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Take-Two Interactive and Sony Sued Over GTA
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently Take-Two Interactive is being sued by the parents of two kids who killed a man. I remember reading about the killing incident a few weeks ago, but this is the first I've read about an actual lawsuit. The part that I found most interesting was that Sony will also be named in the lawsuit because GTA was exclusive to their console." Update: 09/18 16:27 GMT by M : The Independent has moved/deleted the story on their site, breaking our link. We've already mentioned this story anyway.
IAXM (I *AM* Ex-Military), and I don't seem to remember combat training for shooting floating eyeballs and zombies with RPGs...
Strangely, shooting a gun required things like using sights rather than just pointing in the right (compass) direction... Ah the old days...
For us carnivores, "Sucking the marrow out of life" isn't a transcendentalist philosophy but a practical instruction.
The part that I found most interesting was that Sony will also be named in the lawsuit because GTA was exclusive to their console.
Does that mean Microsoft can be added to the lawsuit in 2004? They have tons of cash and would be a great target to add to this frivilous suit.
Do you want to back that up with some evidence?
Even if it's true, it isn't against the law to give out ideas. In fact it's a constitutional right.
did the parents not see the huge M on the game meaning MATURE. Maybe the government should take the kids away form the parents. how come parents that hit their kids (and the kids hit other people) have the blame put on them. but (thank you mrs clinton, *sarcasm there*) when the government has a system in place to allow them to make better decisions about what their kids watch its the game companies fault. PARENTS IT'S YOUR OWN F___ING FAULT. YOU ALLOWED THEM TO PLAY THE GAME. now please be quiet and stop wasting money that could be spent of making GTA4 better.
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George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney are in for at least $300 mil for setting a bad example for our youth by starting a violent unprovoked war in the middle east
CNN owes $500 mil for it's gratuitous, jingoistic, spoon-fed-propaganda coverage of the war
I figure that the parents of the kids gotta be in for about $2.5 billion apiece
And Joshua and William Buckner, since they are the ones who actually committed the crime, are in for $400 billion each.
As people have been saying here I think its all down to the parents
I mean where did the kids get the weapons from?
The parents should be fined for starting a lawsuit so absurd and wasting the tax payers money on it.
God bless US of A
Why sue the companies who produce games, but not the company who manufactured the gun that these kids used?
HH
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It's a standard reaction on behalf of the parents and a sad one. There are kids who will go out and do terrible things, but violence is not exactly a new thing in human history. If anything, todays' societies are remarkably non-violent compared to past ones.
For the parents - especially of the killers - it's an attempt to find blame somewhere. I feel sorry for them: since Freud's time, parents have been told "you are responsible for the way your kids turn out", when in fact many studies show that parents are amazingly irrelevant to their children's character. One long twin study showed approximately 50% coming from genes, 45% from unknown sources but presumably peer influence, and 5% from parents.
There is violence in our genes, but it generally needs a certain kind of culture to bring it out. The place to look for the causes of such killings are the youth cultures these kids hung-out in. There is no evidence at all that violent games or movies influence children, but it seems clear that violent children prefer to express themselves through violent games, virtual or real.
Court cases like this resolve absolutely nothing, because they divert the discussion in meaningless directions. Let's ban all violent games and movies... OK, will that change anything? Take a look at (random selection from a large pool) Uganda, where the kids watch no movies at all, yet 10,000 young (5-12) killers roam the north.
It is very difficult to change a violent culture, but it is possible.
The first thing is to understand the way violence is propagated. Like all youth cultures, it goes from youth to youth, bypassing all adult control. You have to work at this level, thus.
The second thing is to understand how individuals get drawn into violent behaviour that reinforces itself and finally becomes habitual. Can a young man turn to authority for fair protection? If not, he is more likely to use his own force for self-protection. Can a young man who uses drugs turn to authority for help? If not, he is likely to resort to retribution and violence. Can a young man escape from a violent or oppressive environment? If not, he will eventually give up on himself and "go postal", taking his own life but first taking the lives of as many of his peers as he can, in an attempt to regain some face.
