32 replies to this topic

[Noor]

I just thought its an interesting read. Comments?

Quote

"GAMES COMPANY Blizzard is facing a lawsuit from Chinese parents who claim that its fantasy game World of Warcraft killed their son.

According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, the 13 year old boy jumped to his death while reenacting a scene from the game."

you can read the full story here.

[.oisyn]

I find it remarkable how his parents, whom I think are to blame in the first place, just shove the responsibility around like a box in sokoban. Pun intended.

[Zoulz]

God, not this again. :no:
Games don't kill people. People kill people. We all live in a pvp realm.

If parents had better supervision over their children, these things wouldn't happen.

[bignobody]

Too bad for their lawsuit that he had to agree to the EULA before installing the game. They generally remove all legal liability from the developer/publisher.

Anyway, I agree. Parents fault. Watch your damn kids!

[eddie]

The kid was 13!! If you have to pay for your kid to play the game, does that make you an accomplice in his death then?

Jesus. ACCOUNTABILITY people.

[Rofar]

Although I agree that the game or Blizzard is not at fault here, I have a problem placing the blame directly on the parents. I mean how many times in my life have I done stupid things that could have killed me? Were those my parents fault? Well, whatever you think, the answer is no. Even good parents can't protect kids from themselves or the dangers of society in general.

[eddie]

Sure Rofar, I agree: parents can't be everywhere.

But they're arguing (or some other family: the article lumps all parents into one) that the kids spend too much time on these games and such, and in this case it led to a death.

If your kid has a sickly addiction to *anything*, you've got a rather large window to step in and do *something*. I'm not saying parenting is easy, but it's definitely *necessary*.

Why do people prefer lawsuits to talking to their kid?

[.oisyn]

I'm with eddie. Sure, the primary blame goes to the kid himself, he's 13 and he should damn well know what is real and what isn't. But he was addicted to the game. When I was 13 I also played my fair share of games. I wished I played more but my parents didn't let me. They said I should go outside and play with my friends. They even hid the power cable so I couldn't play (ok, I was getting lousy grades at school as well )

This is called parenting, and if I tossed myself out of the window my parents would never start a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the game. That's just stepping aside from your responsibility as a parent.

[Methulah]

Yeah. When I was 13 I played a lot of video games, but my parents were always around to get me off it, and I never once lost grasp of reality. It isn't really anyones fault, the kid must have been a bit disturbed to think he had higher hit points than he would take fall damage.

Some people will lose touch with reality, most won't. That is the reality.

[monjardin]

Methulah said:

the kid must have been a bit disturbed to think he had higher hit points than he would take fall damage

Did you read that in an article or make it up? I find that interesting. :sad:
I've never really liked the idea of hit points in games. There was an old pencil & paper RPG called Paranoia. Instead of hit points, you could be stunned, wounded, incapacitated, killed or vaporized. Two wounds equals incapacitated and three equals killed. Some fighting games have used similar ideas. For example: get hit in the legs and you can't walk; get hit in the arm and you can't use it; get hit in the head and well....
If he had understood that damaging a particular component of your body could ruin you regardless of the magnitude of the damage maybe he wouldn't have done it.
I appologize if any of you find this irreverent.

[Jufa]

...that gave me an idea....

[bignobody]

monjardin said:

I appologize if any of you find this irreverent.

Hey, I LIVE for irreverence ;)

[monjardin]

Jufa said:

...that gave me an idea....

Are you going to leave us in suspense?!? :sad:

[Jufa]

of course i am >:]

[eddie]

Jufa said:

of course i am >:]

Just as long as you don't sue monjardin when someone kills themselves after playing your game, secrecy's OK. :)

[Jufa]

I hope no one kills themselves when they play my game :)
(if they do... the EULA... THE EULA!)


back to topic:
damn! why some ppl can't understand that everything that is doable in the game world isnt doable in real world? :(

[monjardin]

How careless of me! Now I'll have to retain counsel before posting to these forums. :surrender

[Mihail121]

I always imagined my room as Q2DM1 and even tried to find a railgun in the bath under the water so I can shoot outl some 'opponents' on the 'main square' but I coudn't find the damn thing. But hey, after all guns don't kill people - I DO!!!!!

[eddie]

It's funny how often stuff like that happens.

Some guys where I used to work, wrote a map for counterstrike, that looked exactly like where we worked. It was before my time, but apparently it was a lot of fun, and you got to put a picture of your face on your model, and blow away your coworkers.

Taking a look at it from the subjective point of view of a Jack-Thompson-ish type, I could see them pointing the finger at these types of tactics...

But what about things like paintball? Lazer tag? Hell, traditional "cops-and-robbers" games that kids play?

I never understood the difference.

[haxorphreak]

eddie said:

previous post

I agree. Once one of my teachers and a few students thought I was going Colombine when I was making a map of my school.
.....I just like the layout. :unsure: