Grand Theft Auto makers sued over teenage killing

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ne...p?story=444521

Those teens are morons. Also those damn lawyers have nothing better to do.:rolleyes:

What's your views on this?

18 September 2003
The makers of the bestselling video game Grand Theft Auto are being sued for more than £60m after two teenagers said they were copying its violent scenes when they killed a man.

The court case could help to decide the debate over whether violent video and computer games cause aggression in children. Grand Theft Auto and its three sequels are designed in Britain and have topped the UK and US games charts, selling more than 20 million copies in the past five years. The player acts the role of a street thug with 40 different weapons.

Points, ammunition and more weapons are awarded for completing missions that include stealing cars, crashing them, shooting pedestrians and other motorists, drug dealing and beating up prostitutes. The fourth in the series, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, quickly became the bestselling video game in history when it was launched last year, with 250,000 copies sold in the first two days.

The $100m legal action involves Joshua Buckner, 14, and his stepbrother William, 16, from Newport, Tennessee, who shot dead Aaron Hamel, 45, and seriously injured Kimberly Bede, 19, on 25 June.

The two boys told police they shot at vehicles on a highway near their home with a .22 rifle in an attempt to recreate images from Grand Theft Auto. Mr Hamel, a nurse, was killed while driving home to Knoxville, Tennessee. Miss Bede, who was travelling in another car with her boyfriend, was seriously injured and has eight fragments of shrapnel in her pelvis.

The Buckner brothers had no criminal record or any history of trouble-making. In court last month, they pleaded guilty to reckless homicide, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. They were sentenced to indefinite detention. District Attorney General Al Schmutzer told the court: "They said they got the idea from a video game called Grand Theft Auto and that they were bored, that they went out and began shooting."

In a letter to victims and their families, Joshua said: "I did not mean to hurt anyone. I hate that it happened. This will stick with me for the rest of my life."

Miss Bede and the family of Aaron Hamel plan to sue Take-Two Interactive Software, which publishes Grand Theft Auto, for liability in a wrongful death lawsuit. Take-Two owns Rockstar Games, which is based in Edinburgh and designed the first version of the game in 1997. Sony will also be named in the lawsuit, because Grand Theft Auto was made exclusively for its Play- Station consoles. Sony declined to comment on the case.

Jack Thompson, the lawyer representing the families, said the court case could be the first to rule on whether watching and playing violent video games caused excess aggression in children. He said: "We are going to show that this game did influence these boys and cause them to go out and shoot at these people.

"There has been a wealth of research to show that children's brains process these video games in a different way from adults'. They cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality, so they play these games and then think if they do the same thing in reality, it's OK, there will be no consequences."
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Simple. Despite being a very profitable sector of the entertainment industry, the videogame industry does not have the established Washington D.C. clout to combat **** like this. Combined with the general public's ignorance about videogames (especially the notion that they're designed exclusively for kids, which makes videogame violence, to them, all the more atrocious) you have a bunch of lawsuits waiting to happen when some dunderheaded asshole decides to take a shotgun to a teacher and blow his brains out. And the lawyers, parents, and perpetrators themselves know that by instantly accusing videogames of brainwashing, their case will be able to feed on public hysteria and grow bigger and bigger.

Sickening, is what it is.

The funny thing about this is that I just finished watching a documentary about this sort of thing, "Bowling for Columbine." I recomend it to anyone interested not only in the various school shootings across the country, but also the questions about why do americans kill each other with guns?? I mean there are plenty of guns in other countries and yet we have a gun related murder rate of like 11,000 a year. I know one thing, I'm retiring in Canada in about 30 years, or whenever it is I retire.

