[Intrepid Homoludens]

Parents Sue Over Game Linked to Shooting
Wed Oct 22, 3:56 AM ET

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - A $246 million lawsuit was filed against the designer, marketer and a retailer of the video game series "Grand Theft Auto" by the families of two people shot by teenagers apparently inspired by the game.

The suit claims marketer Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., designers Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games, and Wal-Mart, are liable for $46 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages.

Aaron Hamel, 45, a registered nurse, was killed and Kimberly Bede, 19, of Moneta, Va., was seriously wounded when their cars were hit June 25 by .22-caliber bullets as they passed through the Great Smoky Mountains.

Stepbrothers William Buckner, 16, and Joshua Buckner, 14, of Newport, were sentenced in August to an indefinite term in state custody after pleading guilty in juvenile court to reckless homicide, endangerment and assault.

The boys told investigators they got the rifles from a locked room in their home and decided to randomly shoot at tractor-trailer rigs, just like in the video game "Grand Theft Auto III."

In a suit filed Monday in Cocke County Circuit Court on behalf of the victims, Miami lawyer Jack Thompson and local lawyer Richard Talley alleged the game "inspires and trains players to shoot at vehicles and persons."

"These kids simply decided to take the thrill of that game out to Interstate 40 and started pointing at cars," Thompson said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Thompson, who said he sent letters to Sony and Wal-Mart to drop the game before the shootings, said, "It's not like this is coming out of the blue, they chose to ignore this danger."

San Mateo, Calif.-based Sony and Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart did not return calls for comment Tuesday. The lawsuit alleges the retail giant sold the game to the Buckners about a year before the shootings.

Douglas Lowenstein, president of the industry Entertainment Software Association, called the shootings "an unspeakable tragedy" but said blaming a game played by millions for the boys' actions was "misguided and counterproductive."

"There is no credible evidence that violent games lead to violent behavior," he said. "While video games may provide a simple excuse for the teenagers involved in this incident, responsibility for violent acts belongs to those who commit them."

Thompson has made similar claims in the past and lost, notably a $33 million lawsuit against video game makers stemming from the 1997 school shooting near Paducah, Ky., by a 14-year-old boy.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) ruled in the case last year that it was "simply to far a leap from shooting characters on a video screen to shooting people in a classroom."

(my highlights)

NOTE: The story has absolutely no mention of where the childrens' parents were at the time. The children are evidently below the age of consent to play the game. Sony and Wal-Mart did not specify that the game is meant only to be played by adults, nor did they or the childrens' parents offer an explanation of how the kids acquired the game. Did the parents purchase it for them? Did they buy the game on their own without being checked for an I.D. by Wal-Mart?

[twifkak]

For context, Jack Thompson has been doing this forever. He's the guy that went after Motley Crue.

And now for something completely different...

[Zygomaticus]

Precisely! How in the hec to do kids acquire a game like that, and how in the hec to their parents aprove of it! Blame the parents, not the game.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - kids who act reproducing actions from computer games (especially one this violent) can't have been normal to begin with. I doubt the game would brainwash any normal kid. And based off of this, I would think it more reasonable if the parents blamed the kids and their parents, rather than the game.

[Kingzjester]

I think someone should feed those kids to giant monkeys and cows...

...just like in Black & White...

Kids make good eatin'.

And now: why did they put the church right where that Famicom vandalism thing is likely to happen, I ask you? They were asking for it.

[Erwin_Br]

I think Rock Star should sue the families because they suck at parenting. Or something. Or wait, Rock Star should sue both families because they are sueing them and giving them bad publicity while it's not Rock Star's fault, but the fault of the parents themselves.

Oh well.

--Erwin

[Zygomaticus]

And to add - this is as silly as the man suing McDonalds for making him fat!

Absurd.

[Kingzjester]

Only here, folks, only here.

