! But, NO, it's the game's fault? I'm surprised the "mommy" isn't also trying to sue the store where the guy bought the game, the guy working the counter in the store, the credit card company that alowed the transaction to take place, and let him sign up for the monthly cost of EQ, and let's not forget the ISP that the guy used to get hooked up to EQ!!! After all, if none of them existed the guy wouldn't have been playing EQ.
Karl Kraus said it best: "Intercourse with a woman is sometimes a satisfactory substitute for masturbation. But it takes a lot of imagination to make it work."
I play Nerd-Folk!
I had a very similar experience with Civ 2 on a 486 and my 2nd Jr. year of University. "Just 2 more turns until the robotics factory is done and I can start the Cure for Cancer project there. I can't stop now because tomorrow I won't remember where I was going to build it. I'll stop just as soon......it isn't really getting light out is it?" I too have deliberately avoided buying ANY world building or RTS games. No Call to Power, no Age of Empires, no The Sims, no open-ended EverCrack/Asheron's etc. Now I only play games that come in bite sized pieces, like Counter-Strike and MCO where the matches are 2 minutes long and there are plenty of opportunities to turn it off. IANAL, but if the lady can prove that EveryQuest is deliberately designed to be addictive (good luck) then she just might have a case for negligence, or am I wrong?
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
He was 21. He killed himself. Fuck him.
Really, so what? Should we wail at the tragedy of it? Exactly what was the tragedy here - addiction to a computer game? He wants to kill himself, that's one for Darwin. Move along now, nothing to see.
The moral high ground awaits for those carrying the Outrage Stick.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
The catalyst was the founders son killing himself. Her name escapes me at the moment. She has a book out on the subject, not very impressive on an intellectual basis, but a good view into her head.
Her name is Rona Jaffe, and I believe the book is called "Mazes and Monsters". There was also a made-for-TV movie based on it, which I highly recommend for the entertainment value of seeing upstanding college students turn into crazed deluded maniacs running around in subway tunnels, all because of "The Game".
I really don't think that it was Everquest that drove this guy over the edge. It was mentioned in the article that he was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder, which probably had a lot to do with his suicide. It doesn't say if he was on medication or in therapy just before he killed himself, so without more information I can't speculate as to how big a factor it was. But I do think that EQ was something that he latched onto. It probably became the central facet of his view of reality (the article mentioned as much) and when that anchor was lost (his character was killed).... the rest is history. It didn't drive him over the edge, but it was a factor.
I really don't think that Sony should be sued because he killed himself, though. He was unstable and could just have easily latched onto something else, it just happened to be EQ. The same things were said in the 1980's when reports of D&D gamers killing themselves appeared in the press. They were known to be unstable as well, they just blamed the suicides on the game because it was easier than admitting that said gamers (the word 'kids' can't be used here because a few weren't kids or teens, but adults) had mental problems.
Proteus' Child
Doko ni datte; hito wa, tsunagette iru.
Ahh, electronic communication--where you can talk to someone and still feel lonely at the same time.
