November 21, 2005

Kid Blurs Line. The parents of a 13 year-old boy who died falling from a building are suing World of Warcraft developer Blizzard, claiming that the massively-multiplayer online game is to blame ... the boy jumped to his death whilst re-enacting a scene from the game.

WoW has now joined the prestigious ranks of: Beavis & Butt-Head. Professional Wrestling. Which have I forgotten?

posted by scartol 18 years ago
  • How about Grand Theft Auto, Judas Priest, and Ozzy Osbourne?
  • Me. Cos I'm a baaad mo'fo! flesruoy llik
  • I'm trying to figure out what "scene" he was "re-enacting".
  • Back in my day, it was kids dressing up as ninjas and committing ritual suicide because of D&D. With some satanism thrown in for good measure. See, his mistake was that he was too low-level. If he'd grinded up to level 26 or so, he would have only lost a few hundred HP and survived easily.
  • I've lliked my flesruoy. What happens next?
  • I grew up watching TV, as a result I got married, raised two kids, held good jobs, was a responsible member of the community. I think I'm gonna sue Ward Cleaver and Ozzie Nelson, damn them!
  • For     y     e     ars I' v e been emulating tetris and It hasn't done me any harm.
  • I stood on a frog the other day. Felt really bad about it. Now, you all must die.
  • Who do I name on the Complaint if I want to sue Christianity?
  • These kids. Back in my day, we had to reenact violent television to get ourselves properly killed.
  • Television? Luxury! When I were a lad, we had to re-enact scenes gleaned from our jobs down the local abattoir.
  • We cave-dwellers of the stone age often act out rock art and that's how I got stepped on by that mammoth.
  • oh shit sorry wrong epoch
  • Which have I forgotten? Looney Tunes.
  • Online gaming in general seems to be the latest moral panic here and the chattering classes are in full cry. Did you see the online funeral for a Chinese WoW player? (They say it was a girl there but the Chinese story they link to says it was a boy).
  • the quidnunc kid wins.....
  • If only he'd reenacted the Hot Coffee mod...
  • 100% of all suicides have had PARENTS. I see a correlation here. Down with Parenting!
  • No! The wearing of CLOTHES is the common factor! Disrobe or die, brothers and especially sisters!
  • The lawyers for the defendant should claim that, as a WoW player, the victim didn't have a life to begin with.
  • Oooh, harsh, rocket-hatey-hate. Very harsh.
  • But funny.
  • .... and it's rocket88 with the win! Besides, in our new cornerless and padded society, we NEED Darwin-facilitators in our media. Or at least bring back the old steel playgrounds with the jagged corners and the tetanus and the glayvin.
  • rocket88 wins!
  • I rather liked Sandspider's comment upthread. That is not to disparage rocket88 and quidnunc's remarks, which were also amusing.
  • Darwin-fellators in our media? Oh yeah!
  • They should have blamed the good old-time favorite, Superman. What with the new film coming out, they could have got a lot more.
  • I still blame Mary Poppins for the many times I tried to fly as a kid by jumping off of the deck with an open umbrella in my hand.
  • It's OK, kitfisto. I really didn't mind. The spiked cleats were a bit much, but what the heck.
  • That's what you get for not equipping a Parachute Cloak.
  • gnomeleaf, your link just exposed me to a world i've heard about often, yet never actually peaked at until now. Thank you.
  • His problem was that he looked down. Everyone knows that you only start falling when you look down. It's the most important law of Looney Toon physics.
  • Can I sue Super Mario Brothers & Co. for my mushroom and opium induced hallucinations or consequent spiritual affinity with plumbing? Goombahs! I gotta run...