Columbine parents sue game makers

April 25, 2001 7:32 AM

Columbine parents sue game makers Claiming computer games partially at fault for Colombine killings, parents of victims have brought a law suit against game makers...will this be viewed as unprovable cause of the shootings or bring about a study of relationship between violence and games?
posted by Postroad (18 comments total)

Double post.
posted by anapestic at 7:36 AM on April 25, 2001

Postroad, you participated in the discussion referenced by anapestic not 3 days ago. How is this a different topic?
posted by starvingartist at 7:38 AM on April 25, 2001

Since this has basically been covered before, I'm not going to comment on the topic yet. I would like to share an observation, though:

Apparently, nobody in the media ever cares to find out the correct capitalization of id Software. There are no capital letters in the name. "Id" is wrong, but understandable. I don't know where people get "iD" and "ID" from.
posted by CrayDrygu at 7:43 AM on April 25, 2001

If the Columbine killers were strafing and hoping up and down the halls, then you could argue that they were influenced by Doom and Quake.
posted by ignu at 8:00 AM on April 25, 2001

Hey! truly sorry. Age takes its toll! .
posted by Postroad at 8:03 AM on April 25, 2001

This is just another example at people (parents) pointing the finger at everyone but themselves. What's next? Is someone going to sue the makers of auto racing games saying that it contributes to reckless driving? Or maybe someone will file a lawsuit against Nintendo claiming that the mushrooms in their Super Mario Bros. games tempted their child into taking hallucinogens? Don't you love scapegoats? I don't.
posted by GrooveJedi at 8:09 AM on April 25, 2001

starvingartist: although the denver post article linked to before isn't available now, i don't think id was ever mentioned directly. however, i agree that this post was unneccesary. *slaps postroad* :)
posted by pnevares at 8:14 AM on April 25, 2001

Man, we really need contextual tags. Sorry, postroad, I'm sure you know it wasn't a personal attack. I really did want to know if maybe there was something different about this thread. I hope I'm not turning into a troll.
posted by starvingartist at 8:31 AM on April 25, 2001

Yeah, if they were really influenced by those games, they would have used the Super Nail Gun, or the BFG 2000.
posted by ktheory at 9:28 AM on April 25, 2001

starvingartist: Try this handy checklist:

• do you live under a bridge?
• do you like to eat goats (espescially billy-)
• are you hairy and ugly and huge?
• do you take pleasure from manipulating other humans into saying stupid things? (I know I do)
• do you find yourself reverting to monosyllabic communication or engaging in violent (bear with me) "troll"-like behavior?
• do you have hairy palms?

posted by sonofsamiam at 9:52 AM on April 25, 2001

Hey, wait....

Starvingartist: child star... :-)
posted by jpoulos at 11:01 AM on April 25, 2001

CrayDrygu, I catch myself using "iD" at times. I don't have a good explanation for it, except that I'm reasonably certain their logo, around the time of Wolfenstein or Doom, was a bronze "iD" on a granite-looking background, and it's since changed. I'm probably wrong though.
posted by cCranium at 11:02 AM on April 25, 2001

Evan Todd, the 255-lb. defensive lineman who was wounded in the library, describes the climate this way: "Columbine is a clean, good place except for those rejects," Todd says of Klebold and Harris and their friends. "Most kids didn't want them there. They were into witchcraft. They were into voodoo dolls. Sure, we teased them. But what do you expect with kids who come to school with weird hairdos and horns on their hats? It's not just jocks; the whole school's disgusted with them. They're a bunch of homos, grabbing each other's private parts. If you want to get rid of someone, usually you tease 'em. So the whole school would call them homos, and when they did something sick, we'd tell them, 'You're sick and that's wrong.'" - Time The Columbine Tapes, 12/20/99

Of course they're filing suit.
posted by maxBell at 11:04 AM on April 25, 2001

A history of the id software name and logo. No cap, although cCranium's suggestion seemed to match my memory. It's an old, old misunderstanding, though: see Blue's News from July 9, 1998 ("Out of the Blue").

Thank God for fine upstanding Americans like Evan Todd. Intolerance, of course, is a virtue.
posted by dhartung at 2:45 PM on April 25, 2001

This all sounds good to me. If you can milk money out of someone, why not hey?

I think all of the families of car crash victims should be suing Papyrus and Sony for Indycar Racing and Gran Turismo. I definitely think Gran Turismo affected me a lot. I quit playing it as soon as I got a car. Coincidence? I think Gran Turismo has turned me into a killing machine on the roads! Wahey!

Of course, it's just bullshit, and Americans know that their legal system will pamper to their whims if their bank balance is big enough. Let's hope those Columbine parents are rich.. if they're rich enough to win the case then they're just deluded, but not stupid.
posted by wackybrit at 6:27 PM on April 25, 2001

I got your BFG right here.

pfft.
posted by SentientAI at 7:06 AM on April 26, 2001

um why aren't they suing microsoft too the os that allowed tham to play the game, and the electric company that provided the power for it and...
posted by omike at 2:59 AM on April 29, 2001

1 more thing, about media and violent games in general desensitizing our whole culture to violence. There's some way out stat that by the time a kid is in 6th grade they've seen 1000's of violent acts on tv & the movies. Toss that in with 1st person shooters um i'd say you have some influence there....
posted by omike at 3:06 AM on April 29, 2001