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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.
Perhaps the parents should sue themselves for buying the cosole and the game in the first place?
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.
Why the parents of the kids who committed those killings? I would have expected the relatives of the victims to sue Take-Two, but the relatives of the killers?
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Oblig Penny Arcade
So if this game is so bad that it caused these kids to go out and commit this crime (no, I don't actually think there's a causal link) , then WHY WERE THE PARENTS LETTING THEIR KIDS PLAY IT!
Reminds me of a great bumper stick I had just seen recently, read:
DUMBASS
It's Lack of Parenting
NOT
Video Games
*DrugCheese rants*
This sounds very similar if not identical to Kids Kill, Victim Sues Game Maker.
We should also sue the electric company, for without their power they couldnt play the game. And oh yea, lets not leave out the TV maufacturer. Maybe we should even sue the person we bought the house from, since this is where they played the game.
Seriously, give me a break. How about parents stop blaming everyone but THEMSELVES for their kids actions.
Don't Tread on Me
Grand Theft Auto and its three sequels are designed in Britain and have topped the UK and US games charts, selling more than 20 million copies in the past five years.
And how many of those 2x10^7 kids became killers?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Sony isn't being sued because GTA was PS2-only, they're being sued because GTA was available on the PS2.
If it had been available on other platforms, the other companies probably would be named in the suit also.
Of course, that's stupid if you assume (as is most plausible) that the kids probably only would have played the game on a single platform of their choice, whatever they happened to own.
But then, the very idea of suing a game manufacturer because their game inspired real-life crime is stupid.
People are responsible for their actions. Actually committing a crime? That's a crime. Depicting fictionalized crime as a form of entertainment? Not a crime. There shouldn't be any civil liability either -- all liability should fall on the heads of the dumbasses who thought it'd be a good idea to imitate pixels.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Right, because, obviously, America's children are so influenced by everything they see or hear that it must be the game's fault. Sure, the kids say they were trying to recreate scenes from GTA, but come on... this shows a serious lack of the consequences of their actions, not any sort of thing that GTA will help or hinder.
If console and computer games can so easily influence kids, then how come we don't see hoards of them acting out Everquest or Soulcalibur scenes? Where are all the kids running around collecting rings after playing Sonic for five hours in a row? Huh? Answer me that...
This is nothing more then an attempt to shift the blame. Parents don't want to think that their kids could ever do this on their own, someone or something must have "made them do it". Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Buckner... your kid is fucked up. He deserves to go to jail and learn the consequences of his actions.
As for the lawsuit, I hope it summarily thrown out.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Doesn't GTA have a mature rating?
Either way, a game isn't going to make some kid go out and pick up a gun and start killing people. There were serious problems there before the kid started playing the game. This is the parents trying to deflect the blame away from their poor parenting skills.
You also have to ask where these kids got the guns from. What parent leaves guns lying around that their kids can get access to.
Take responsibility for your own actions and stop trying to pass the buck.
So if you rape someone, can you sue the Porn Industry because they sometimes portray rough sex?
If you run someone over in your car, can you sue the makers of Matchbox cars because you used to run over your GI Joes or whatever with them?
Lets just sue {insert deity here} for creating these people in the first place... maybe we should sue the aliens that put us here, or the cosmic rock dust or whatever it was...
These people need to be smacked. A good pimp smack.
I mean, what the hell? People have been shooting people for years, GTA is nothing new. Its just got better graphics.
How rediculous.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
i got a new plan:
1.) buy gta 3
2.) kill that bitch english teacher who always marked me down for incorrect semicolon usage ( damned c++ syntax leaking into my writing )
3.) parents sue take two/sony
4.) parents pay bail
5.) runaway to southeastern mexico and live it up on a private beach under the name 'juan sanchez'
if they would've completed the mission's objectives. The giant MISSION FAILED that popped over their heads should've been a give away.
*runs up to passanger side door of police cruiser and tries to open door; runs to drivers side and drives away*
What is music when you despise all sound?
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.
Wouldn't that be a refreshing take on these foolish lawsuits? Have the game developer team up with Social Services and sue the parents for doing such a poor job raising their children that they would commit murder. Having the parents suggest that a video game could cause them to commit such an act only strengthens the case that they were unfit parents.
What about the twinkie? - Dr. Peter Venkman, PHD
Where were the parents of the two accused killers when they were playing GTA in the first place? Yet another example of the "Victim Culture" the legal system has steered us towards.
