this story which a friend alterted me too http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/mar02/31536.asp
I have some questions ,
My questions are
1 he wasnt supposed to be playing computer games to begin with
He also had mental problems … what basis do they have a case ?
2 If the mother was that concerned over it couldnt of she had him committed ?
This sounds like the anti net people have found allies with the anti AD&D types
3 Can sony be held responsible anymore than say judas priest was for the suicide hassle they were in ?
Now I know theres a problem with internet addiction and videogame addiction but if he killed himself becuase he was addicted to chocolate could ya sue the makers ?
I know theres everquest players on the board id just like to get opinions on this …
Obviously Sony aren’t responsible. But they’ve got Big Buck$ - this is just another too-hot McCoffee. Hope she loses. She probably would in the UK, as the tide is turning there at last, thank god.
Most things people enjoy are “addictive” to some degree. That’s because so many of us are pleasure gluttons.
Now, I’m not saying it’s all completely her fault. If he was clinically depressed and had schizoid personality disorder or whatever, I’m not gonna say his mom is responsible for that or for his suicide. But she sure as hell comes a lot closer to being at fault than the makers of some computer game that he decided to play all day instead of living his life. This whole thing is disgusting, and the linked article about it just gets dumber the more you read. Ugh.
Yep. Hey, I stayed up all night tonight reading a novel. Great book. I may be really tired tomorrow; heck, I may lose my job! Then I can sue the publishers, for not putting labels on the book warning my that my own idiocy may cause me to ignore my responsibilities and read the book for way too long, and I can sue the author for writing a book that he knew was way too good to put down!
I am gonna be so rich…
Yeah, and I’m gonna sue the Straight Dope* for being so goddamned addictive and making me stay up and post until 4:00 AM, when I should be sleeping in preparation for my classes tomorrow. Damn you, Cecil Adams, for being so dagnammed smart!!
(*Note to admins: No, I’m not really gonna sue y’all. Don’t ban me. Please don’t ban me. It’d ruin me. It’d crush my puny little spirit.)
You used the magic word. Off to IMHO with you.
Make sure to include the bookseller on the list of vict… erm, defendants. Oh, while you’re at it, also name the teachers who taught you how to read, every reviewer who ever gave the book a positive comment, the distribution company that supplied the book to the bookseller, the printing company, and the company that supplied paper to the printers. If any one of those groups or persons had just stopped to think about the future consequences of their actions, we’d not be having this discussion. Can’t let any of these miscreants escape justice, now can we…?
This story made me think immediately of Dark Dungeons . I think it’s rather ridiculous. If he had “personality problems,” those may have made online gaming more appealing. They also may have lead to his suicide, but I don’t think the online gaming led to his suicide. It sounds like a post hoc assumption to me.
Oh for Pete’s sake!! This would be so easy to refute. I’m sure there are plenty of people that commited suicide for religious reasons, so should religion be banned or sued?
Here we go again.
This illustrates two of the biggest problems I see with society:
First, that the mother is blaming everyone else but her and her son- where they could have made choices to avoid this problem, if they only talked to each other. She seems to be motivated by greed now, with dollars signs marching in her head from the advice of lawyers who smell a huge settlement or a friendly judgment. It’s easier to blame the strawman.
Second, that certain religious groups will offer these uncontested opinions as “facts” to their congregations, and use this whole piece- like Dark Dungeons- to “prove” that RPGs are “evil” and should be banned (because they encourage free thought, anathema to religion.)
Clarissa_xx, go for both!
General opinion on the EQ boards I frequent are that it’s a shame, but anyone that messed up as to kill themselves over EQ is going to find something else to obsess over instead. Sure you can find people on EQ who take things too seriously or spend too much time on there. Just like on IRC, message boards, or chatting and playing Yahoo! chess for all hours. I think it has more to do with the internet than the actual application using the net.
I want to copy this thread and send it to this woman with a little note saying something like ‘Look. WE ARE MAKING FUN OF YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE STUPID.’
Man, stuff like this really burns me up.
I think the evercrack lawsuit is bs, but when a company sells coffee so hot that it requires hospitalization and surgery to correct the damage if you spill it on you(and they had been warned before), they need to get spanked by the courts.
The funniest thing about all this “role-playing games are evil” false meme is that it finally kicked up enough dust a few studies (physchology-wise) were done on sample populations of teenagers (since they were pre-supposed to a higher ‘vulnerability’ than adults). I can Google for them (or you can), but as I recall (late 1970’s early 1980’s range of time) the results were quite embarrassing for the church propogandists at that time.
You see, not only did the role-playing game population score better at socialization skills, there was also a statistically meaningful edge on mathematics and reasoning skills over the general population.
Oh, and that ‘it makes them suicidal’ meme? The results of the study showed that the suicide rate among RPGers was (by my recollection) about 0.4 per 1,000. This compared to 4 per 1,000 in the general population of studied teenagers (who have twice the rate of suicide as adults, or did at the time). This makes me really curious - what would a study of RPG adults show?
Kinda kicks the idea that ‘it’s bad for you and evil’ in the teeth if the suicide among RPGers is even lower than among religiously devout teenagers, doesn’t it?
I’ll try and find the white papers again, to back myself up…
IMO, this EQ lawsuit is ridiculous and a waste of our tax dollars.