Should Beanie Babies come with a warning label that says, “Danger: Folks have been know to spend all their money on these things, and behave in an irrational fashion when…
Should Beanie Babies come with a warning label that says, “Danger: Folks have been know to spend all their money on these things, and behave in an irrational fashion when they get lost or damaged or the tag gets torn. Don’t do that”?
Should ’57 Chevy’s, when sold, require that the buyer sign a waiver indicating that s/he understands that, “Excessive attention paid to this vehicle can lead to social alienation, divorce, and ruinous expenses”?
Should all TVs, when they power up, have a message that sits on the screen for 30 seconds which says, “Warning: Watching more than 3 hours of TV a day may injure your aesthetics, cause you go grow a large lard-butt, and keep you from spending time with your family”?
Should ice cream cartons all have a warning label which indicates, “Alert: The makers of this product have made it really tasty, which will make you want to eat more, especially when you’re depressed, so go buy some celery instead”?
Should postage stamps all say, in teeny-tiny print, “Danger: If you go obsessively overboard in collecting these, you might some day go around the bend and kill yourself”?
Then what makes anyone think that because some depressed, (diagnosed) schizoid guy ended up obsessively playing EverQuest and (possibly for game-related “reasons”) ended up killing himself, there’s some deep, dark, mysterious conspiracy on the part of Sony that requires we put warning labels in front of on-line Internet games?
Jay Parker, a chemical dependency counselor and co-founder of Internet/Computer Addiction Services in Redmond, Wash., said Woolley’s mental health problems put him in a category of people more likely to be at risk of getting addicted to online games.
They also put in
in a category” of being “more likely” to be “at risk” of getting addicted to any number of things, including collecting stacks of old newspapers, watching Star Trek re-runs, or buying several dozen cats. None of those come with warning labels, either.
“I’ve seen a lot of wreckage because of EverQuest,” Parker said. “But they are all the same. It’s like cigarettes. They need to come with a warning label. ‘Warning, extensive playing could be hazardous to your health.’ “
No, because cigarette have a physically addictive chemical in them, and because smoking is not obviously a harmful thing to do. Whereas neglecting your friends and family and job and spending 40-plus hours a week playing an online game is an obviously harmful thing to do … and it’s completely your choice. (If it’s not your choice, then you need to consider a volunatary admit to a mental health facility, because, dude, you are not safe to be in public.)
Warning labels are exactly what Jack Thompson, a Miami attorney and vocal critic of the entertainment industry, wants to result from a lawsuit he plans to file against Sony Online Entertainment for Elizabeth Woolley.
Actually, what Mr. Thompson wants is 30%-plus of anything that Ms. Woolley (the mother of the deceased) gets from Sony.
“We’re trying to whack them with a verdict significantly large so that they, out of fiscal self-interest, will put warning labels on,” he said. “We’re trying to get them to act responsibly. They know this is an addictive game.”
If it is known to be harmful, then simply slapping on labels won’t do anything to avoid liability. If it is merely highly attractive, then not only will warning labels do little good, but some of the examples of other things that people obsess over, at the top of the post, will also deserve labels. Hell, our whole society will deserve warning labels. Which, come to think of it, is not too far from where we are today.
The point of the suit is not to get Sony to “act responsibly.” It’s to get them to pay a lot of money and act in an overly defensive manner — to try to avoid law suits, which is not the same as acting responsibly.
“I am sure we are going to find things akin to the tobacco industry memos where they say nicotine is addictive,” he said. “There is a possibility of a class-action lawsuit.”
Okay, Mr. Thompson, if you can find the Sony memo that says, “And by adding in our secret mind-control rays to the game screen, we can turn 0.00001% of our already-schizoid players into suicidal, anti-social wretches who will compulsively play until they spiral into deep chasm of depression, bankruptcy and suicide,” I’ll believe you. Otherwise, go peddle your papers before you further tarnish the legal profession.
Remarkably enough, the article does have something good to say about another pastime usually the target of such stories.
The [on-line] games have roots in Dungeons & Dragons, the role-playing game created in 1974 by TSR Games in Lake Geneva. But D&D requires human contact to play; its digital counterparts do not.
That little bit of brightness aside, this article was really depressing — not primarily over what happened to the poor young man who killed himself, but by what it says about a society that is so eager to find some reason for such events to have occurred that, just like some cave man sitting in the darkness and inventing deities to explain the thunder and lightning, we’re willing to find blame in anyone else we can find (with deep pockets) for his tragic, destructive behavior.
(Via Anne)