Trolling is a art,
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.
Blair and Bush kill thousands of Iraqi civilians in a war based on illusion and fabrication and the term 'acceptable collateral damage' is applied.
2 kids pop one person and Sony/Take-Two are claimed as responsible for the unprovoked violence.
The world is schizoprhenic...into madness we will all descend...
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.
Referring to The Manchurian Candidate, a 1962 film in which American soldiers are brainwashed into becoming fighting machines in the Korean war, Mr Thompson said: "We have got a nation of Manchurian Candidates who are training on these video games."
Next on the list of plantiffs -- the Bicycle Playing Card Company.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Oh, wait. They do.
So, the parents buy a game that states persons under 18 should not use the game w/o parental supervision. Then they let the kids play the game unsupervised, knowing (at least from the game packaging) the the game is violent. Oh, and the kids also have access to a rifle, which they are too young to legally possess in Tenn. This is who's fault again?
Somebody call the Department of Family and Childrens Services.
Why sue the companies who produce games, but not the company who manufactured the gun that these kids used?
HH
--
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.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
The $100m legal action involves Joshua Buckner, 14, and his stepbrother William, 16, from Newport, Tennessee, who shot dead Aaron Hamel, 45, and seriously injured Kimberly Bede, 19, on 25 June..
...Miss Bede and the family of Aaron Hamel plan to sue Take-Two Interactive Software, which publishes Grand Theft Auto, for liability in a wrongful death lawsuit.
So this is the same old story.
I guess the NRA can now add video games to their ever expanding list of things that kill people (guns and god excluded).
"We came home and found our son lying dead on his bed from a gunshot wound. He had his headphones on and there was an Ozzy record on the turntable[1]. So we called our lawyer."
GF.
[1] An archaic device used to create an analog sound stream from an arm with a small device that amplified the sound made by a needle rubbing a vinyl platter etched with a spiral groove starting on the outside and slowly going toward the center. The vinyl platters were called "records" and were interchangeable. The "record player" rotated the disk in a circular motion while the arm tracked the groove as it moved from the outside to the inside of the "record"[2].
[2] In the southern hemisphere, the "record" spun in the opposite direction.
Lots of petrified grits
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
Apparently Take-Two Interactive is being sued by the parents of two kids who killed a man.
That isn't apparent to me. The story linked to says that "Miss Bede and the family of Aaron Hamel plan to sue Take-Two Interactive Software, which publishes Grand Theft Auto, for liability in a wrongful death lawsuit. "
Miss Bede was seriously injured. Aaron Hamel was killed. They were not the parents of the kids.
I don't agree with suing the game company, let alone Sony, over this, but pretending it's the parents of the kids doing the suing makes it sound roughly 23 million times more absurd than it is.
OK, two things:
1) Why were a 14 year old and a 16 year old allowed access to the rifle?
2) Why were a 14 year old and a 16 year old allowed access to a game rated Mature?
Perhaps the parents should try to answer these questions before taking a stupid case to court.
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
These games are available everywhere else in the World - yet no other country has known such instances. Why? Gee, lemme think... hey - maybe if the kids never had access to guns, this wouldn't have happened?
They should sue Smith & Wesson / the NRA instead.
it is the people who were shot, not the shooters. Miss Bede and the family of Aaron Hamel plan to sue Take-Two Interactive Software, which publishes Grand Theft Auto.... Click the link on the article and read it.
These 'kids' are 14 and 16 years old. If they can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality by now, the fact that they killed one person and injured another is beside the point. They should be locked up forever since they will always be a threat to those around them.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
In related news, RockStar Games sues The United States of America, for influencing them in making the GTA series.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
I figured I'll go after Michael Moore. He made Bowling for Columbine, and that movie portrays people who own guns. Since I can see people brandishing guns in the movie, I have to assume that kids would be arbitrarily ('cuz kids imitate what they see on TV...) be enticed into owning or using a gun out of peer pressure from the people portrayed in the movie. Also Marilyn Manson's in the movie. So he's to blame too...
Things you must never take blame for when your kids kill:
Poor Parenting
Owning a gun
Keeping Gun loaded
Not owning a gun lock
Buying the game/console
Not monitoring your kids spending habits
Not snooping in your kids lives
other media outlets (keep focused on that one media outlet as the only source of blame, ie, ignore DC sniper shootings)
So for your best bets, stay away from these topics and keep focused on one aspect of their lives. That way, it makes it look like that's the only thing THEY did and that your crappy parenting skills resulted in them playing it too much to the point that they HAD to kill.
