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Game Violence Lawsuit Hits Take Two, Sony, Wal-Mart
oDDmON oUT writes "According to TBO/AP, $246 million is being sought from hardware manufacturer Sony, game publisher Take Two, and retailer Wal-Mart, by the families of victims killed by two teenagers supposedly inspired by Grand Theft Auto. The suit was initiated by Miami lawyer, Jack Thompson, and is not the first time that Thompson has attempted to sue game makers. His crusade to implicate video games in violent incidents has led to countless media appearances, but his 1997 efforts to implicate id and others in a $33 million dollar suit stemming from a school shooting ultimately failed, when the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case, writing that: 'We find that it is simply too far a leap from shooting characters on a video screen to shooting people in a classroom.'" This looks to be an extension of the lawsuit filed last month.
That storyline may have been removed but the plot about a cabin boy/slave who loves his master despite the fact he regularly physically hurts him was kept in. The aforementioned underage boy will flirt openly with male characters in the group.
The irony with Walmart being inconsistant with its demands for censorship is it leaves them wide open to the charge of disapproving of consenting adults paying for sex, while having no problem with child abuse...
Whereas if they hadn't censored the brothel, they could at least argue that they don't care about the content as long as minors don't buy it.
It's a bit like demanding the rocking car in GTA3 is taken out while having no problem with killing a hooker for her money. It generates a rather mixed message about your morality.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
This week's tops at the box office is Time Warner's remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which took in a whopping 28 million dollars for a 9 thousand dollar per screen average, yet only featured one dismemberment every 20 minutes. It dethroned Disney's ultraviolent Kill Bill, which continued to charge ahead at the box office. With an enviable 3 week total of 43.2 million dollars it's averaging 240 thousand dollars for every man woman and child disembowled, dismembered, or decapitated for your viewing pleasure.
In other news, a spat of school violence is sweeping across the nation. "I didn't even realize that trenchcoat wearing freak existed before he put on a hockey mask, pulled out a 2-foot machete, and started lumbering towards everyone" one spunky but virtuous survivor at a Des Moines High School told reporters. "We usually just laughed at him. Then he started killing us. Then the cops shot him dead. Who is laughing now Freak?"
Parents across the nation have uncovered the source of the violence: games that you play on your television, AKA "Videoed-Games" were present in all of the troubled children's rooms. "My son was a model student," the mother of one such corrupted child told reporters Tuesday, "the babysitter said he always came home from school on time, he never missed a meal (food disappeared regularly from the refridgerator), and he was so quiet and respectful those times we took him to see House of the Dead, 28 Days, House of 1000 corpses, and Spy Kids 3D. The other kids roughed him up a bit, but you know... boys will be boys. And then... And then..." The mother broke down into tears, "And then we accidentally opened the door to his room, and discovered these shiny little disks everywhere. They all had names like 'Devil Dice,' 'Dark Savior,' and 'Speed Devils Online'. He had a House of the Dead game that was so realistic it integrated footage from the movie! I immediatly increased his beatings from one to four per day. But even that wasn't enough to save him from the influence of these Demon Games."
"His father will be furious when the warden tells him," she added. "I'm so upset by this gaming-inspired lack of morality, I need to go watch 'Special Victims Unit.'" The mother then left the interview, forgetting the small baby she had brought with her.
The ______ Agenda
All those hours playing Pac-Man and Burger-Time made me eat too much!
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
Take Two and Sony should not be sued -- they did their part by putting a MA rating on the game.
Wal*Mart on the other hand, should be sued because they allegedly sold the game to kids who are under the age of the MA rating. If their parents bought the game, then Wal*Mart should not be sued, but rather their parents should.
This is an easy case to close IMO.
Phil