I think it's clear that the rigid and somewhat intolerant mentality of adult-youth relations in the States is a large part of the problem.
Banning violent video games goes further in the wrong direction. Now we make criminals out of those youngsters who want such games. Excellent.
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The counter-suit: Sony-RockStar-TakeTwo vs. parents of two dumb ass kids. I mean seriously, I would be suing the parents of the kids who did this because they neglected to instill any sort of common sense or "morallity" in their children. Their lawsuit is baseless. To blame it on a company that made a video game and sue them for it is simply another case of profiteering after a tragic incident as well as redirecting the true blame. These kids parents ought to be shot themselves for obviously neglecting their kids (they claimed they were "bored") and not keeping firearms out of their little hands. The fact that they are looking to cash in on this only tells me that they are really shitty people to begin with. I hope, that if they do sue and do win by some terrible glitch in the legal system, that they give all of the settlement to the families of the victims. Otherwise, I hope they die.
There is nothing I hate more than the parents of the children that pull this shit off. I believe it all lies with them.
I usually rant on about how rediculous I find these lawsuits and get pissed about how people just can't seem to take accountability for their own actions. "Oh, Billy just shot you? It doesn't matter that I didn't train him proper firearm useage, had one readily available to him, and didn't teach him it's wrong. I'm suing a game company."
However...the part that REALLY scares me is the fact they're suing Sony because that was the console it was on. So when people start suing movie directors and studios for violent movies, does this mean they'll also be able to sue AMC theaters? Unfugginbelievable...
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Aren't games that are rated mature supposed to be only purchased my adults? Can we then safely assume the childrens parents bought the game?
I've actually heard a mother in EB say something along the lines of "I'll be mother of the year when I buy my child this game" when buying GTA3.
Seriously when are we supposed to be able to know that hurting other people is bad? I would have thought that maybe around the age of 6-8 at the latest you are supposed to know that hurting people is bad.
Can't we ammend the law in these cases. Give the jury an two extra question, 1 do you think the parents should be put to death and 2 how long should we torture the lawyer.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Let me guess, this will end up like every other "blame the media" lawsuit whether it is against a rock band, a movie or in keeping with the times, a video game: thrown own of court by an eye-rolling judge or found laughable by an eye-rolling jury.
Parents: give it up, this tactic has never worked because it is damn near impossible to show causality for mass media that is digested by millions.
Yes, someone has to blame for your kid killing himself/someone else...but expand your definition of someone to include "that's life" and you'll might feel better about things. Millions of kids (many of which listen to, watch or play the thing you are blaming) do not end up this way. The few kids that do fall into a statistical expectation...either due to problems with their upbringing, their peers, their parents or their gray matter. Welcome to the world we live in.
If my son decides to go bomb someone and take their house? After all, he's been seeing it on the news for months. Makes just about as much sense.
i'm not anti-atty (am dating one even, immigration, this is a cheap plug for you h1-b folks :P ) but this guy is the type that gives them all bad reps. maybe sco consulted him first and got his legal opinion that open source is immoral.
this f$#@$ing guy is just a christian morality crusader with fringe ideas always running around seeking attention. i just can't understand why anyone (ok, well, stupid people in tennessee grasping for straws don't count) lets this guy represent them.
its like falling out of the ugly tree and getting sponsored by the editors of rotten.com in a beauty pageant. don't these people see the folly of the case?????
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
I was thinking we should make a videogame where the mission objective is to kill ambulance-chasing lawyers.
What a recursion that would set off...
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
And the manufacturers of the gun which they used - which means the NRA shoudl back Sony on this one, for fear of setting a precedent they really wouldn't like.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
IME the only people who have problems with age lockouts are the parents who forget how to remove them. :) Kids are smart enough to find out the code sooner or later, usually becuase the parent has scribbled it on the side of a pad so they don't forget it.
Of course, this assumes that the parents even give a damn and, quite frankly, if the parents buy them GTA in the first place and let the kids sit there and play it then they obviously don't care at all.