You sound like an idiot
However one point you make is true. A study by an ex army fellow showed that the training in simulators where a soldier shot a simulated human would improve their real true-life kill rate phenomenally; and not just because it was more practice, it's because for most people, police/army/marines etc the instinct to NOT kill another human being is a strong one. Training can get past that in simulators that show moving simulations of 'live' people in a way that pop up targets do not.
So essentially yes, GTA is a killing simulator. You get to point a weapon at a simulated person, and blow them away. or drive over them. or beat the living daylights out of them with a baseball bat. Breaking down that instinct NOT to kill people is breaking down some of the most basic instincts that keep a society relatively intact.
So that being said, if you can accept it (and the book about it is quite compelling) indicates that yes, games like GTA are killing simulators. Combine that with the impetuousness of youth and you have a volatile combination. Perhaps we should ban kids from playing games like thi....
whoa hang on there are already controls over kids buying these games! Therefore the reason the kids are playing these games are the parents
The parents of the children who shot, killed and injured these people trained their children to be killers. That's where the responsibility lies and why
Uh, ever heard of knowing the difference between right and wrong, fantasy and reality. Ever heard of NOT BEING A FUCKING DIPSHIT? Incite my balls. Some fuckhead parents give their dumb-fuck kids a game meant for people that KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FUCKING GAME AND REALITY and suddenly is the fault of the game makers that the kids are TOTAL FUCKING ASSCLOWNS? Fuck that. That is bullshit, straight up. Incitement to commit a crime is standing up and saying "I want you five guys to go and rape that woman." Incitement to commit a crime is NOT a depiction of violence.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Reading articles about the GTA lawsuit and the Everquest, it outrages me on how little responsibility the parents take for the actions of their children and how little they hold their children accountible for their own actions. The Everquest mom let her son play the game and he was 21 years old. The GTA parents let their kids play a game that was rated for adults.
Many people like to point the finger at other things besides themselves. Outside forces caused them to do it. The sad fact of reality is that we live in the outside world. There are things beyond our control that may try to influence (drugs, crime, moral decay). We can control ourselves and not be influenced by them.
Many people will say that these games are beyond anything previously experienced. They point to all sorts of studies on how games influence violence. Evil is as old as time itself. There is a very old book. It has tales of patricide, matricide, murder, rape, incest, polygamy, adultery--every ill we know. It's called the Bible. How come none of these parents ever sued the church because it is a bad influence? Because if the silliness of it would get the lawsuit tossed out of court in a heartbeat.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.
From the article: Points, ammunition and more weapons are awarded for completing missions that include stealing cars, crashing them, shooting pedestrians and other motorists, drug dealing and beating up prostitutes.
Good thing they aren't trying to make the game look bad, or anything. Just so you who have not played the game know, while you *can* do all the things mentioned above, the missions don't require you to do more than steal cars (sometimes), sling dope (in GTA:VC, on an extra mission that isn't required to beat the main story) and shoot criminals (you are never required to kill a random pedestrian or motorist in a mission, nor are you ever required to kill a policeman) and while there is one mission requiring you to beat up a pimp, there's no mission which requires you to beat up a prostitute. It is true that jacking cars is a crime, and so is killing criminals (slinging dope, while criminal, is not in the same league). That is enough of a basis for argument about the game, but making it sound worse than it is doesn't really help anything. The mere fact that you *can* do bad things is irrelevant, unless you wish to argue that everyone on the planet should be locked up because they *could* kill other people, if they wanted to.
Now, for those of you out there who are up in arms because stealing cars and killing criminals is bad enough, please remember that you have to be of age to purchase this game. By the time kids are legally allowed to buy this game, they can also watch NC-17 movies and have probably been watching R-rated movies for years and years, in which stealing cars and killing criminals (and cops, and innocent people) is not only routine but by now ennui-inducing. Anyone who shoots random people in real life has more problems than what video game they're playing. Opponents of video games would have you believe that children are incapable of distinguishing between tv and real life. The mere fact that people entertain this ridiculous supposition is evidence enough that our society is out of control. When I was a child, I played many video games, and not once did I believe that they were anything more than games. I've been a fan of television for my entire life, and I've never once confused a tv character with the actor. Never have I known anyone who did not know that tv characters are just pretend. I once asked my (then) 3-year-old niece if she thought the genie from Aladdin would come visit her, and she replied 'no, he's just on tv, silly!' Please, people. Use common sense.
http://xkcd.com/386/
totally out of proportion to the actual damage done (e.g. the McDonalds coffee lawsuit)
Ah, this myth again...this was not a frivolous lawsuit. Perhaps you should check out the facts.
