What about all the violence and shooting on the TV news? Or in films and TV and novels? Or in history books - let’s sue history teachers!
I, of course, believe this is total bullshit. However, there was a stint where I was not working and played GTA Vice City non-stop for hours a day. It was weird how it messed with my mind, e.g. if I took a break and drove to the store I would have to overcome the urge to drive wrecklessly. Also, if I saw a military caravan moving from base to base (Hummers, personel carriers) for a fraction of a second I would freak out thinking I had 5 stars and they were coming for me! Also, if I saw a Corvette for a fleeting moment I thought “Mmm, that’s a fast car.”
I’m in no way saying this lawsuit has any merit or that video games cause kids or anyone for that matter to commit crimes.
Do you mean wreckfully or recklessly? 
When I was playing MechWarrior 5 for hours on end, and I was walking about IRL and wanted to look at something in my peripheral vision, I tried to “torso twist”. 
I stayed up all night playing Hitman 2: Silent Assasin. It is an interesting game which allows you to play fast and loose with big guns, but encourages you to play it tight and neat to earn the rating “Silent Assasin”. Typically, the way to get an SA rating is to only kill one person (the mark) per level, be sure not to be recognized by anybody, and don’t set off any alerts. You accomplish this by using chloroform, disguises, distractions, and speed. Of course, unlike some other bitch ass games which force you to use stealth :cough - Metal Gear - cough:, if you do end up setting off an alert you can just go ballistic and murder everyone (which will earn you the rating of, appropriately enough, “Mass Murderer”).
The weapon which achieves the most silent kill, and also the most satisfying, is the Fibre Wire. The Fibre Wire, or Chokey - as I like to call it, is a short piece of Nylon rope with two handles (think jump rope grips). You sneak up behind people and quickly wrap it around their neck, and then you proceed to choke the ever-loving-life out of them until they are good and dead. Then you can take their clothes if you like, and it is suggested that you drag the body somewhere and hide it, so other guards won’t find him (or her) and sound the alert. The thing about this weapon is that it is very difficult to use properly. You have to hide and creep up on people without them seeing you. Tricky. Getting through the game using this as your primary is very difficult and takes alot of retry action to figure out how the guards will behave and to get a feel for the layout.
Anyhow, I’ve been messing with the final level and on that level you are supposed to kill everyone. It is a mission objective! So, I’ve already beaten it going gang-busters, but I’m playing for finesse now. So I spent the better part of the night figuring out the best way to sneak up on about 10 guys and choke them to death. Then I have to go into a church and kill about 10 more guys from the rafters (with a silenced sniper rifle). It’s a cool game that lets you fire off a machine gun in a wonderfully detailed rendering of a church. Good amout of blood, too.
Now, you may ask yourself what the hell is my point. My point is that GTA is tame. The killings are cartoonish and laughable. There are games out there where the death is somewhat disturbing and very realistic. And I have played them for about 6 hours at a clip. I haven’t murdered anyone. Actually, since I got my PS2 I’ve murdered less people then ever before! Catharsis, I tell you. Catharsis. These kids need BETTER simulations of murder and mayhem to satisfy the hunger. These kids playing Diablo couldn’t get any relief from that D&D bullshite. Give the kid a real game. GTA is a good start, but if you don’t follow it up then the foundation to a sound mind is wasted. Kids are gonna have homicidal urges no matter what we do. Better to channel them into a video game then into actual homicidal rampages. Usually, anyhow.
DaLovin’ Dj
And when I played too much Ridge Racer back in the day I kept getting the urge to block cars that tried to go around me.
I don’t use the rearview mirror in racers anymore for that specific reason.
I’d like to know what he told the plaintiffs in order to convince them to sue. These cases ALWAYS get dismissed. I’d like to know how he convinced them that this one would be any different.
Naturally this is all the fault of the video game makers and nothing to do with people who bought an adult-restricted game for children, or the parents who let them play it, or the parents who raised idiots who can’t tell the difference between reality and fiction, or the parents that allowed them access to a gun and bullets, or the manufacturers of the gun.
Nope, nothing to do with them.
Somebody needs to go back to law school and review the meaning of proximate cause.
Where’s all the underage drinking lawsuits? Tapper must have influenced somebody!
Ah, yes, when you hear the words “Vancouver” and “tabloid” in the same sentence, you just know that the subject of discussion is that venerable institution, The Province.
Never has so much newsprint been wasted in producing so little intelligent journalism for so many moronic readers.
The popularity of this paper is one of the few things that shakes my confidence in and love for the beautiful city of Vancouver.
Both. Me talk pretty one day.
My thoughts exactly. People might start to like fireworks or something.
Will they sue Biggirl then?
Or it may be that the chain of events you are using to describe the situation is different from the chain of events the lawyer in the article is using. I didn’t see anything in his statement that indicates he doesn’t understand proximate cause, although I would almost certainly agree that he is wrong as to which link in the chain the burdern of proximate cause falls on.
Enjoy,
Steven
I’m a civil libertarian and hardcore gamer but I do have to admit that some kids might very well be inspired by GTA3 to mimick similar acts of violence.
Ah, no. The quoted language is talking about “but-for” causation. He’s basically saying that any injury that would be avoided but for the occurrence of a given event yields liability for the person responsible for that given event. But that’s only part of the picture: the given event also cannot be too remote from the injury; that is, it must also be a proximate cause of the injury. The lawyer’s statement of the law is thus incomplete.
Obviously, I was being snarky: presumably, this guy got through law school and is a practicing member of the plaintiff’s bar, and thus actually does understand the concept of proximate causation. But that understanding wasn’t reflected in his comments. Hence my jab.
Very likely, but the question is, without GTA3, would these kids have never been inspired to violence? Would a kid who smashed in someone’s head Tommy Vercetti-style not be equally likely to imitate violence from any other medium, or from the nightly news, or from his parents or peers?
“It is ridiculous to believe that videogames affect children. If, for example, Pac-Man affected children in the eighties, we should have a lot of young adults today that run around in dark rooms, taking pills while listening to monotone music.”
Raves? 
So that I’m not doubling negatives let me just say that most likely anyone who commits violence was likely to do so regardless of the amount or quality of inspiration from a game. BUT I could definately see a kid who is violent by nature/upbringing and who could presumably play DOOM without resorting to violence, be inspired to do so by GTA3. I could also see another child who might very well have resorted to acting out GTA3esque scenes had they not had a virtual hooker to beat. I’m not up on the outcome of cases in the vein of “The lyrics made him kill himself,” but if the claimants won in any of those cases then I wouldn’t be surprised if they won in this one.