c-hack.com |
Saturday, I checked out The Garden of Eden strip club for the first time. There was this sexy blonde girl with a great smile, like Cameron Diaz's. So I got a nude "friction lap dance" from her for $80. I immediately fell in love, and could hardly wait until midnight, when I would be able to withdraw $300 from the ATM and spend more time with her. I gave her my business card, and she said she thought we could have a lot of fun together (she's a "triple pisces" and I'm a scorpio, whatever that's supposed to mean). I hope she calls soon. I have a milk carton full of "adult" dvds, and I like to watch them on my 17" monitor in my room. I've been watching it in my room with headphones on ever since this other 18 year old stripper moved into my spare bedroom (she doesn't like those movies). I was hoping that she'd fugg me, but she doesn't like me, for some reason. She's never home, anyway. She stays with her drug addict friends. She must be some guys's crack ho, and she's probably too burnt out on drugs and oral sex to be interested at all in me by the time she comes home to wash her clothes. Anyway, I thought that depression was associated more with an intense desire for social (sexual) relationships, with a raging sex drive. I mean, how does the stupid psychologist know that this kid wasn't jakkeenk off every time he was alone, fantasizing about sexy teenage blonde strippers? I imagine he probably came to his diagnose by asking the kid, "How would you rate your sex drive, on a scale of 1 to 10?" I don't know for sure, but I've seen lots of psychologists and psychiatrists, and my experiences don't lead me to think very highly of their intellectual capabilities. I mean, the smartest people you know major in... psychology??? Anyway, I guess I could be called a nerd, and I for one love the "pr0n". Gang bangs, and orally digestively themed dvds, and 18 and 19 year old beautiful girls. Mmmm. I mean, sometimes I get depressed, and think of killing myself, but then I figure, "I have all this money in my checking account, and it wouldn't make sense to kill myself while there's still some money in there, so I'll use it to have a good time." Hence, strip clubs, friction lap dances, adult dvds, Private magazines, and ID Millenium personal lubricant. I've also been writing lots and lots of letters to some ladies on match dot com. Lately, I've been trying to get a response from ladies in the Ukraine, because i figure they'd appreciate a devoted man, and that they're not corrupt like American women, and know how to be faithful, and will appreciate attention, and not think that just because you're nice, that you're going to be like the psycho bitch in Fatal Attraction. I don't know. Why is it so hard to get laid? Rodney Moore is my idol. Me must have screwed 1000 different girls by now. It boggles my mind to think of how many first-timers he got.
You are an abusive troll. However, I'm going to respond anyways. The fun and excitement of buying the ticket, dreaming of what you would do with the money, and checking your numbers is cheap entertainment and well worth a dollar every once in a while.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I am sorry to here about Shawn Woolley killing himself. However, he did not die because of the game. He died because he killed himself.
Yes, the game is addictive. However, demanding a warning label on a game is not an act of a sane person either. How many people have ever read the disclaimer on a piece of software? (Lawyers do not count.) Would watching several movies each night also be considered addictive? What about watching days of "wall to wall" coverage of thousands of people killed when two buildings are attacked in New York City? Should we demand a warning label for these addictions?
Forget about the warning labels and pay attention to the warning signs. Shawn was mentally unstable. His psychologist knew that about him. He killed himself by using a gun. Was there a warning label on the gun? So put a warning label was put on everything in the world. Would Shawn still be alive today?
For those who play the game, remember the only thing real about the game is the people behind the character. These people can befriend, help or hurt your feelings. Play the game only when it is fun and have fun in the real world.
The world we live in has many choices. Everyone has a life to live. We begin to make our choices in life when we become adults. Mrs. Woolley, your son made a choice that most people consider to be a bad one. He was an adult.
You forgot to mention that they make it at 20 hotter than normal so they can let it sit out longer without making a new batch.
Know someone who is stealing cable? Report them!
If this case makes it so Sony will put warning labels on it to avoide law suits then here are some other things that will probably getting warning labels soon: Warning: This bottle contains water, and if you drink too much water, then it could kill you. Warning: Paper has been known to give people paper cuts, so we are not responsible if you die from cutting you arteries with this piece, or any of our paper. Warning: Studing information in this text book could make you anti-social, and become distant from friends and familiy. Warning: Watching this movie might give you a understanding of reality, and the movie company is not responsible if you start to believe in this piece of fiction we have created, or if you believe that one of the fictional characters are chasing you. Warning: Dragon Ball Z if a work of fiction, and Funimation inc. is not responsible if you get injured or die if you believe you can fly, because Goku does it in the catoon. Warning: Waking up from sleeping, without having used any stimulents before, during, or when you woke up can make you drowsy, and could impare your abilities, which could injure or kill you. Warning: I am not responsible if you get injured or killed while you read this. Even if you want to blame me because you were reading this while you were driving down the interstate and you fliped your car, and you want to use me as the escape goat guess what, it won't work, because I put a warning.
I bet he had an online girlfriend, judging from what i know about him, he was single offline.
