Well, either the plaintiffs withdraw their claims, or the business being sued pays cash out of court, guessing that paying off the plaintiff will cost less than the legal expenses incurred in a court case. In fact, most companies have a fund (and insurance) specifically set aside for just such an event. I used to work for a firm which dealt with Property and Casualty insurance, so I'd see these sort of cases all the time. In the long run, the money only ends up coming from the taxpayer- as it's covered by higher insurance costs, higher product or service costs, or higher taxes (for government related cases), or reduced wages or layoffs for companies badly stricken by these sort of cases.

As a footnote to how bad the cost problem can get, there's a rapidly developing shortage of doctors in Nevada; due to a sharp rise in the cost of malpractice insurance, many doctors can no longer afford to work there.


This comment was edited on Mar 12, 11:13.

so who dismisses the cases?
or do the 80% of lawyers just sudenly realise that they are wasting tax payers money and stop?

"I bet, a short while after the whole thing went down, they got a phone call from a legal firm"
You're right on one thing: You're only speculating.

"A lawyers job is NOT to waste taxpayers money by bringing assinine and frivilous lawsuits into court"
You're right. I'm sure very few attorneys go around suing people. Their clients do.
Clients sue people, bring charges, etc. Attorneys are ONLY thier legal representation. No one except ambulance chasers go around asking clients to sue people. The clients come to THEM. I've yet to see one person actually address the idea of "shooting the messenger", and give a valid reason for doing it.

Anyone with any basic knowledge of the american legal system knows that very FEW cases go to court (roughly 10-15% ).
This comment was edited on Mar 10, 19:27.

cats are a-ok with me, except when they shit

Cat's are horrible, they kill for fun (Cat Lovers: "OH BUT IT'S JUST INSTINCT!") and they crap all over your garden.

I am angry about that damn cat. Do you really think the cat deserved the treatment she got? When I see posts like these I get sick to my stomach. A cat deserves life as much as you scum-sucking maggots ever did. The extent to which you have gone to humiliate, degrade, and objectify all cats is beyond comprehension. A cat could be your mother. It has happened before. Evil watches you.

the military uses live action simulators alot more than any full screen shooter simulators. There is alot in a live action simulation using MILES gear that you aint gonna learn in a video game. Anyone who thinks you can develop military grade killing skills just by playing video games is sadly mistaken. The time the army and other branches spends out in the woods, with miles gear, exercising real life situations is what makes them efficient killers, not a video game. The only thing I think might be beneficial for a shooter simulator is to practice fast friend or fo recognition, it does nothing for shooting a gun practice, not near as much as actually shooting a gun.

now youve done it, someone brought up the race card.

I think minorities deserve to be hated if they think that it's fine to blame every single problem and disadvantage they encounter in life on opression. And lets face it, replace "minority" for "non-white" and that's what we're all talking about here. Isn't it funny that it always always boils down to the finger being pointed at white people as the opressors. Isn't it funny that white countries form the overwhelming majority of the most advanced and civilised nations in the world. Yet it's Arab regimes that are producing psycho suicide bombers by the thousand. It's East asian governments, i.e. India and Pakistan, pointing nuclear weapons at each other like drunken cowboys (at least everyone knew the Soviets didn't want to be nuked, you have to wonder if some of these new nuclear powers would even care as long as they got off a few missiles themselves). It's African dictators slaughtering whites, rigging elections and destroying democracy (Zimbabwe, South Africa), it's African governments who would rather spend money on guns than their countries infrastructure and industry. There's Asian countries like China hosing down students with automatic weapons, there's North Korea planning to attack the Football World Cup stadiums in Japan and South Korea. There's black American rap "culture", which promotes, guns, killing, drug abuse... and on and on and on... And we thought ROCK MUSIC WAS BAD?! What about the Iraqi's using chemical weapons on there own people? And the sad thing is that despite the abuse that these countries dish out to their own people, there is still an irrational hatred for the white western countries. Why? Britain was the first country in the world to ban slavery, there's more slavery in Africa among Africans now than there ever was in western countries. Half the people squealing about minority rights are actually white these days! What's going on? Where is the mistreatment? Certainly in England where I live I have never seen racial discrimination happen except against whites.

