Slashdot Mirror
Grandma Sues Over Hot Coffee Mod
Bond_James writes "Ars Technica is reporting that an 85-year old New York woman has filed a civil suit against Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive. She alleges that the defendants 'engaged in misleading and deceptive practices in packaging and selling' the game, which she purchased for her 14-year old grandson. This will be interesting, and scary, to watch unfold in the courtrooms. Will the M (17+) rating of the game save Rockstar?"
The story says she bought the game in 2004, that means it was the ps2 version. The only way to accees the mod for that version is if you have a modchip and manualy modify the files (or so every other story says). Anyway is it not her fault for buying a 14 year old a game desgined for 17+.
So, Granny fails to notice the M(17+) rating. Ok, it's not very prominent or well know. Then she completly ignores the box art, which I guess she could have overlooked on account of the way a lot of art is done these days. Finally, she didn't pick up on the fact that the game is named after a rather major felony. How oblivious do you have to be to buy this game for a 14 year old kid? Not to mention that she has managed to completly miss all of the noise made about the last installment. I'm sorry but she, and all of her offspring need to be scraped out of the gene pool as too stupid to breed.
Yes, she's an old granny, and may not get out much, but she has the ability to get a lawyer and sue, so please don't give me the "she's an old confused lady" bit. If she is able to track down a lawyer and start a lawsuit over this, she should have been capable of figuring out that this game may not have been appropriate for her grandson.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Just package the game in a set of styrofoam titties, or require that stores set up their displays, the customer has to reach through the vagina hole of a big latex pussy with a throbbing red clit to grab a box.
That ought to make it clear to even the most shriveled up grandma that this game is not for children, and you're fucking responsible for what you buy, not anyone else.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Imagine the outrage if she had purchased her son the August 2005 issue of National Geographic Magazine. There is a photo of a nude woman in it! We must start checking IDs on magazine purchases and institute a rating system at once!
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Fuck you, grandma. You are, plain and simply, an idiot.
...will be:
(a) will Rockstar report her to the local Dept of Social Services for providing the game to the 14 year old,
(b) will Rockstar turn around, if this lawsuit actually proceeds, and sue the modders for violating EULAs, and
(c) will Rockstar bite the bullet and start refusing to submit their games voluntarily to the ESRB for rating at all?
As far as I'm concerned, the hype surrounding this, the Congressional involvement, and the lack of parental responsibility in the equation are far more criminal than anything that Rockstar has done.
She's suing not only for herself, but for "everyone else who purchased the game." Since I purchased it I am someone she thinks she is protecting. So let me talk to Ms. Florence Cohen of NY directly for a second...
Hey, Flo, I don't need your protection. I can read the labels on the box just fine by myself.
Yes, GTA:SA is a mature game. That's why it was sold with an ESRB rating of "M" (now "AO" for adults only). "M" games are sales limited to people who are seventeen years of age or older. Rockstar, Take Two, the reseller, and the clerk at the store did nothing wrong by selling Ms. Cohen GTA:SA. That is, unless she is only sixteen yet has managed to have two generations of Cohens come after her. Her mistake was her own. She gave an "M" title to a person under the age of seventeen. If the government wants laws to punish clerks who sell titles to people outside of the posted age ranges shouldn't there also be punishments for people who traffic these games to children? She, either intentionally or not, was corrupting her grandson by giving him a game that the game industry reviewed, rated, and clearly labeled as not suitable for him.
Outside of Ms. Cohen no one is at fault here. The voluntary rating worked, the box was clearly labeled with the restriction, and the store didn't sell the game to anyone under the proper age.
I'll close by suggesting a new title for the article, "Ignorant Grandmother who bought 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' without reading the label is suing the manufacturer instead of taking responsibility for her mistake".
Again with the grandma, and the hot coffee, and the lawsuits....
When will they learn to stay away from hot coffee.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
If a parent attends an R-rated movie with their child, are they "contributing to deliquency?"
While the case can be made that taking a child to a R-rated movie is indeed contributing to delinquency, I'm going to focus instead on the second part of your statement:
Because it's exactly the same circumstance.
Wrong. Unless Grandma sits next to the child during every second of gameplay, sharing in the experience with him, it is not even remotely the same circumstance. The situation would be closer to Grandma getting the kid inside a theater where an R-rated movie is playing, and then leaving him to his own devices.
Next time, think through your analogy before you post, please.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
It's a valid point: GTA is saturated with violence of some of the most offensive kind, a little sex should be the least of a parent or grand parent's worries, right? It's OK to grease police and mobsters, steal cars and blow things up, pick up hookers, but sex, now that's going too far?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
First off, Rockstar should report her and the children's parents to family services for neglect.
Next, they should sue the kid and his parents. They could claim that he modified the ROT-26 protected binary and used the product in a manner not in accordance with the EULA.
Sue the grandma also. She bought the game and then gave it to someone else. I'm pretty sure the EULA only gives the purchacer the right to use the product.
They should probably sue Jack Thompson for public disclosure of a unaddressed security flaw. Jack should have sent a private memo to Rockstar and given them time to revove the flaw.
Then they should sue Mattell. Your Rockstar should claim they bought a barbie doll and a ken doll for their kids. The kids were latter seen playing with the dolls having simulated sex.
Then sue Lego. You can put thoes things into some funny positions making it look like simulated sex.
Sue the Catholic church for including "Song of Solomon" in the Bible. Sue the Protestants while you are at it.
They should Sue Bill Clinton for having simulated sex in the Oval Office.
Sue Hillary for not divorcing her cheating, lying husband. Women putting up with that shit degrades the American Family. Damn her for not setting a better example for our young women.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
I don't know... this is a lawsuit over hot coffe. Companies should know by now to use extreme caution with anyhthing with that moniker.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
1. Grandma buys adult game for minor
... I think the woman is a total bitch trying to cash in on something that had nothing to do with her ... but here's hoping all she ends up with are steep legal fees as she wastes the court's time, and steps closer and closer to her coffin
2. Grandma sues industry
3. Court throws case out
4. Precedent is set and fewer people try to do the same
Don't get me wrong
This isn't about the video game. By now that should be obvious to most people.
This is about some opportunitstic, sleazebag lawyer and an 85-year-old incompetent parental figure trying to make a quick buck, or get their 15 minutes of attention.
The less we talk about this frivolous lawsuit and the losers involved, the better.