I'm sure the plaintiffs will contend that merely rating the game as mature doesn't absolve the defendants of responsibility. They would propose that further steps could have been taken...
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Well it would be a great idea, but shouldn't be needed.
.22 rifle the kids used could have had a gun lock and none of this would have happened. What makes you think that the parents who let kids stockpile guns in the garage or make .22 rifles easily accessable would bother locking out the M rated games on their PS2?
I mean yeah it's a nice feature in case the kid borrows the game from an older friend etc.
The point is that the kids should not have had access to that game.
Personaly I think this whole thing is BS. I played Wolfenstein when I was 9 or so, then moved up to Doom and Doom 2 when I was 13ish, Duke Nukem at 14, Quake at 15, I was in tournaments at 16 in Sin (won some nice money too..). At 21 now I still play FPS, although they're somewhat dull these days.
To date I have NOT had ANY desire to go out and kill random people. Sure there are some people that I would absolutley love to ventilate, but I always wanted to kill the few people that I passionatly hated, long before I touched a computer game.
My parents NEVER monitored which games I played, my parents NEVER monitored which movies I watched.
Yet I have NEVER had ANY problems with the law.
Seriously I think the ONLY influence that computer games had on me is that I drive faster than the vast majority of people due to years of addiction to Need For Speed and Motorhead(Play it! Best racing game ever.). I suppose this is a "bad" thing, but plenty of non gamers drive fast, and do it drunk or show off or do stupid shit.
The fact is that games alone don't make kids want to pick up a gun and kill people. Kids at 14 and 16 KNOW the difference between fantasy and reality. It's preposterous to suggest that they do not. I knew the difference between a game and RL at 7 when I played DukeNukem (the 2D version). And yeah sure I thought it would be cool to be a super tough guy and go and save the world. But I certainly did not think that I "was" the super tough guy. But then again I thought it was kind of cool to be Superman also but I never made any attempts to fly.
In the end I don't think the censoring will help. Why? Well it's like the gun locks. There are plenty availalbe, but parents still don't bother with them. The
In the end though, it's really the kid who is in control. I watched all the porn I wanted at 8, played all the violent games I wanted, there was always some alcohol in the house and never monitored, I had my first beer at 8 or so also, and I hated it. Still I never had any problems. I knew when I did "right" things and "wrong" things and I could tell the different levels of how "wrong" something. Plus I certainly had no trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality.
The whole point is:
STUPID KIDS DO STUPID SHIT
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
Essentially, you're arguing that if something doesn't affect a substantial portion of the population in some extreme way, then it doesn't have any effect at all. That's absurd. Not everyone who catches a common cold will die from it, but that doesn't mean that the cold virus has never played any role in anyone's death, ever.
"There has been a wealth of research to show that children's brains process these video games in a different way from adults'. They cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality, so they play these games and then think if they do the same thing in reality, it's OK, there will be no consequences."
The problem with the above statement, made by Jack Thompson, attorney for the families, is that we're not talking about children here. At 14 and 16, the perpetrators of this crime are not children. Now I know that some people try to pretend that teenagers are children but they're really being dishonest and even deceitful when they do. Teenagers are not yet adults, but neither are they children. They are minors, but all that describes is their legal status, not their degree of maturity. Neither an 18 year old nor a 40 year old are minors, yet no one would try to claim that made them equally mature. The two young men in question are not children, they are adolescents, a stage in human development that is not usually given its due. For this lawywer to claim that someone that age is unable to discern reality from fantasy or understand the consequences of his or her actions shows a careless disregard for the truth or perhaps even an inability on the part of this lawyer to discern reality himself.
The left wing in this country have suceeded in creating an environment where no one is held accountable for the consequences of their decisions. The lamest of excuses, like "I saw it in a video game," or "I ate too many twinkies" are sucessfully used to deflect blame onto third parties.
Responsibility for this crime begins and ends with the two young men who perpetrated it. As far as the things that might have influenced them to commit the crime, why aren't their parents pointed out? If a video game can influence someone to do something so horrible, what does that say about how their parents have raised them?