Ok sorry about the ramble but I had to. This blamming the media stuff is complete BS. Every other country in the world has the same movies, music, and video games. Why is that this is the only place people tend to shoot each other so much. The only thing I've seen different in other countries is the NEWS. Just take a look at a canadien news broadcast and look at the average american news broadcast. Seeing all this real violence in the news makes people afraid of their fellow man. That is one reason I think people in this country shoot each other, fear. Anyways, this lawsuit is BS and the whole idea that violent video games lead to violent acts is also complete crap. Then tell me how many other countries have the same liberties and don't have anywhere near as many mimics. Again "Bowling for Columbine" is a good documentary and worth watching.

*anger*

'Points, ammunition and more weapons are awarded for completing missions that include stealing cars, crashing them, shooting pedestrians and other motorists, drug dealing and beating up prostitutes. The fourth in the series, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, quickly became the bestselling video game in history when it was launched last year, with 250,000 copies sold in the first two days."

Two points point, its a videogame and there are are no missions that require you to beat up a prostitute.

why is it rockstars fualt that theres stupid people in the world?

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Originally posted by The_Great_YODA
why is it rockstars fualt that theres stupid people in the world?

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Rockstar should sue the parents for being stupid enough to buy that game to people that were underage.

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Originally posted by angomeka
Rockstar should sue the parents for being stupid enough to buy that game to people that were underage.

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Bullseye.

If any of you guys go on a murderous shooting rampage, when you are caught be sure to blame it on stupid parents and/or the news :D

The case won't go through I don't think. For one, there are warnings all over the box saying its for 18+ audiences etc. So, they have no case here, the parents would have had to buy it for them and the kids are obviously ****ed.

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Originally posted by Nabby
The funny thing about this is that I just finished watching a documentary about this sort of thing, "Bowling for Columbine." I recomend it to anyone interested not only in the various school shootings across the country, but also the questions about why do americans kill each other with guns??

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Havn't seen it but id take anything you saw in there with a grain of salt. Im not denying the facts that are in there, just how they were presented. I heard MM did a lot of creative editing for that show.

I saw part of it on TV talking about how the US has been responsible for the deaths of millions of innocents in the wars we've had and we're the worst when it comes to that sort of thing. No one else in the HISTORY of the world is as bad as the US. Hardly. Hitler, Stalin, Sadam, Genhgis Khan, funny how they didn't get a mention.

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Originally posted by X-Reaper
"There has been a wealth of research to show that children's brains process these video games in a different way from adults'. They cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality, so they play these games and then think if they do the same thing in reality, it's OK, there will be no consequences."

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What the hell? Obviously those two are a bunch of idiots

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Originally posted by icecube_of_death
What the hell? Obviously those two are a bunch of idiots

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Let's see this "wealth of research." The people against vidio games are quick to quote from half baked research to support thier claims. And the true idiots are the people who believe what anyone says as long as some "researcher" or "scientist" says it is true instead of researching it for themselves.

"Figures don't lie but liars make figures."

The parents should be "supervising" these 2 idiots 24/7.:p

Why don't we sue the gun manufacturers too?:o

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Originally posted by X-Reaper
[B"There has been a wealth of research to show that children's brains process these video games in a different way from adults'. They cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality, so they play these games and then think if they do the same thing in reality, it's OK, there will be no consequences."[/B]

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A lot of research is also done by scientists trying to get grant money so thier results are most times skewed to produce desired results to keep the grant money flowing.

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Originally posted by Kung_Fu_Fighter
Havn't seen it but id take anything you saw in there with a grain of salt. Im not denying the facts that are in there, just how they were presented. I heard MM did a lot of creative editing for that show.

I saw part of it on TV talking about how the US has been responsible for the deaths of millions of innocents in the wars we've had and we're the worst when it comes to that sort of thing. No one else in the HISTORY of the world is as bad as the US. Hardly. Hitler, Stalin, Sadam, Genhgis Khan, funny how they didn't get a mention.