The article reads:
This should instead read:
Hope this helps.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
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.
While I can believe this (I had my own weird mood swings on Ritalin for a bit in high school), I'm frankly inclined to say that every so often, in a large world, you just plain get some crazy kids every once in awhile. With teenagers, you get the hormones all out of whack that's messing them up anyway -- combine the two, and blammo. It's the price you pay for living among humans.
The lawsuit is misguided and stupid. Although it's worth mentioning I wouldn't buy violent games for teenagers.
you know, I grew up playing video games...as most of you did I'm sure, so my question is simple.... how many of you have gone out and killed people because you saw it in a game. Not many I'd hope. I find it strange that parents are willing to let a playstation babysit thier kids, and then have the unmittigated gaul to get upset when the kids do something stupid like this. The gaming industry has started (though not effectivley) to get serious with the game ratings, meaning if it has an M on it, you have to be 18 to purchase it. so either the parents bought this for thier kids....or just diddn't really care what they were doing untill somebody dies. maybe im strange , or maybe its from growing up in the south, but i can remember when parents actually raised thier kids, and you could punish them accordingly without fear of a lawsuit from some silly organization. its only a game....its not real...if you can't teach this to your kids, or if your kids are to stupid to understand the difference between a game and reality...then they don't belong in the same room as a playstation. "Of all the things I've lost... I miss my mind the most"
A couple of weeks ago my niece(9yrs) and nephew(11yrs) stayed at my mother's on vaccation. We watched some generic family movie on tv. It was past 8pm, but I thought that watching that movie'd be perfect. Y'know, vaccation and all. Wrongo. The TV channel advertised the usual 10pm sex, crime&drugs dreck during commercial breaks. Even the ads sported lots of nudity and stupidity I wouldn't want my kids to watch. I never was bothered about this, but having those kids next to me made me take another viewpoint. Face it, kids are exposed to stuff they won't be able to cope with. Without parental guidance god knows what will become of them. Society acts irresponible. I don't say that violent games, movies and so forth shouldn't be produced. But each and every one of us should try to keep it out of their hands.
20 minutes into the future
Reminds me of a bit from George Carlin that went something like this It doesn't take a fscking village to raise a child. It takes a mother and a father.
Tennessee has no Child Access Prevention (CAP) Law and has no Trigger Lock Law.
So first off the parents of these kids basically are under no liability for the apparent availability and possibly unsafe storage of their weapons. Yet they have the gall to blame this tragedy on a game clearly marked for adults, which they most likely purchased for their kids.
Don't even get me started on their lack of responsibility as parents to at least be aware of what their child is watching on television or playing on a game console.
Parenting is more than breeding and feeding.
brightloudnoise.com
By the time I was 13, I had taken a firearms safety class. More than 10 years later, I still have it listed as an endorsement on my driver's license. Everyone I went to school with took the same class. In the town where I grew up, there has never been an accidental gun fatality, and there has been only one documented murder in the last 100 years. That was an 80 year old man shooting his 80 year old wife because she had alzheimer's.
The problem here is not so much that the kids had access to guns. In most cases, 14 is old enough to use a gun responsibly. The issue is that the parents didn't require everyone in the house to take gun safety classes. The other(bigger) issue is that the parents didn't instill morals in their offspring. These parents should have been sterilized at the first hint of puberty.
This is why the gene pool needs chlorine.
-
"Vengeance is fine," sayeth the Lord.
"... Sony will also be named in the lawsuit because GTA was exclusive to their console."
GTA 3 is also available on the PC. Why not sue Microsoft, creators of Windows and DirectX, for allowing the game to be played on the OS? While they're at it, sue Intel, NVidia, Corsair, Asus, Hitachi (cause there's got to be a Hitachi chip in that computer somewhere), Kensington, SonicView, Plextor and Lian-li?
