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!
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."
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
I gotta agree with you on that one. Yes I'm a programmer, and I know a lot IT related people read /. too, I (as some others here surely), have also played computer games for 12+ hours straight. Maybe even 12h/day for an entire week, but after that, I'm just washed out: head-aches, sleep-deprivation, undernourishment, aven after a week I can physically feel these symptoms... I usually stop playing such a game when vision of said game appear in my sleep... that's just too freaky for me.
Then of course reality slowly kicks back in and urges me to spend the next week in a bar with friends (whom I actually call, Mark, Eric and Fred and not Kueller, Vodobass and toString) thus leading to more hadaches, sleep deprivation and undernourishment I guess.
Then I usually find a job.
how does one change his
... 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
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.
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
When you read warnings on curling irons that warn 'Not for internal use,' and have people suing McDonalds for hot coffee being hot, it's not that far away.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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.
Well, the leader of the group will do it, then the rest of his party will laugh and split up the loot on his corpse. Sometimes it sucks to take the lead!
bbh
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 cleverEven 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.
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.
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?
I'm a concientious
"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!
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
For me it usually happens with programming, though, as most games can't keep me occupied long enough to have that happen (Alpha Centauri, SimCity, and their ilk can do it pretty easily, which is why I avoid those). I'll just start kind of "thinking" in the language, and then I know it's time to take a break. :P
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
"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"
I usually stop playing such a game when vision of said game appear in my sleep... that's just too freaky for me.
Unfortuneately, many people don't. Check out this application for one of the 'Uber' EQ guilds.
http://www.fohguild.org/html/recruit.php
Note some of the downright anti-social requirements, such as a level 60 avatar, and the 'right' class. Most damning of the lot is this, which is a direct quote from the page:
- We raid generally 6 days a week. Attendance to at LEAST 5 days is required. If you are busy with work or school or any other outside responsibility and do not feel you can make it 5 times a week, this is not the right guild for you. Raid times vary on the weekends, but generally our weekday schedule is from 4pm PST until 10pm PST.
There are people with too much time on their hands out there. There are also people like this, who have abandoned real life in favor of the alternative.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
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'
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?
Don't you mean Dihydrogen Monoxide?
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!
"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 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
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...
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!
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'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
... and all I got was this lousy lawsuit.
Speak truth to power.
Nah, the worst game for this kind of thing was the original X-Com: UFO Defense. I'm not talking about the standard stuff, like ducking for cover every time I walked out to my car, or instinctively evaluating every room I walked into for the tactical possibilities. One time, after playing for about 8 hours, I saved my game and went outside for a food run. I saw a couple of guys across the street - and I promise you a little red box with a "2" apeared in the lower right corner of my peripheral vision. You old-school X-Com players will know what I'm talking about.
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!"
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)
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."
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.
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
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
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.
As someone who suffers from pretty severe depression, I might be able to shed a bit of light on the matter.
/.ers are reading this and getting the impression of me as a whiner with a martyr complex). But it's very much a case of being, more than anything else, hopelessly lost in the world. Think the Endurance without Shackleton. Think Donner Party... of one.
This woman is seeking blame for something where there is nobody to blame. This man's head was thoroughly fucked up, and the game does not qualify as a cause.
The problem with people like me (and I assume him) is that we *can't* take responsibility because the depression destroys initiative as well as creating massive social anxiety. Social interaction is often an exercise on a par with going bungee jumping without inspecting the rope. We want to do something about our condition, but the fear that any attempt to get better will fail and leave us worse off than we started makes it not seem worthwhile to bother.
Online social interaction is a godsend to people in this situation because we (not so much me as others, but I'm not immune) can be ourselves without the difficulties of trying to adapt ourselves to social situations that we are unable to understand. The impersonal online world allows us to be the kind of person we are deep down without the crushing fear that prevents us from being ourselves in real life. Honestly? Everything I am typing now I can only say because I'm typing it. If I were to tell this to someone face-to-face I'd never be able to get it out coherently.
The fact is that people in this situation (at least speaking for myself) can never feel fully accepted; barring some miracle we always feel as if we are on the outside looking in, no matter how accepted we are outside of our own heads, and the hope has been sapped from our lives. It's hard for people who have never experienced this to understand (and I do realize that a rather large number of
So I feel for this guy. I think I know where he was, and I think his mother is a fool for trying to pin blame. This guy needed to be outright hospitalized. As far as he knew, there was no way out.
/Brian
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
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
BEWARE SOL.EXE!!!!!
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..
Get off it
Did the Seinfeld episode (with Kramer suing over the coffee thing) happen before or after this real-life incident ? Non-USian minds want to know.
graspee
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.
There's a really good penny arcade that addresses what your talking about
As for the kid its really tragic. I'm sure Everquest will be painted in a horrible light after this, or not. Though much like the kid who killed himself because his D&D character got cursed, the kid probably had other problems.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
actually, these games can cause adrenalin(sp) rushs, and adrenalin is addictive. There is your chemical dependency. That all you really need for an addiction, the other things you list depend on the type of addiction.
Yes the mother and her sons Dr. Dr. are far more responsibility then EQ, but lets not downplay every possible aspect of addiction.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
No way, the worst for me was walking down the street after a few days of GTA, and looking for a cossie to steal. When you see the world in an overhead perspective in your mind, you know it's time to stop playing GTA.
It's been a long time.
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
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?
Note that the player was 21. This isn't about a kid. This is about an adult.
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
I think the real problem is deeper. Instead of medicating the symptoms of this troubled kid, perhaps someone should have tried to get to the root of it - why was this kid so depressed that he took his own life?
Most of us, as humans, have considered offing ourselves at some point. To quote Goddard, "to live is to suffer." (Contempt, 1963) Life is shit - we grasp for a couple decades at *something*, only to realize we never really get anything, just to grow old, lose control of our bowels, and die. At sixteen, this is a fucking scary thing to realize. The problem is that at that age, one does not have the experience of the sublime to counter it - most sixteen year olds haven't stood on a mountaintop at dawn, or fallen in love, or felt the brushings of true inner peace.
In our society, it seems as though we're *looking* for neat, confined, and manageable ways to explain away our existential angst, rather than learning to live with it. A gramme is better than a damn, right? If someone had taken an interest in this kid, and had helped him bear his burden until he was old enough and mature enough to do it himself, rather than medicate him and shove him into a closed room, the outcome might have been different. Blaming a video game for his suicide is just a further extension of the same psychological myopia that medicatated him and left it at that.
I feel deep compassion the mother, for she must be wracked with grief. I feel for the kid, too, who apparently never saw what made life bearable. We all die, but hopefully something makes our lives meaningful for us, even in light of the utter absurdity of life itself.
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
*Psssst. Adrenalyn is psychologically addictive. Not chemically*
plus, Adrenalyn is a naturally produced hormone.
I'll tell you something else that's chemically addictive by your logic: Testosterone. While we're at it, why don't we add the infamous DHMO or even worse, Glucose!
Please, people, educate yourselves about drugs before you go spouting off what is a chemical dependency and what isn't. Even a chemical drug isn't necessarily physiologically addictive.
Karma: Non-Heinous
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
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 am a theoretical mathematician... I suppose that means you won't be sorry when I am dead.
God is real unless declared integer
Guess I better rush out real quick and sue everyone who makes anything I might enjoy. In short: Something fun is not addictive, even if I get addicted to it.
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?
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.
[
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!
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.
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.
I'm waiting for it to come out for the PC(late April?). That's okay, I was finally able to find GTA2 for sale only a few weeks ago, so I should have my killin' and robbin' fix until then. :P
It's been a long time.
Note that the following story is real. It might seem funny, but I'm not making this up: I had this same problem with (believe it or not) Minesweeper. I had a mac laptop, but my roommate had the new Windows 95 and I sat down one day and started playing Minesweeper while waiting for a friend. I was hooked from the start. I would skip class to play Minesweeper. Seriously. It was sad. I HAD to get a better time than before. Any computer I sat down at I had to get all the best times. I still do to this point if I sit down at a friends or relatives computer, I'll 0wn their minesweeper scores.
I knew I had a problem when I was in the shower in the dorms. The showers had tile walls and tile floors. I was standing in the shower staring at the tiles and suddenly I was seeing the numbers and mines and I was playing minesweeper in my head against a tile wall with nothing on it. Granted I didn't think the mines were going to blow me up or anything, so it was a pretty mild hallucination, if it even qualifies as one.
I was able to walk away for the most part. I can still play for an hour or so if I get tired of Medal of Honor or coding.
"More organs means more human." - Zim
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
"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?"
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
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.
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!
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".
Ahh, electronic communication--where you can talk to someone and still feel lonely at the same time.
c-hack.com |
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.
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
... 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.
As another poster said, you've obviously never seen it up close. It's not just about people you're comfortable with; I can't even really get comfortable with my closest friends. I can't get a date because the idea of asking out a woman and being rejected is so overwhelmingly painful that I need to be absolutely sure to even take the chance. You're damn right I have serious problems; that's the whole point of what I was trying to say.
/Brian
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.
... 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."
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
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 have some concerns about that, and yes, they are privacy concerns. This woman really wants to blame somebody. What if she gets the information, finds a player who stole all his money, took his girlfriend, or some such, then tries to sue this player for wrongful death (fortunately, murder WOULD get laughed out of court) because s/he was playing a goddamn GAME? Not that Sony is necessarily thinking this way, most likely corporate self-preservation is the relevant issue. And I absolutely agree that they could show more compassion. But sometimes fingers pointing wildly should hit a brick wall. Some private information SHOULD require a court order, and some should just stay private. Anybody notice that the article made D&D look benign in comparison? Don't see that every day!
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"
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 |
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..
> If it is someone you enjoy being with, i don't see why even a depressed person would have trouble talking to him
Never been clinically depressed then, I take it?
The problem with depression is it saps your self esteem; if you're around people you tend to feel you're poisoning their day, and if you're around people you *like*, it's even worse, since you'll care more for what they're feeling. At least if you avoid people they're not going to end up hating you for being around them.
> Now, if there is NOONE you feel comfortable with, then you have more serious problems than you even think yourself. SOL. sorry.
Now, if this is one of those areas where if you have no experience, you should just STUF. sorry.
You know, that's a very good comment. You'll be OK, eventually!
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid