If you haven’t read about this yet, here’s a brief summary of this recent news item. Families of Columbine High School shooting victims have filed a class action lawsuit against 25 video game manufacturers, including Nintendo, Sega, Sony, id Software, GT Interactive and many others. They are seeking 5 billion dollars in damages. They claim that the marketing of violent video games led two teenagers to embark on a killing spree at the high school two years ago.

"…these super-violent video games that take kids…to become addicted and turn them into monster killers," stated John DeCamp, the misguided attorney who filed the suit on behalf of the families. The PC game Doom was cited as having possibly the most influence over the two deceased murderers, who made statements comparing a shotgun they used in their rampage to a weapon in the game. Proving that he knows nothing whatsoever about the game in question, Mr. DeCamp stated of Doom, "The particular game is purely, 100 percent taken from the military and transferred over to the private sector." Yes, because the military DOES station space marines on Mars where they must use weapons like giant chain guns and BFGs to fight off hordes of fireball-throwing demons and floating eyeball monsters in order to prevent the forces of Hell from breaking into our reality.

Lawsuits like this are a double-edged sword in my eyes. On the one hand, it’s nice to see a lawsuit-happy company like Nintendo get slapped with a frivolous, groundless suit now and then. On the other hand, of course, I don’t like to see my hobby take it on the chin because it’s a convenient scapegoat for situations like these. What I don’t understand is how many people swallow the mistruth that videogames somehow cause otherwise normal children to go crazy and commit murder. As the idiot lawyer in this case said, videogames turn children into "monster killers." What the hell!?!

Thanks again, Joe.