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Actually they did, people kept using the "violent" history of the US as an excuse for the way people kill each other. It happened multiple times in most of his interviews and right after that comment he would start to name off countries like Germany, Japan, and a few others. I mean the TV just showed you the "bad american" parts. They make good comparisons imho. You would have to see, and the funny thing is the guy bringing all this contreversy in about guns is a member of the NRA so it's not really biased. As a matter of fact him and two of the columbine survivors got Kmart to stop selling amunition.

The problem here is that people listen to the TV too much. I'm not trying to make fun or be mean or anything, but we keep getting spoon fed this complete crap from TV that we loose touch with reality. atleast that's how I feel.

Now the problem with the US is that they are nosy. They can't seem to keep out of peoples problems. Some war is happening somewhere we are involved. I mean common let people work things out for themselves. Basically the US motto is, as I see it, "It's our way or the highway." And look at our society it's almost completely screwed, kids shooting each other at schools, teenagers mimicing games, and the president bombing other countries, I mean damn.

Kung_Fu_Fighter: I agree. My little brother (8 years old) plays some of these violent games and yet he know the difference between the real and not real. He understands because we have told him. Granted my parents don't let him play GTA at all because I told them the contents and they refused to let him play, even though the game sits here in the house he has never played it and won't play it until he's old enough. Why can't other parents be like this??

Fact:
The day the columbine shooting happened the US did the largest bombing run ever in the history of the world on Kosovo. I can gurantee you most people didn't know it.

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Originally posted by Nabby
The problem here is that people listen to the TV too much. I'm not trying to make fun or be mean or anything, but we keep getting spoon fed this complete crap from TV that we loose touch with reality. atleast that's how I feel.

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Your correct. They do feed you that on a constant basis. The best thing you can do is to question what people try to tell you and find out the facts for yourself. Watch the BBC news sometime and see what stories they feel are important and how they present them.

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Originally posted by Nabby
Now the problem with the US is that they are nosy. They can't seem to keep out of peoples problems. Some war is happening somewhere we are involved. I mean common let people work things out for themselves. Basically the US motto is, as I see it, "It's our way or the highway." And look at our society it's almost completely screwed, kids shooting each other at schools, teenagers mimicing games, and the president bombing other countries, I mean damn.

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Now the war on terror is a whole nuther can of worms. You don't just stand by and let another country do that to you or we would really be walked all over.

I would not say our society is completely screwed. Deffinatelly have some problems but not doom and gloom time yet.

as mentioned previously...

Countersuit- Gross Negligence on behalf of the parents and the better part of the commmunity where the two gentlemen where raised.

I mean, I can see merit in sueing drug manufacturers for phenominally consistent occurences of bad **** that happen from taking their products. Or something that generally alters chemical processes of the brain structure, or generally alters an authority structure (Police Officers that tell people to do bad things). But 'OMG the game made me do it' is a giant Red Flag that says "OMG I have very weak sense of reality." In which case this is one of those 'Tough ****' scenarios. You can't even really BEGIN to prove that it's really the games fault. I mean the amount of people doing phenominally stupid **** because of the game would have to be in the MILLIONs to prove that "the game did it".

Darwin's evolution theory should have weeded out these 2 idiots. I hope they pay SEVERELY for their random act of stupidity.:mad:

This is the same thing that happen in the 70`s to have all the TV shows back then with violance in them to be taken off the air. A teenager, killed his parents with a ax and blamed it on the show Kojak, saying that is where he got the ideal to do it.

This is just an example of poor aim. In my day when we took pot shots at moving vehicles we didn't aim for the passengers. Kids today...

Ugh, thats just sick, and the problem is is that I think now kids think they can do it, and blame it on the game, and get away without facing the concequences. It just blows my mind that any person would even WANT to reenact what goes on in the game..? And also, how is it that they had such easy access to guns and ammunition, hmm?

Wow. I thought the Gene Pool hit rock bottom YEARS ago...

We were scraping the bottom of barrel years ago. Now there's just no more barrel to scrape.

With the help of reality TV, the gene pool is underground.