The Holtonian

Grand Theft Auto Law Suit is Grand Theft Stupid

I'm at work while writing this blog. I was reading a news article on Yahoo
(My favorite site) and a family is sueing the maker of the video game Grand
Theft Auto 3 and Walmart after two brothers ages 15 and 16 went on a
shooting rampage on a TN highway shooting at cars passing by. OK now how
angry am I about this, very. For one the lawyer is just trying to take some
money from two of the biggest companies out there Walmart and Sony which
owns the company that made GTA 3. The families suing are the families of two
victims killed by the boys. Now if anyone should be sued, which i don't
think anyone should be because sueing for wrongful death is kind of
rediculous in my mind because no ammount of money is going to give you back
your deceased person (however i due think that a person who kills a person
should have to pay for burrial and tombstones--its only fitting those things
are expensive). But anyway if anyone should be sued its the boys or their
parents--probably more the parents. They're the ones who allowed their kids
to play a game that is rated mature when they were obviuosly not mature at
all. They couldn't differintiate from reality and video game. Now I'm not
trying to defend the game Grand Theft Auto because the game I must admit is
void of any sort of goodness and I would never let my kids play it until
they were old enough and out of my house. Parents need to be more
responsible and involved in their kids lives. Its hard i realize and you
can't always no what those rascally kids are up to but if a kid is playing a
video game he's most likely playing it on a tv or computer both things that
are hard to hide and hard to play without someone noticing. Most of my
video games that I played growing up were educational, or at least thats how
i spun it to my parents. Mario Bros taught me the virtue of persistence and
always striving forward no matter how many times you beat the bad guy and
your princess is in another castle. Tetris taught me how to arrange shapes
to fit, like a puzzle. F-zero taught me the value of a hover car flying at
massive speeds and how driving not on the road is a bad thing--causes your
car to explode, which is true in real life to some extent. Now Super Street
Fighter was a tough sell for the parents. I argued it taught the values of
street smarts and how to handle yourself in an altercation that turned
physical... I may have had to use my own money on that one i'm not sure.
Personally i think its important that parents keep playing video
games so that they know what their kids are playing. I plan on continuing to
play to stay educated on what games are ok for my future kids to play. So
really I play video games not for me, not to annoy my wife, but to make sure
my kids don't warp their minds like their father has.