I bet he fell deeply in love with her and met her playing that everquest game, and one day she decided to dump him and he killed himself.
Everything is cause and effect, i dont think the game made him kill himself, but maybe social interaction from within the game made him kill himself.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The idea of warning labels for these games is pretty moronic and is deffinatly a misdirection of blame but its not the first time social RPGs have been targeted. Anyone ever read the front pages of pen and paper RPG books? I know that in the first page or 2 of my rule books for Vampire the masquarade, AD&D, and Rifts there is always a disclaimer that the game "is not real life, should be taken as such, and under no circumstances should it affect you out side life"
... and yet you spout off things like "I bet I've had a harder life than most people here." Just how the &Y#% would you know? That's one hell of an assumption. The mature person doesn't make assumptions.
In talking about someone beating you down, you indicate you find ways to make it difficult for it to happen again... let me guess, you life in a G8 country right? Try that in some of the more unhappy little places in the world. Buying a weapon isn't an option and you really don't have role models nor options. Getting your ass kicked may pretty much be your ONLY option.
And if you think life can't be made hellacious enough that any release (even if there is no afterlife, which you claim most educated people don't believe in, another obvious sign of your maturity...) is an improvement, then you haven't seen enough suffering. Does that mean these people are weak? That's an assigned definition, so you could say so. But it is also meaningless. At some point, every human being breaks. If you haven't found where you break yet, then you just haven't lived enough. Some people never do and go through life thinking there is no point at which they will break. Hah! Maturity my arse!
We're all human beings. Every human being has a weakness, a vulnerability that can be exploited to hurt them. At some point, everyone will cave in, if even just from exhaustion and emotional and mental fatigue. If you don't think so, you're not half as wise as you believe....
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
You raise a valid point. And to be honest, if I had a nickle for every chatroom I was in where someone logged in and said they were going to off themselves, I'd have probably $2.50.
I do believe Sony should lighten up a bit and help the mother get some basic information on what has happened to her son, not out of legal responsibility, but because losing a child is a very difficult thing and she needs something to help put things in order. There is a lot they could tell her without violating privacy, such as which servers those character names belong.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Why is it that people like pointing fingers at whatever seems to have the most money and least overall public admoration. Damn, I cant get past overdrive Sin, better go on a killing spree. God bless america?
IT'S A FUCKING GAME DUMBASS! TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER AND GO OUTSIDE!
This public service announcement was brought to you by the letters "F" and "U" and by the Corporation for Common Sense.
So I guess the question is when are we going to start placing warning lables on motor vehicles? I meen if we are going to put a warning lable on a game stating that its addictive; whats the difference between that and putting one on a car stating "driving this vehicle is Hazardous to your life"
More people die from car accidents in one day than any online game combined in the past 3 years.
Interesting. This could be similar to Ozzy or D&D getting sued for teen suicides, or it could be more like the cigarette analogy they make in the article.
Personally, I believe that video games are being created today with an addictive component designed in from the start.
I tried Diablo II by Blizzard, and the game literally amounted to nothing more than an attractive new way to roll dice. You click on a monster, it dies, maybe you get a half-decent item from it, and repeat. As the woman in the article said, you either die, go insane, or quit. You definitely never win.
The issue is not that video games are addictive. It is whether the companies are leveraging and spreading the addiction for their own profits. That is the cigarette analogy, and I can see how it would apply.
A more likely reason would be slander/libel etc because of what she's saying in the press about Sony - but if they're smart they'll ignore her and hope she goes away
... like mommy should have been a better mother instead of trying to make Sony's products into better babysitters.
I hate to imagine what the world would be like if women like her (and Kile's Mom) had their way. I go to smoke a cigarette, but before I do that I have to read a novel length graphic novel of what it'll do to my lungs. I wouldn't be able to listen to rock and or roll music for fear of becoming satanic. I couldn't watch the Harry Potter movie because it would desensitize me to the coming of the anti-christ. I couldn't watch Beavis and Butthead without a caption scrolling at the bottom of the screen that reads "do not set your house on fire."
