The families of victims of the Columbine High School shootings in
1999 are suing Nintendo of America, Sony Computer Entertainment and
others for punitive damages of $5 billion, claiming that Doom and
other games influenced the two gunmen.
The families of victims of the Columbine High School shootings in
1999 are suing AOL Time Warner, Nintendo of America, Sony Computer
Entertainment, Atari, Sega of America and 19 others for punitive
damages of $5 billion, claiming that Doom and other games
influenced the two gunmen.
The lawsuit, filed in a Colorado district court, claims that the
massacre would not have occurred without the marketing of video
games, particularly Doom, which they say influenced the two gunmen,
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and one
teacher before taking their own lives.
According to the lawyer representing the families, the lawsuit
“seeks literally to change the marketing and distribution of these
super-violent video games” that take children and “make them
addicted and turn them into monster killers.”
OUT-LAW.COM’s Linda Molloy, who acts for a number of games
developers, said:
“If they are successful in their claim, it
would open the floodgates. It would be disastrous for not just the
games industry, but also the movie industry and music industry.
However, their likelihood of succeeding seems remote. How can they
realistically prove that Doom was the cause of the killings? While
everyone has sympathy with the families affected, it seems
unrealistic to expect the cost of this tragedy to be quantified and
borne by the entertainment industry.”