After all, those bastards should have to pay for what they did. They need to be more responsible? Don't these companies know they are raising these children??
I know that if I ever have kids and get a divorce, I'm gonna sue Microsoft and Toyota for alimony!
A few years ago, the mother of a child who was killed by one of his friends sued Midway, saying the friend was inspired by Mortal Kombat. She lost. An article I found about it said...
:)
U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton found that the lawsuit brought by the victim's mother failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Thirteen-year-old Noah Wilson died in November 1997 when his friend, identified in court papers as Yancy S., stabbed him in the chest with a kitchen knife. Noah's mother, Andrea Wilson, sued Midway Games Inc., claiming that Yancy S. was addicted to "Mortal Kombat" video games and that he was so obsessed with the game that he actually believed he was the character "Cyrax." Wilson argued that Yancy S. was mimicking Cyrax's combat moves at the time he stabbed her son.
But Judge Arterton held that the video game is protected by the First Amendment. While Wilson had argued that "Mortal Kombat" differed from books and motion pictures by virtue of its "interactivity," Judge Arterton said the plaintiff failed to offer a persuasive reason for distinguishing the technological advances that led to the game's creation from developments at the turn of the 20th century that ushered in the motion picture.
You can read the entire article here. Part of me is seriously hoping that the defense can use this in the trial, but then IANAL, so I don't know for certain either way.
Just my $.02...
"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
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Your first clue should have been where the kids were from. This is what happens when brothers and sisters marry.
This issue continues to come back up, time and time again. Whenever there is a killing or attack by someone under the age of 18, ANYWHERE, games, television, and other items which identify the current culture are being put to blame.
If it were necessarily true that kids follow games, then why aren't MORE kids out there killing and maiming? The mentality is set to a small group. If there was a mass hysteria, sure, maybe then there would be something. But for God's sake, people, it's a video game! I played them on the Commodore 64, Apple 2, Atari 2600, Intellivision, and the original Nintendo when I was a kid!
Did they have an effect on me? Well, as a kid, I never knocked over a turtle and kicked it away a la Mario Brothers! I never stole a car and took it for a spin around the city like many racing games! Hell, I never went out and had sex at age 12 because of all those crappy sex games the C-64 had available for it, either.
So the question remains: why are kids being blamed, and in this case saying, that they learned the behavior from TV and video games? Simple answer: their parents and the media. Parents today are worried about their kids, and they have every right to be. But what do they do? (And I have noticed this with friends and family who have children of various ages.) When their kid is in trouble, they ask them where they learned it. "Was it on TV? Was it in those video games they play?" The parents are giving the kids the scapegoat the kids want and need, and the companies that make the games are the ones getting in crap. The media blows all of this out of proportion, with CNN reporting hours-upon-hours of how the games are corrupting the youth.
Grow up, people! Yes, some people may be influenced by games, but those people need some form of attention and intervention; it will not go away by removing one video game. Take some responsibility for your own actions, and that includes random blaming of games and television for acts which are probably rooted deeper into the kid's psyche (although I am not a psychologist).
Given that God is infinite, and the Universe is also infinite, would you like some toast?
The lawsuit is being filed by one victim and the family of the other victim. The morons doing the shooting aren't involved in this aspect of it (unless they are asked to testify that the video game made them do it, which we all know is just stupid).
My favorite quote from the article:
It's nice to see that this guy is a complete moron, and this isn't just an isolated incident. What does he expect when he fires a rifle at people? They'll just respawn or something? Sad...
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
So here's a question...why don't we take responsibility for our actions today?
When was the last time you were late to work "because your alarm didn't go off"? (of course, you forgot to set it)
Late to dinner because "the boss gave me too much work" (of course, my time-management skills suck)
Didn't have that module finished and checked in to source control by the deadline because COM sucks/the network was slow/bugs in the compiler. (not to mention I was reading slashdot)
We have met the excuse makers - and they are us!
Ok, I'm off late to a meeting because...my Outlook reminder didn't go off. (and I was replying to this doggone post)
Your honor, I would like to claim damages from Sony for taking away my parenthood and teaching my kids to kill. I was too busy watching TV to teach my kids any values so I would also like to sue Fox.
You might ask yourself if those kids would have commited that crime if they didn't have access to a .22 rifle. If you were to own one of those things, wouldn't you keep it out of reach/sight of your kids, and at least be responsible yourself if they were to use it?
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.
Violent games don't make violent kids. Violent kids latch on to whatever is violent around them. Whether it's the US bombing Iraq, the hundred of shootings you hear about on the news each year, or a game where you can shoot people. If GTA wasn't available it would have been something else. Video game makers are just considered an easy target.
They ask me if I'm a cop, or a handgun expert. They make comments about not getting in my way. It is people like these who believe that video games are training zombie killers...
NEWSFLASH! The bad guys are always in the SAME PLACE. I am holding a plastic replica of a gun that is much lighter than a real gun, and which has no recoil. I don't physically have to duck, or fumble to load ammunition while being shot at. I may shoot at running targets, but generally, their speed is constant, and they are not running towards me or away, only across the screen. I know which of the bad guys, in which uniforms, can kill me instantly, and which can only wound me slightly. I also never have to look behind me...
Anyone who believes that my knowledge and skill in Time Crisis could allow me to pick up an actual gun and use it any kind of useful way, is a flippin maroon. Yep, it's about as stupid as imagining that GTA is teaching children how to steal cars, and race them with skill and technique.... As if.
don't mess with those geekgrrls
I guess the Fresh Prince was right. Parents just don't understand. Sure the TV is a great babysitter. It's always there, always on, always ready to show your kids gruesome violence and hot nasty sex when you aren't checking what they are watching. Videogames are great too. Anything to keep the kids occupied. Wait, my baby is a killer? Huh? What? MY FAULT? Hell no it isn't my fault. I'm a parent, so nothing is my fault. It must be that videogame he played. That's the problem. In fact, I'm suing the game companies. While I'm at it, I think I should sue Smith & Wesson. They make guns right? Obviously they're the problem. Also, I should sue McDonalds for my fat ass. And Dell for all that computer pron I have. Oh, and Western Digital for making the hard drive that it's on. And we have to sue the government, because I'm sure they've done something wrong. Or maybe, just maybe I shouldn't have bought a F***ING MATURE RATED GAME for my 4 year old.
"I, for one, welcome our new %INSERT ARTICLE SUBJECT HERE% overlords."
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.
I suppose now you would Google the answers to all the questions. Crap.
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
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?
o my gawd....how lame.
Trying to dodge responsibility like that is so....irresponsible.
The fact of the matter is, they STILL KILLED the guy. Even if they imitated a movie or a game, they are the ones responsible. Just like how you can't say that Hitler isn't responsible for the millions he killed in his vision or his officers who did the dirty work. You can't say that the man in white is responsible 'cause that's what Hitler said gave him the idea, etc.
Why can't ppl not point fingers and be honorable?
MoFoQ gets his pitchfork and flaming torches used almost exclusively for SCO and spammers ready for use.
God forbid we actually blame the children who commited the crime. It was poor Johnny's upbringing and his environment! It drove him to KILL!
Waah waaah wwaaaaaaah. I hope the judge laughs at this and tosses it out.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Okay, say what you will about bad video games, and negligent parents who bought the video games, or negligent walmart clerks that sold the game to the kids (about which I am in full agreement), but this wouldn't/couldn't have happened if the kids hadn't had guns.
The reality is that kids in the U.S. can get ahold of guns pretty easily, but nobody would go suing the gun manufacturer because their kid shot someone (or maybe I'm wrong here -- they certainly wouldn't win). Guns aren't even rated M for Mature (though they are controlled by laws).
It just puzzles me that people are so worried about the video games warping people's minds when maybe they should be worrying about a bigger issue -- irresponsible children with guns.
To me, giving either a Mature game, or a gun, or even a license or whatever to a child who is not old/mature enough to handle it properly are equally dangerous, but everybody decides to pick one and try to get it off the market. Conversely, a responsible human being can safely operate a car, gun, or video game, and have a helluva lot of fun doing it. Why should the responsible ones suffer because some idiot let their kid screw around with something they weren't ready for?
If some negligent parents let their 10 y/o kid drive, and that kid killed someone, who is at fault? The car manufacturer? I think not! Okay, you don't need a license to play a video game, but the rating on it (just like a R-rated movie) should be just as effective. In most places you also need a license to handle a gun.
I've reiterated my point several times because it just bothers me when people misplace blame -- which in this case should go first to the kids, second to the parents, and third to the store who sold the game to the kids (unless the parents bought it, in which case the parents take another hit on the blame). NEVER, under (at least) these circumstances should the game maker or sony be at fault.
That said, maybe Sony could have done something about it -- put a v-chip-like device on the console, thereby rendering it unusable for Mature games w/o parental consent (though I imagine those are less effective than they claim).
Let me start by saying: (1) Yes, I am a lawyer; (2) yes I think these lawsuits are silly; (3) I don't believe the parents have a very good chance of winning.
Whenever this issue comes up, there is the inevitable deluge of virulent "where were the parents!" and "why weren't you teaching your kids values" type posts/comments/rants. Despite the mind numbing banality of most of these, people seem to continue to harp on about it over and over.
What I find particularly interesting is the attempt to ascribe these types of lawsuits to "liberals" and "the left", and the rabid conservative mantra that liberals have "destroyed personal responsibility." (Like fiscal responsibility? largest deficit in history)
I am wary of these "where were the parents" type simplifications. It seems to me that these are all based on a mythical image of the American Family that is taken straight from 1950's television, and has little (or no) bearing on today's society. Where were the parents? Working two jobs that require 60+ hours a week so they can continue to enjoy the "middle class" life in some suburban development near a semi-decent school. By the time Mom & Dad have come home at 6:00 or 7:00 pm and made dinner, they are probably way too strung out from a 14 hour day to be providing much useful moral guidance.
Don't get me wrong, I support working Mom's and Dads. My family is a two-job deal, but we are lucky in that, because I have a high-priced legal education, we can afford full time child care for our tots. Most parents in the U.S. can't do that.
Meanwhile the kids are sitting around at home from 3pm when schools let out, thanks to shorter school days brought about by reduced budgets. There aren't too many organized, safe after school programs anymore (especially for kids who aren't athletic, or aren't into sports, which I'd be a large number of /.'ers can relate to).
Sure, 99% of the people smart enough to read this site were smart enough to separate fact from fancy at a pretty young age. But ask yourself: didn't you do anything stupid at the age of 14 (or 24) that you now look back on and go "whoa...I was an idiot..." The thing maturity brings is an ability to think through the potential consequences of your actions. That's what "learning from experience" is all about. Now, none of us (hopefully) ever decided to shoot at trucks on the highway. But I'll bet a few people here tossed things off an overpass...or put things on the train tracks...or stole a stop sign (guilty)...or any of a hundred things that could have caused serious injury. The kids involved in the GTA case are probably particularly sub-par in the brains department, but they didn't set out to hurt people, they just didn't consider that if you shoot at the side of a truck (a supposedly destructive but not dangerous act) it might have dire consequences if you MISS. (After all, how many of us miss all that often using the sniper rifle in GTA?) So, bad decision on their part.
People are incensed that TakeTwo and Sony are sued. It is descried as evidence of the out of control courts. However, what conservatives never seem to point out is that almost all of these suits are dismissed early on (and if you dig into the ones that aren't, like the infamous McDonald's coffee case, you find the facts aren't as cut-and-dried as you think). In other words, the courts aren't out of control; they are doing exactly what they are designed to do: adjudicate the rights of parties who feel they have been wronged.
One last (semi-random) point. Someone raised a first amendment issue below. That isn't really relevant here. Whether TakeTwo has a right to publish GTAIII is different from whether they can be held responsible for consequences that naturally flow from their decision to do so. (I'm not saying that shooting at trucks is a natur
I'm a lawyer with excellent karma. Something's gotta be wrong.
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.
Planned Parenthood for not stepping in, there were undoubtedly warning signs (like the parents wanting a label on the bottom of soda bottles stating -OPEN OTHER END-)
Charles Darwin (his estate) for not living long enough to personally talk to these parents and convince them to put a deer slug through their skulls
The parents themselves for not noting that their kids had been playing a Mature rated game while they were under 17.
If I had my way, there would be no lawsuit. At the first motion to bring such action, the parents should be investigated and the kids be placed in state custody, preferably in a JDC.
Why so hard?
I was raised in a single parent home and I have played every form of violent, bloody, rip-your-opponent's-whatever-off game relesed since I was, oh, say, 7 years old.
I'm 19 and now studying Journalism at UCF.
Never got around to killing anyone "just like in GTA!!" since it's easy to point out that plasma blasters and one-man-portable railguns (that fire every 2 seconds) do not exist IN REAL LIFE.