The sad sick truth of this story is that Sony is being sued not because it is responsible for this in any way, but because it has deep pockets and is likely to settle out of court because it will cost them MORE money to fight it.
The only people who win in a case like this are lawywers, and they do so at the expense of society itself. Jack Thompson should be disbarred for filing a frivilous lawsuit.
Lee
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the fuck does that have to do with anything? Suing Rockstar games is retarded, but so is saying that a letter on the box intended to restrict access has any basis in reality. Are you saying that there's a direct correlation between getting access to entertainment targeted at older people, and shooting people? That, had the rating been obeyed, these crimes wouldn't have happened?
I say no. This argument has no scientific basis whatsoever. The rating on the box is there to appease parents, not to prevent crimes. And parents are not rational individuals when it comes to their kids. If they were, they might try raising their children correctly and thereby preventing their kids from becoming sociopaths.
Kids become sociopaths for a number of reasons, but it takes a hell of a lot more than a video game or a porno movie to do it. Being paid attention, having a stable environment, love--these are the things that help someone grow up well-adjusted. In order for a crime like this to happen, all of those things have to be missing.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Yeah, it's amazing that these kids were allowed unsupervised access to this game. I know that my stepmom picked up this game for my 12yr old brother a year ago. She knew what the game was about, and made the choice to let him play. That's fine by me. The stores on the otherhand know exactly what this game is about b/c it is so extreme in some instances. It's probably one of the few video games you are actually "carded" for. The people at the store made sure my stepmom knew what she was buying and were shocked it was for my bro. But, I do know this, he's played GTA and he loves it. Also, he's not about to go out and start killing all these people, having sex with hookers, selling drugs, stealing cars, and running from cops. As previous people stated, I've played Doom since 12/13-ish, and lots of FPS's since then. My brother has played games I considered more "violent" at an earlier age than me and he's doing pretty damn well right now. It's just a personal thing. If these kids are dumbshits enough to go out to a freeway and start shooting guns at cars, they obviously have bigger problems than this video game. In a way it could be compared to kids that throw shit at passing cars, which happens a lot, except in a more extreme way of course (and none of these activities do I condone)
The reason this legal crap happens is because the Democrats cover for these sleazy lawyers at every turn. The lawyers reward them with huge campaign contributions.
The Republicans are trying to fix this lawsuit nonsense. Of course, that makes them a "tool of big business" for taking Sony's side in fights like this. That's right. If you're on Sony's side in this lawsuit, you're a tool of big business.
This lawsuit problem would be fixed if the Democrats would get out of the way.
Please consider this before you automatically support the Democrats next time. Some of us would really like these types of lawsuits to stop.
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This was originally posted here but it got modded down even though it's factually correct.
Since I doubt we'll ever see a lawsuit involving children going around biting stuff and running from ghosts as a result of playing pac-man then I'll assume its not an issue of video games specifically. If that is the case then couldn't frivolous lawsuit seekers also "assist" people who've been afflicted mentally while playing Monopoly? Suppose a property owner decides to tear down a house and build a hotel. Whats it cost, a few thousand dollars? Well after tearing down the house and realizing that hotels cost more than they do in Monopoly, he decides to sue Hasbro for not instilling in him the consequences of tearing down the house?
You might consider this a stretch but that is obviously something that the victims bringing this suit think is reasonable to have a game provide; the instilling of consequences in all who play their games. Thats the job of those who commit to bring a child up.
The people of this entire country are expecting the public services of this nation to raise their children. In Bush's campaigning he called for teacher accountability. I'm all for that. I'm sure there are teachers who sit back and watch movies and failing the students miserably. But what about the teachers who do present their students with learning opportunities? They have to teach them about sex, because their parents will not. They have to teach them manners because the parents aren't going to. They have to teach respect, although often times they won't get the same respect from the parents as the parents are expecting them to teach their children. Who is going to hold the parents accountable? How are we going to put a stop to the laziness and get back to teaching kids right from wrong before they leave the house and go to school? What happened to spending time with your kids so that you know what they're doing, what they like to do, how they behave in public, the state of their mind, how often their mind is alterred through the use of drugs?