On the bright side, though, common sense wouldn't be a necessity anymore. That'd be a huge weight off my shoulders.
"Derp de derp."
I find it odd that this one guy commits suicide and we have to have warning labels. I admit, I've never played EverQuest, but come on... How about the other million or so players that play every day, and still have productive lives and healthy normal relationships. This goes way beyond the "Doom killed my kid" argument. This is the designated bottom-feeders screwing it for the rest of us. He was an adult. He killed himself. I highly doubt that EverQuest put the idea in his head to kill himself. These blood-sucking parasite lawyers really need to start looking at what these cases do to every adult's God-given right to make what he/she wants out of their life. If you want to build your life around EverQuest, fine. Just don't expect me to have pitty for you when you kill yourself because some other character screwed you out of some gold pieces. The mother should be ashamed of herself for feeling as though she should warn me every time I attempt to purchase a game that might be addictive. Whatever happened to common sense?
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
You can't tell the company not to make 'addicting' games. You'd be asking them to destroy their products to make them less appealing. Sony is just creating a compelling, appealing game here. They have the right to make it as good and/or realistic or analogous to life as they see fit and if someone does something stupid as a result then that's their problem. Scapegoating Sony doesn't get anyone anywhere. This type of argument has held up in court (think MSIE and how it can't be removed from windows because that would destroy the product). Besides, It could be equally argued that the compelling nature of the game is not due to the game engine , but to other participants. Sony would have nothing from everquest if it weren't for the 400,000 users out there. Also arguable is how could Sony have reasonably prevented this. A warning label certainly wouldn't help. If people are connecting to eachother then so be it. If I call Joe and Joe kills himself for some unknown reason, is it the telephone company's fault?
Brian
This is probably too late in the comment thread to get any attention, but...
I am part of a theater company that travels to colleges in the US to do a non-judgemental artistic residency on the topic of addiction. In a series of workshops and a professional theatrical productions, we present the issue from all angles, using verbatum text of interviews with real people as the source for all our dialogue.
The show is called "the Quick Fix" (pardon the website: I'm remodeling), and it primaraly seeks to examine the underlying causes of compulsive/addictive behavior. As I said before, we don't make judgements or present ourselves as having an 'answer'. We just listen to people (via interviews) and re-tell the stories, albeit with a little theatricalization thrown on top (music, dance, lighting, a bit of humor) to make it all a bit more interesting.
As an active participant in the online world, I've been trying to find an EQ or other online-activity addict to interview for some time. If anyone would like to talk to me (IM, email, irc, whatever) and maybe tell their story, contact me through my homepage (outlandishjosh.com) or at joshk(at)thequickfix.com. Your anonymitity will be respected.
Howard Dean for president
As I recall, cocaine induces a state of anhedonia (yeah, spell check it before you look it up to see if I'm abusing the right word). In effect, regular cocaine users permanently affect the neurotransmitter levels in their brain, such that they need cocaine to achieve even formerly "normal" levels of happiness. My details are fuzzy, since I rarely attended Psych 101 in college ;), but how is that not physiological addiction?
-J
Ignoring your kids is like ignoring the family pet. Pretty soon, there's shit all over the place - and I'll bet you notice the pet's mess first.
Anyone who's played BG2 may have noticed one of the tips while a new level is loading: "while your character doesn't have to eat, remember that you do". I got a laugh from that (i was afterall well into a 10 hour clicking binge), but wow i wonder if it wasn't the layers who stuck that it ;)
in Canada its illegal to shelf citrus beverages which contain caffeine (Mountain Dew up here is decaf). Our government has declared covertly addictive products to be illegal. I believe games such as EQ qualify as covertly addictive. I can imagine policy banning certain psychologically addictive elements in these games, or at least "stickers" labelling them as such.
Personally, I think this would be stupid. It would, however, be consistent with the other policies of my government. (I have only been of voting age for one election, and I voted for some other clowns).
I bought EQ a ½ year ago, just to see what the fuzz was about. I never got to upgrade my subscription though, because of one simple fact. I dont want/have the time to play 5+ hours per day.