[Tanukitsune]

Sigh...
Parents don't seem to care what their kids play until they go postal....
Since irresponsible parents will always be irresponsible...
The only solution is for game stores to ask for some ID...
Is this normal? If a kid goes to a rental store and ask for Cannibal Holocaust, they won't let him, but they let him rent Quake or Resident Evil...
That remids me, spanish parents are so obsessed with anime, they think it makes kids pyscho, they prefer to let them watch South Park...
Ok, I've been playing since I was 5, now I'm 26, nearly 27, I read manga and Tales From The Crypt, I watch anime, martial arts movies and slasher flicks...
And of course I am a gamer... I work at a butcher shop and I am actually trying to get a public job as a postman.... (he he postal butcher!)
Tell that to paranoid parents, they'll send the cops on me before you finish the sentence....
Am I pyscho? No! Is anybody in this forum pyscho? Well. maybe Kingz...(jusy kidding don't kill me)....
Behind a pychotic kid there are usually irresponsible parents or even worst violent parents....
But they never EVER admit they raised their son wrong... They'd blame anything or anyone before admitting that maybe THEY did something wrong...
Sigh... All games come with a label that says if its PG or not... Do parent bother to look? NO!
Meh!Harumph!And futhermore Nee!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Kingzjester

I think someone should feed those kids to giant monkeys and cows...

That is so damn cruel, Kingz!

PETA's lawyers are gonna gang rape your lawyer for your suggesting that.

[Kolzig]

Originally Posted by Kingzjester

[IMG]

Only here, folks, only here.

Now that's a mug I'd love to have on my shelf

[twifkak]

It should be pointed out, however, that Rockstar is a bunch of

Spoiler:

dicks

. They pressured magazines into, I believe the rules were 96+ score and 3 cover pages, via their "preview" leverage. If I find the article, I'll post it -- it was translated from Dutch OPM.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Kolzig

Now that's a mug I'd love to have on my shelf

The other side of those mugs say 'They need all the damned help they can get'.

[velvet_fireball]

ugh not again. 'video games did this, video games did that'. It's as bad as a gun ban. Excuse me but who plays the games and who aims the gun and pulls the trigger?

Yknow these storys annoy me almost as much as 'chat rooms are evil' storys. Why do they never say 'well the kids shouldn't have been doing that in the first place'? A group of kids are playing on a train track, one of em gets hit by a train and becomes something gross that gets cleaned off the track. Who's fault is it? Noooo never the 'innocent little darlings' who were tresspassing on the train track in the first place, it's the train companies of course.

If parents don't want their kids going 'postal' maybe they should keep an eye on them instead of sitting in front of the idiot box getting fat off potato chips and beer?

[twifkak]

I think what you're looking for is this:

[nordic_guy]

I don't know how the situation is in the US. But here, at least, it's very easy to get a game with 18+ as game stores doesn't seem to pay much attention to the rate.
But these are clearly kids with issues, and it was probably bound to happen sometime. They could sue the whole gaming industry, but it would still not help these kids a bit. If they looked after their kids in the first place, none of this would have happened. And if they knew they were playing this game and had a problem about it, they should have done something then.
This is their responsibility.

[Henke]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

NOTE: The story has absolutely no mention of where the childrens' parents were at the time. The children are evidently below the age of consent to play the game. Sony and Wal-Mart did not specify that the game is meant only to be played by adults, nor did they or the childrens' parents offer an explanation of how the kids acquired the game. Did the parents purchase it for them? Did they buy the game on their own without being checked for an I.D. by Wal-Mart?

Excuse a simple man but the smallest question that tragedy raises for me is how the kids got hold of the videogame they blame for the whole thing. I rather like to know how they got hold of the riffles (from a locked room).

It's obvious that the reason that someone wants to kill or hurt another person has absolutely nothing to do with games (or movies or music for that matter). It's connected to that persons mental state. No one is born evil. A child takes after the environment in which it grows up.

[ragnar]

A few years ago they blamed every bad thing kids did on role playing games (not the computer variants). Before that it was video violence. Now it is computer games.

How the heck did those kids get the weapons in the first place? Why isn't anyone sueing the bloody weapon makers or those that provided the weapons to the kids?

[twifkak]

According to some comment on some /. story (i forget
which, and don't feel like searching), hunting is big in that neck of the woods, so guns aren't uncommon, and neither is seeing teenagers with them.

[Titan]

ragnar, there are lawsuits going against gun manufacturers over here. Lawsuits are this nation's national pastime. Targets of the trial lawyers are like a big bang universe undergoing expansion. Cigarettes, guns, fast food, video games, etc . . . ad nauseum.

The common denominator is that the individual is never at fault, some group or something else is. It amazes me that people see nothing inconsistent with agreeing with the ox or the gored depending on their presuppositions.

[remixor]

Originally Posted by twifkak

I think what you're looking for is this:

Heh, I put comics and other bits of media up on my door if they illustrate some point about which I feel strongly, and that PA has been up there since it came out.