I'm not a parent yet, but I have one of the most well-behaved dogs there are. I don't expect anyone else to make her behave. I didn't expect anyone else to teach her that sit means I wanted her butt on the ground. I spent time with her and she learned. She knows whats right and wrong, made evident by her looking around guiltily before she chews on a flower or digs somewhere. Granted labradors are smart, but if I can do that with her shouldn't a parent be able to spend a little time with their kids and make them more well-behaved and realistic in whats right and wrong?
The game store is supposed to check ID for MA-rated games. I think the question should be, "how did these kids come into posession of this game in the first place?"
Further steps? Such as what? "Please swipe your license through the card reader to play this game."??? A warning such as this: "If you are under the age of 18, please kick your parents in the ass for buying or renting this game for you, as they would have had to buy it for you as it is illegal to rent or sell it to you as you are under 18 and it is rated MA"???
If the PARENTS don't read the ratings, that's thier fault! That is all the gaming industry can do short of not making such games (which result from public demand to make such games) and going out of business as a result. Then it would be "They killed him because they had nothing better to do. There were no video games to occupy thier time, so they killed a guy!"
AMERICAN FUCKING PUBLIC, GET A GOD DAMN FUCKING CLUE! Take a bit of fucking responsibbility for yourself and your children.
If you get sick, do you still go to work? Probably not, you wouldn't want others to get sick. If you do go to work and someone gets sick because of you, they may be able to sue you. If your computer gets a virus, apply the same, don't let it interface with other computers where it may spread the virus. If you do, they (owners of computers infected by your system) SHOULD be able to sue you. If you buy something, you should research it first, know what it does, know what it contains, and know who should or should not use it and live by that. Don't let your kids play games that are not rated for them. Don't let them see movies that are not rated for them (although many people often disagree with movie ratings, so that is a definate grey area), don't let your kids play with dangerous items (guns, knives, chemicals, cars, the computer, etc...) unless they are being supervised BY YOU, and keep these items out of reach (that means where they can't get them even if they are on a chair or ladder - usually locked up, and keep the keys on your person at all times) so they don't get to them. The computer, however, you cannot always keep under lock and key. So set up accounts so the kids can only log in if you are there to enter the password (don't tell them the password, dumbfucks!).
If you don't want to take responsibility and supervise your children while they do something, deal with them complaining when you don't let them do it! That is a major part of the basis of this great country of ours - yes, you have freedoms and rights, but each of those comes with a specific responsibility. If you fail on any of those responsibilities, you should lose those rights. Only you, not everyone. Responsibility, people, learn that you have to take on some of it yourselves.
Oh, and by the way, the kids did not rent or buy the game themselves. That would have been illegal, as it was rated MA and you have to be 18 to rent or buy MA games. The gaming industry, as a whole, willingly labeled such games so that minors could not play them without parental consent. The fact that the parents allowed them to play the game is liken to allowing them to watch pr0n and should be treated accordingly. These parents whould to time just as if they had allowed the kids to watch pr0n and should be held responsible (read : do time) for the death of this man.
The gaming industry should be left out of this. They do only what thier customers ask of them; they must do so to survive. They also have done everything they can (including making it illegal to rent or sell certian games to certain people) to prevent this sort of thing. The final step, as I have said before, must be done by the parents!
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There have been a number of lawsuits in teh past and it is generally held that the makers of a gun are not responsible for those that use it. They just make a tool, if you abuse it, that's your fault. Given the amount of precident, it'd be hard to go against that.
Also, this is the US, you have a better than average chance of having one or more people on the jury that either own a gun, support gun ownership, support the constitution, or all of the above.
Video games are a newer target, and there isn't the case law backing it up. Also they are a trendy target. It's like rock music of the days past. Some of the older generation doesn't get it and thinks they are evil, responsible for socieiy's problems, etc.
I personally think the lawsuit has about as much chance as the gun lawsuits, but still, that's the reason video games are the target.