I played one, sometimes two nights per week. Sometimes not at all. This didnt really seem as a option for EQ, since most the monsters that have stuff of value. Are in camps, aka. they have friends. And, you too simply need a group of friends too kick their little monster-hinds. Now here comes the fun part, you cant group with people to powerfull. Hence, if the people you add to you friends list are playing the game more than you. You cant group with them. So, you NEED to keep up with the group.
My big problem with EQ, and what i actually find kinda scary. Is that the people i met online all seemed to play ALOT, i simply coudnt find a group to stick with. Because the people i "socialized"
with in the game all played min. 15 hours per week. They found me weird for not playing more.
I guess what im trying to say is that in my experince, the "EQ addict" seemed more the rule than the exception.
Right ...
People are chucking around analogies with this, that and the other, as though their analogy is the unfautable guide to perfect truth.
Unfortunately, the primary characteristic of an analogy is that you are talking about something else.
If cocaine were legalised, maybe all the junkies would move to something else, and the only users left would be the old gents at the MCC who'd chew leaves while they drink their tea. But maybe instead the result would be parents giving their primary school kids some crack to snort just to get them up in the morning.
The way it seems, you can find an analogy to support any point of view you like, and the only accurate way to tell what would happen is to try it and see ...
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
Moonshine from that era was known to cause blindness but people took that risk.
That's because some of the producers were mixing in large amounts methyl alcohol (wood alcohol) or were just incompetant when it came to distilling. Methyl alcohol breaks down into formaldehyde and formic acid in the body. This is what caused blindness and/or death. While it is present in small amounts in may natural products, larger amounts of ethyl alcohol are also present (ethanol is the anitdote for methanol).
People had been making their own whiskey a long, long time before Prohibition. In some cases it was to turn grain into something more portable and profitable, in others it was to avoid paying taxes. Given the same risk, it was more profitable for the people to smuggle whiskey than beer or wine. Why do people drink beer or wine now instead of whiskey? It's cheaper per liter and it takes more liquid to get really drunk. Most people social drinkers and probably aren't out to get drunk really fast (depending on the region, there are people who make, drink and sell illegal moonshine). Those that do want to get drunk really fast and/or like the surge of alcohol hitting their system are going to go for the hard stuff. Would a powdered cocaine user or crackhead start chewing coca leaves if it suddently became legal? Probably not because they're used to the rapid rush.
methanol in the body Methanol treatment
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I have nothing particular to say about Everquest, except that I've played it, I've played MUDs, I've played ye olde Dungeons and Dragons, I've played live-action role-playing games, and all manner of things. If it's a week-long LARP, eventually it's over and "we return you to your regularly scheduled life" until the next session. Computer games (such as MUDs and netrek and Civ and SimEarth... and Everquest, but it's too new a game for me personally to know someone who flunked classes on it) are never over per se, so in some sense the "safety" is off. The game does not stop, the player has to make himself stop. For some folks this is easier than for others (this is so trite that I trust no one disbelieves it).
And, yes, you can watch a normal fellow student who deprives themselves of sleep suddenly start to exhibit symptoms of depression (goes away when they get regular sleep again)... given a game of non-finite duration that rewards an irregular sleep cycle, I can see that in some cases people could get into a downward spiral.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
Chat and in-game communications are indeed stored and logged on the server. Sony has used these data in the past for its own purposes (cf. the "Conquest" incident).
Most pencil-and-paper RPGs I'm familiar with have disclaimers already -- apart from covering their fleshy regions in case of litigation, it's also a good thing to show people who think playing "Mage: the Ascension" is going to make you kill people, go insane, be a Satanist, whatever -- the makers of the game don't want you to do those things either. Maybe EverQuest ought to consider these, on the game MOTD or packaging, it doesn't really matter. Two samples from White Wolf (I use them because to my knowledge, has never been sued, so is doing this of their own accord (or their lawyers', I suppose)):
Mage:the Ascension:
"The Disclaimer (As Always)
Mage: The Ascension is a game. It's a game about mature themes and difficult subjects. As such, it requires not only imagination but common sense. Common sense says that words in an imaginary game aren't supposed to be real. Common sense says that you don't try to do "magic spells" based on a creation derived entirely from someone else's imagination. Common sense says that you don't try to dig up agents of the supernatural just because of inspiration in some wholly fictional source. Common sense says that the game is just for fun, and that when it's over, it's time to put it away.
