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Has Jack Thompson Gone To China?
from the rubbing-off dept
It would appear that folks in China are picking up on American style lawsuits that shift the responsibility from themselves to some big company when things go wrong. In the US, of course, we have the infamous Jack Thompson, who likes to blame all sorts of crimes on video games, removing the responsibility from those who actually commit the crimes. In China, a family is now suing the Chinese distributor of Warcraft because their 13-year-old son killed himself after playing 36 straight hours of the game. They complain that there's no warning on the game -- though, they don't bother to explain why no one in the family happened to notice the kid was playing for 36 hours straight.
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If
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Um, Dorpus?
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blh
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That's It??
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Re: Um, Dorpus?
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Um, blh?
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how the hell
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Re: Re: Um, Dorpus?
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This just in, Dorpus proves ignorance...
How do you get from a Chinese kid playing a fantasy based (as in orcs, elves, dwarves, etc) computer game for 36 hours straight to American houses being blown up to video game tourists (wtf, tourists? where did u get THAT?!?!?) to market forces?
The issue here is exactly what the article states. A Chinese family bringing a law suit against a video game distributor because their child committed suicide after playing the fantasy game for 36 hours straight. The issue IMO is the parents failure to supervise their child properly, thus demonstrating a lack of responsibility and at the same time trying to say it was the game distributors responsibility to raise their child while they were to busy doing other things...
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Re: Re: Um, Dorpus?
The article is about a kid who played a fantasy game about wizards and orcs for a day and a half and then took his life. The game is made in the US and the kid lived in China.
How do you jump from that to Muslim countries making games about blowing up my house? What do you mean by ' "reality" game '? Warcraft certainly doesn't try to imitate reality.
And what the heck is a "video game tourist"?
You really need to either relax or increase the medication, Dorpus.
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Re: Re: Re: Um, Dorpus?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Um, Dorpus?
You do realize that the article has absolutely nothing to do with Muslims, right?
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Re: Darwin
And when did psychic's become sane?
A kid plays a game for 36 hours and his parents dont intervene? That is a bad parenting issue and the parents should be prosecuted rather than allowing them to attempt litigation...
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It shouldn't NEED a label like that. I mean, use some common sense people! Do you need a label on a gun that warns you which end the bullet comes out of, and that it might kill you if you stick that end against your head?
PS: Dorpus is a twit.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Um, Dorpus?
Are you asking if in the hypothetical situation that a non american game developer made a video game in which the americans are the bad guys, and the protagonist walks around suicide bombing americans, and then a middle eastern kid who played this game proceeded to blow up my house, would I blame the video game?
No. I would not. I would blame the kid for not making a distinction between fiction and reality, as well as not having any moral judgement, and I would blame his parents for either fostering anti americanism and promoting violence against americans or being parents to the kid and making sure that the kid understands right and wrong as well as for not monitoring what the kid is doing.
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The Real Story.
I assume that since it was self inflicted then they called it suicide in the law suit. When this was first reported they were not using suicide to refer to his death.
Anyways, I have played for around that amount of time in one sitting on that very same game when I was recovering from a collasped lung in which I almost died due to internal bleeding. Of course I am alive since I am writing this. My point to make is that the energy drinks consumed continually over that amount of time at the young age of the kid is what lead to his death.
In my opinion the parents should be sueing the makers of the energy drinks if they do not have a warning about consuming a large amount of the product over that amount of time.
While I think that common sense should have been used to avoid this, it is a common trend that the public holds corporations liable for warning of potential harmful side effects while using their products and it seems that the legal system does too these days.
~Truth
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Re: The Real Story.
"n 2004, Zhang Xiaoyi, from the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, jumped out of a window of his family's 24th floor apartment after playing Warcraft at an internet cafe."
The kid jumped out a window. He didn't die of cardiac arrest.
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RE:Re: The Real Story. by David
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Jumped Out a Window?
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Precautions for Parents
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Hmm hmm.
Sorry, correction. Maybe less shifting the blame and more denial.
I do feel bad for them, but parents put too much trust in their children these days. I am not a father, but I do look after family children and I get to see that my family let their kids get away with too much in fear their children might hate them if they impose any kind of rules/disciplin. Their are, obviously limits. This isn't just my family, I would like to point out. I know alot of people scared to punish or disciplin their children in fear of the consiquences later in life.
The issue here goes way further than a game with no online limitations. I have also played World of Warcraft and I have seen its adictibility, but the issue is with parents enforcing limits on children.
Good for Blizzard and Parental Controls! Someone is getting the right idea.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Um, Dorpus?
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Re: If
Bravo!
As for Jack:
If he goes to China, will they let him come back?
If not, I'm all for it
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This is not a game-related problem
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Um, Dorpus?
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Re: This just in, Dorpus proves ignorance...
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Dorpus
> So if, say, the kid's family, mosque, and country all condoned the
> game for "promoting selfless sacrifice", would you still
> blame only the kid?
No Dorpus. At this point it becomes a societal problem. They may well preform those actions regardless of the games existance or not.
Just like Grand Theft Auto, most people who play the game do not take it as justification for those same actions in the real world. There are a few who may, but those typically had already started down that road, or were somewhat maladjusted in the first place. But we can't exactly force everyone to take a personality test and psychiatric evaluation before purchasing each game, can we? No, we have to leave it up to the parents to decide what is appropriate for their children to view/play, and in this, they are failing the grade!
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Re: Hmm hmm.
Like when you let your kid play a videogame for 36 straight instead of telling him to turn that shit off and eat/sleep. Then he DIES. You cant blame that on the videogame. You're a fucking bad parent.
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what's the big deal?
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Mmk...
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Re: If
See Deus Ex.
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The Chinese Love Their Courts
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Re: Re: The Real Story.
Impossible. World of Warcraft was not released to China until June 06, 2005.
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Re: Re: The Real Story.
Impossible. World of Warcraft was not released to China until June 06, 2005.
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Re: Re: Re: The Real Story.
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