Monday, November 21, 2005

Just sue a games company!

Youth's Death Linked To Game (via Red Herring)

Blizzard faces a lawsuit from Chinese parents, who say World of Warcraft caused the death of their son.

This seems pretty stupid. Read the article and you'll realise just how stupid.

The parents filed a suit against Blizzard Entertainment on Wednesday, saying their son jumped to his death while reenacting a scene from the game, the report said. The parents are backed by the anti-Internet addiction advocate Zhang Chunliang.

That's right, their son was addicted to World of Warcraft, and as a result, he "jumped to his death". What the hell? How is it Blizzard's fault that some kid was stupid enough to jump out of a fifth-storey window or something and die? There's something wrong with your parenting/education if your child thinks that just because something on a computer screen can fly, so can he.

A related article from the Onion: Fun Toy Banned Because Of Three Stupid Dead Kids.

Each of the deaths was determined to be the result of gross misuse of the toy, an incredibly cool device that could shoot both plastic missiles and long jets of water, as well as maneuver over the ground on retractable wheels.

The first death occurred June 22, when 7-year-old Isaac Weiller of Grand Junction, CO, died after deliberately firing one of the spring-loaded plastic missiles into his left nostril. The missile shot into his sinuses, shattering the roof of his nasal cavity and causing a massive brain hemorrhage. Shortly before dying, Weiller told emergency medical personnel at St. Luke's Medical Center that he had shot the missile into his nose in the belief that it would travel through his body and out his belly button. "I've heard some pretty stupid shit in my time, but that has to take the cake," said Dr. Anderson Hunt, the attending physician. "Why would any kid think he could fire plastic missiles up his nose and expect them to come out his belly button? There's no point in feeling bad about this child's demise, because the deck was obviously stacked against him from the start.

Less than one month after Weiller's death, 5-year-old Danielle Krug fatally suffocated on fragments of the toy after repeatedly smashing it with a claw hammer in the garage of her parents' La Porte, IN, home. "I'm not kidding," said Dianne Ensor, an emergency-room nurse at Our Lady Of Peace Hospital in La Porte, where Krug was pronounced dead. "She thought the broken shards were candy. That's what you'd assume after breaking a plastic, inedible toy, right? Absolutely un-fucking-believable."

Yep, that site is a parody, but hey, I found it pretty funny. It is ridiculous how people will go and sue someone over anything these days. Comments on the Blizzard lawsuit at Slashdot.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is that all time question. What killed the kid? Suspects include: Gravity, lack of parental care, suicide, movies and tv with people jumping off buildings, the building security system, or blizzard entertainment. Wait a second who has the most money? Gravity vs Blizzard.

Anonymous said...

Blizzard is a good gaming company, suffice to say WoW is extremely addictive (thats why I don't play it). This is hardly up to any case of negligence by the manufacturer, as it is not 'reasonably foreseeable' that a child would kill himself after playing WoW. Really, you have to wonder if China is becoming ligious like the US now....