If you find yourself flying in the face of common sense, then put the book down, back away slowly and seek professional help.
For the rest of you, enjoy the unlimited possibilities of your imagination." (Mage Revised, (C)2000 White Wolf Game Studio)
And the shorter and sweeter version from "Exalted":
"The Disclaimer
Exalted is not really the secret history of the world. You cannot really cast spells. You should not hit your friends or loved ones with swords. This game is not intended to be played by people who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality." (Exalted, (C)2001 White Wolf Game Studio)
Printing these doesn't cost much ink, but certainly makes their position clear. Maybe digital RPGs should take the hint from the paper ones.
--
Tinuviel
"Either I'm gonna kill her or I'm beginning to like her." -Han Solo
You just have to love it when people start playing the blame game. "Teen dies from talking on the phone too much; mother seeks to sue AT&T"
As for the game warning, what are they supposed to put on it? "WARNING: This game is addictive. Please limit the amount of time spent in this fantasy world."
Or perhaps we need to create support groups!
Ever-Anon:
Me: "Hi, I'm Tyler and I'm addicted to EverQuest!"
Class: "Hi Tyler!"
Instructor: "Remember, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem!"
Disclaimer: This comment was generated by a Flock of Trained Microsoft Programmers for Aqua_Geek.
Banzai!
This will sound like a troll, but, think about it. Only in America you have warning labels on almost every product. Are really americans so stupid, that they don't know that plastic bags are not for eating? Do you also have signs 'do not stand in front of the moving vehicle'? Well, it's dangeorous to do that... Now every computer game will have a label? That's just great. Maybe his gun should have a label? Will she sue also the gun making company? 'He shot himself, there was no label in the gun, why don't you put a label on every gun? You bad bad gun maker!'
People get real, labels will not help, brain surgery will. Or maybe different school system...
BigWhale!
The Sig, the sig
Hardly invokes the same 'awesome' feeling if you ask me. But will make the user think twice about going on another 10 hour, non-stop gamming session.
Good for you, for speaking up. I've been in a similar situation (not video-game or addiction related though). Even knowing the right thing to do is impossible, much less doing it. As far as I can tell, there generally is no right thing to do. But any kind of blame just hinders the healing process. I don't think there's really anything you can do except stay alive yourself. And don't listen to any of the assholes here who talk bad about you.
Myself, I've found that any kind of religious study helps put things in perspective. When you're reminded that we're all born to die, things don't seem so bad. Some of my favorites though are Chuang Tzu (Thomas Merton does great translation) and Zen stuff. One particular Chuang Tzu passage comes to mind: "Let's say you dream that your dog has died. In the dream, you're upset, but then you wake up, and find that your dog is alive and well, and realise it was just a dream. Well that's how it is when someone dies in real life. When you die, it's like waking up from life, and you find they weren't gone forever, just waiting for you to 'wake up' too." I'm paraphrasing from memory, but the point is there.
Hope this helps. Good luck, and God be with you.
c-hack.com |
Is it me or is this just another example of people not wanting to take responsibility for their own or another's actions. I play EQ, do I play too much, yeah sometimes. I also smoke cigarettes and I know they are bad and sometimes I drink to much. I sure don't eat right and I don't excercise as much as I should. The one thing I don't do and will never do it blame other people for my shortcomings.
Come on people. Take some personal responsibility.
Is anyone else sick of the blame game?
"When you die in our world, you die for real."
-- The Matrix
I can only say: this is just the beginning. When people live in constructed worlds, they move their focus away from the real world. Thus they live on a lie and still it's more fantastic than what is outside our doors.
