| Below Rock Bottom
Rich Pizor, Senior Editor
"The first thing we will do, is kill all the lawyers."
Just in case you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, let me bring you up to speed on what may well turn out to be a landmark case for the video game industry.
2 years ago, a troubled teen in Kentucky opened fire on some of his classmates, killing three and wounding others. At the trial he pleaded guilty but mentally ill and received a life sentence. A tragedy to be sure, and an almost too familiar one here in America -- but the response of the victims' families has been deplorable. It seems that Monday, April 12, the families of the three victims filed a lawsuit against, essentialy, the American entertainment industry. 25 companies are named altogether, including companies involved in the making of the film The Basketball Diaries, two Internet pornography services, and several video game companies -- most notably iD Software (citing Doom and Quake) and Microprose (citing Redneck Rampage).
As a quick aside, I do have to hang my head in journalistic shame and admit to a certain amount of guilty glee at first seeing iD in the list. iD Software in general and founder John Carmack in particular have been a major thorn in the side of Macintosh gaming from the very outset; it has only been in the last year or so that Carmack has had anything to say about the platform that wasn't openly scornful or disdainful, and many site the spectacular length of time it took to get the Quake engine onto the Mac as the major problem in getting cutting edge games brought to our platform. Luckily, common sense prevailed; personal views aside, this lawsuit is a travesty, and that is the issue that must be addressed. Carmack may been a roadblock for us in the past, but if iD goes away, gamers on every platform will suffer.
"We intend to hurt Hollywood. We intend to hurt the video game industry. We intend to hurt the sex porn sites." Those are the words of attorney Jack Thompson as reported by the Associated Press. The reason he is drawing his sites on these industries is obvious; the killer's parents could never cough up the gargantuan sum of $130 million that this suit seeks to collect from the named companies. This is the problem with having too many lawyers in this country; since they need clients, they become more interested in law suits that are simply possible rather than ethical. This suit is groudless, but to see why we have to examine each category in turn. I know this column is supposed to be about games, so bear with me while I dispense of the other two:
Porn Sites: Legally, this should be a no-brainer. It is against the law for minors to view porn, period. Both of the companies named in the suit employ age verification; specifically, the individual seeking access to the sites must possess a legal credit card. If the boy used a fabricated credit card number to get access to these sites, he is guilty of fraud, which is a felony offense. Or, even worse, what if his parents gave him access to their card? In that case, not only is the boy still guilty of fraud, but his parents are now accessory to that fraud (a misdemeanor in its own right) as well as guilty of contributing to the deliquency of a minor (a felony). In either case, the named companies have taken reasonable precautions, and as such should be immune from suit.
All of this, of course, assumes that the content of their services is even remotely relevant in any small way to this case, which is at best a rather large leap of logic.
Movies: Folks, the MPAA exists for a reason. The movie in question was rated R, which means that it was illegal for the boy to see it without a parent present. The system exists so that parents can monitor content and keep their children from seeing things that they may not be equipped to deal with. If the boy's parents chose to abdicate this responsibility, it is not the movie companies' faults.
Video Games:Unfortunately, here things get a bit more muddled, which will make this third category pivotal in the case. Not unlike the case with movies, a rating system is in place for video games that allow companies to voulentarily rate their content as appropriate or not for certain groups. All 3 of the games in question carried a rating of MA, indicating the games contained graphic depictions of violence which may not be appropriate for younger gamers. Again, if the parents choose to ignore what content their children is getting access to, it is not the game companies' fault.
There is a somewhat more compelling argument that says that games in video arcades should be censored. There may be some merit to this; I personally oppose censorship in all forms, but it is a fact of life that parents have little if any control over what their children are exposed to inside the arcade. The machines there are noisy and vibrant, and compete as agressively as possible for the money and attention of all passers by. In the home entertainment field, however, this argument loses it's one salient point. Parents, in the final analysis, have the ability to exercise absolute control over what information comes into the house; whether or not they choose to exercise it is not a publishers' problem.
Do the attorneys realize that this is their strongest, possibly even only valid point in the whole lawsuit? Public statements that have been made to date seem to suggest otherwise. The video game makers are included in the suit because little Johnny Reb used Quake, Doom and Redneck Rampage to "perfect his aim." Anyone stupid enough to give this idea any credence has obviously never fired a gun. The differences are so multifold it almost boggles the mind:
| 3D Shooters |
Actual Gun |
| Shooter runs all over |
Shooter must remain stationary to hit anything |
| Reloading is automatic |
Reloading is tricky and time consuming |
| Targets down after one or two hits |
Targets may absorb dozens of hits |
| Gun remains motionless |
Hands shake; gun has recoil |
| Field of aim is always straight ahead |
Field of aim is wherever the gun is pointing |
The selection of companies is also somewhat odd. In addition to Microprose and iD, who only produce video game software, companies like Nintendo, Sega, and Sony (who manufacture hardware) have been named, the logic behind which escapes me. Certainly Quake and Doom run on the console systems made by these other companies, but Redneck Rampage does not, and companies like Apple, Dell, Compaq, and Gateway are conspicuiously absent from the suit. Heck, why not also sue the manufacturers of the gun he used to shoot his classmates, or the monitors and TVs without which the video games do little but take up shelf and hard drive space? When 2 Live Crew got in trouble for the lyrics on their albums, no one sued RCA and Panasonic for making stereos. Double standard? Maybe -- or maybe the lawyers are counting on the judge and/or jury not knowing any better.
More disturbing: maybe they are so out of touch with the very industries are suing that they don't know the difference themselves.
Lawsuits like this don't do anyone any good. The families have certainly undergone a tragedy, but $130 million will not bring their loved ones back. Meanwhile, the lawyers work very hard at slowly eroding the freedoms of speech and expression that have been guarded and maintained as our national birthright for over 2 centuries. The problem with the freedom of expression is that sometimes you won't agree with what someone else is saying. That doesn't mean you have to listen -- nor does it give you the right to try and sue them into oblivion.
While most of us laugh at the now infamous and almost standardized licencing agreements we must click "yes" to before loading a game, it is precisely because of lawsuits like this that manufacturers need to make them. Memo to Bungie: have the boys down in Legal append your disclaimers so that you aren't only indemnified against accidental loss of data, but accidental loss of life as well.
Meanwhile, someone needs to get their hands on a clear headshot of these lawyers and a good skin-editing package for Quake... |