I guess some organizations should start coming together and rescue those people. Anonymous Gamers or something. This is NOT a joke.
"What makes a person weak?"
,"nah, the weak kill themselves.",he was in my opinion correct, weak people do kill them selves.
Synonyms: weak, feeble, frail, 1fragile, infirm, decrepit, debilitated
These adjectives mean lacking or showing a lack of strength. Weak is the most widely applicable: "These poor wretches... were so weak they could hardly sit to their oars" (Daniel Defoe). Feeble suggests pathetic or grievous physical or mental weakness or hopeless inadequacy: a feeble intellect; a feeble effort. Frail implies delicacy and inability to endure or withstand: "an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small" (Thomas Hardy.). What is fragile is easily broken, damaged, or destroyed: a fragile, expensive vase; a fragile state of mind after the accident. Infirm implies enfeeblement: "a poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man" (Shakespeare). Decrepit describes what is weakened, worn out, or broken down by hard use or the passage of time: a decrepit building slated for demolition. Debilitated suggests a gradual impairment of energy or strength: a debilitated constitution further weakened by overwork.
What makes a person anything ? what makes a person strong what makes a person happy.These are all things which are subjective.
"You seem to say it as if anyone who commits suicide is a feeble and weak person"
That is true, suicide,(in this particular context), comes from an inability to deal with life which implies that the person is/was not strong enough to deal with there own personal situation,(i.e they were to weak to do so),and hence took there own life.
However mental strength is a relative term.Some people can deal with life better than other's.So when the guy said
"Are you somehow much stronger and better person than all these people that commit suicide? "
now that is a question I can not answer.
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If sony has to put a label on everquest stating that it is overly addictive, then I think slashdot also needs the same warning.
You all know it is addictive, that is why you are all here. There is constantly new stuff to read and a new topic. If only I can be online just as the new story arrives and get FP! Not this time, I will try and catch the next story. When will the poll change I can't wait to see what Cowboy Neal will be up to this time.
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
The whole thing boils down to freedom, and responsibility.
I personally really, really, really, like to have as much freedom as possible, and am willing to take responsibility for my own actions.
I like the fact that there are very compelling games out there that I can choose to play if I want to. I am willing to take the risk, and accept the consequences.
I like the fact that I can buy certain drugs over the counter ( examples include alcohol, nicotine, caffine, cold meds, headache pills) I am willing to take the risk, and accept the consequences.
( insert 1000 examples here )
I don't want 1 tragic case to cause me to loose my freedoms. What other thing would that kid have abused if not the game. He was having problems. Would he have been just fine had he not started playing the game? I don't know. Probably not. Would he have gotten into IRC way too much? Or online gambling? Or porn? Or walked down the street and bought some crack?
Life is about risks. Most things come with some risks. You can end up dead in a lot of ways. Walking down the street, you could get shot, brick s could fall on your head, car could hit you. A plane could crash into the building you work in. Someone could hijack the plane you are flying in. You could get a tumor, or an infection, or virus. You could fall down and hit your head.
What is Sony supposed to do, make the game not as good, so people won't want to play it so bad? You are supposed to want to play it. Our entire culture ( these days.. ) seems to be all about hooking people on things like this.
If someone kills themselves because their favorite team looses the superbowl, is it the NFL's fault for creating such a compelling sport?
It's too bad this kid died. I grew up near the remote part of Upstate NY that he grew up in. There are not many rich people living there. Maybe $100,000 from Sony would change there lives. But I still don't think it's right.
They can only log this if its specifically turned on for a given user. GMs have the ability to basically capture and log anyones console and communications at a whim, even look thru the eyes of another player or NPC. An example of something they did for a while on PvP servers, and I belive still resides on the Test server is the 'Monster' option, to basically play a random monster. This was something that they added simply becouse the functionality was already there, they simply had to add some code to the client to 'turn it on' in a limited fashion..
So no, they do not log each and every communication between users. It would be a nightmare to maintain that data, even for an hour or so of play. To give an example, lets say a player recieves on 'loggable' message every, say, 5 seconds. One server alone would generate 1,440,000 lines within an hour. Multiply that times HOW many servers? This is why they only use this functionality selectively..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
of being a "mother" stop just because your kid is 21?
That does seem to be what you are saying. So now, Sony is supposed to play "mother" to these kids because their own mothers won't?
Something is really wrong with this picture.
This woman is as wrong for trying as the Columbine parents are wrong for suing the whole game industry (which boils down to all of the consumers of said industry) because a couple of kids had bad wiring.
Ciao!
He clearly had problems that he had before he even touched Everquest, it could have easily been anything else, canceling his favorite show (futurama? the tick?) or the constant calls from telemarketers we seem to get here in the milwaukee area. He needed help, and I think shes just enormously guilty that she didn't help him, but these days you blame someone else rather take responsibility for yourself.
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
It's kinda like saying that a Mac truck is a weak truck, just because it's timing is out and needs to be fixed. It's still a powerfull truck, it just has a small problem that is affecting it in a major way.
We at NAI Labs would love to congratulate all the trolls for allowing NAI Labs to be post #666 on the "Everquest-related suicide story" here on slashdot.org. Thankyou for your time.
Sincerely,
Bob Baphomet
I had that problem a few years ago with Tetris for Windows. As soon as I closed my eyes I could see the bricks falling, sort them into place etc...
I don't know how many people have seen it but if I remember correctly the MS version of Tetris used to only go up to 32,000 or so then count down to -32,000. When I got to the point where I had *32,000 (which was 64,000 after -32,000 I think) I decided to give it away. Now my computer doesn't even have Tetris on it anymore. But my mobile phone does, but that's a whole different kettle of fish
Leg Godt!
"It's still a powerfull truck, it just has a small problem that is affecting it in a major way. "
,even if that mental illness comes from a chemical imbalance that mental illness is still a weakness or weak point of the person in question .If they treat the problem or ,'fix', it then it is no longer a weakness.If they kill themselves as a result of the chemical imbalance then they did not,'fix', the problem and therefore died as a result of that problem .An individual is not nessecarily responsible for the weakness's he/she possess, a person who is ,'weak', or has a ,"weakness", may not be responsible for that ,weakness,.
But that small problem is still a weakness of the truck regardless of Whether that weakness can or can not be fixed.If the trucks problem is fixed then the truck no longer has that particular weakness.If it is not fixed then the truck still has a weakness.
"A chemical imbalance can be easly fixed today, so I think it's a little silly so label someone as weak because of it."But if the chemical imbalance is not,"fixed", then the chemical imbalance remains present and therefore remains a weakness.
" But I think my point was that you can't just label someone who is suicidal weak, because sometimes, a mental illness is just a chemicl
imbalance."If a person is suffering from a mental illness
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soup is good food
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But ,"these people were just plain weak, always have been, and always will be",They will not always be weak if they kill themselves they will be dead ,there is no future tense for people who commit suicide there is only the past tense.
,"Suicide is for the weak",he was correct.If you do not do something about your depression and you kill yourself then it was because of the depression that you killed yourself
Past Tense.
The guy said
and because depression was the cause of your suicide therefore that depression was the weakness which made you kill yourself.
On the other hand people with mental illness's can conquer ther illness,(weakness if you prefer),and can be strong in the present and future tenses.The guy did not talk about people with mental illness's specificaly He/she may have been a little blunt in his opinion's but in my view in 'what he actualy said' he was correct.Here is what he said
"nah, the weak kill themselves.
The real world sucks, thats obvious, but that doesnt mean commiting suicide is better.
If the SSSCA or whatever law passes, the whole online escape will be ruined for me,
it doesnt mean i'll commit suicide, because there WAS a time when i didnt have this online escape, I'll just have to find a new escape.
//If you oppose the SSSCA, DMCA, http://www.anti-cbdt.org/ http://eff.org, forget petitions"
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Ohh what I'd give for Lighting Strike when my users are being stupide...
Root ~= God
Wow, I should not post when knackered.