And yet, I have every reason to resent minorities but I don't. I resent the ignorance that causes these problems, I resent the fact that it's human nature for man to blame everyone but himself. White countries have problems too but boy do we have fewer than the people who point at us with hate in there eyes and tell us that we're evil.

Oh, come on, like I'm sure the people would have sued the video game manufacturers on their own. I bet, a short while after the whole thing went down, they got a phone call from a legal firm saying, "You know, I understand how much you're suffering... I bet we have a case here."

A lawyers job is NOT to waste taxpayers money by bringing assinine and frivilous lawsuits into court. At least it shouldn't be. The way the system is currently set up, I can sue anyone I want. They're stuck- they've got to pay for their own defense, regardless of whether the lawsuit is merited or not. If they don't go to trial and pay out of court, that's still money lost. By the lawyer's thinking, apparently, big companies are now expected to hand out money to whomever the lawyers deem appropriate.

And if you don't believe there's problems with lawyers and the legal system, look at www.overlawyered.com -it's got tons of evidence that there's problems.

Shooting games can teach concepts like leading a moving target. However they are of less use in training how to KILL than they are in training how to AVOID being killed.

As far as I understand, the US military is using 3D FPS in order to teach Teamwork, Tactics, Use of Cover and other concepts. Playing a FPS will NOT make you a marksman, for the reasons already given. It will not steady your hands. It will not teach you how to correctly hold your firearm. It will not teach you how to correctly use your sighting system. It will not teach you how to correctly compensate for recoil, wind or any of the other complex factors that affect shot placement.

Eon

you will when unless u are minority because in USA they hate minorites

im going to file suit against myself and see who wins.

has anyone tried the new parmesan chicken sandwich from Mickey D's?? the idea of mcdonalds handling an exotic cheese scares me, and i bet it would be headet weried. and the lettuce owuld melt inside, it, and gert very hot and brown. buty i like the regular ones. and a migcam and i had a double cheseburger

w

-Quoted-
Crispy: the military is obviously using 3d shooters in conjunction with firearms training to - surprise - learn how to kill with a gun. You can draw up whatever arbitrary distinctions you like between identifying a target and shooting it, but those are basically the same skill to me.
-End Quote-

Look, I'll make this real simple for you.

Take Joe CounterStrike player, who has never used or handled a firearm. Put him through your average IPSC pistol course, and he'll be lucky if he hits the target at all, let alone anything close to a bullseye.

Your argument (the one you had before you got all verbose and equivocal) doesn't hold water.

(For those that are interested: http://www.ipsc.org/)


-©-
This comment was edited on Mar 8, 19:33.

Well there's a difference in how a game is rated and how a retailer handles that rating. There's no law in selling/renting an "M" rated game to minors, but usually any store worth its salt sets age limits on renting/selling "M" games.

Curious, though, that wherever it was that you saw this sticker decided to place it on State of Emergency and not GTA 3. The whole point of GTA 3 is to be the bad guy, the whole point of SoE is to kill the bad guys, the good guys just tend to get in the way a lot.



Schnapple

http://members.tripod.com/schnapple99/

Hmm, I didn't see that. They had a big fat sticker saying "must be 18 to rent this game" on the State of Emergency box, whilst the Grand Theft Auto 3 box did not.

Perhaps it was a misplaced assumption.

On a more serious note, I had just got home, and now I'm not in the mood for posting.

-----

Only a fool wants to hear the echo of his own voice.

I was especially disgusted how State of Emergency had an M rating while Grand Theft Auto 3 did not

Might want to check that packaging again:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005O0I2.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

GTA 3 is indeed rated "M". GTA was also rated "M" and while GTA 2 was rated "M" on the PC and Dreamcast, it got a "T" rating on the PlayStation (1) due to trimmed down violence and no swear words.

Also, the GBC/GBA versions of the games have thus far been rated "T", but since they bear little resemblence to their bigger brothers and generally suck, they don't really count.

Schnapple

http://members.tripod.com/schnapple99/
This comment was edited on Mar 8, 15:18.

You should also note how these kids are growing up. Their parents fail to teach these kids and help prevent them from getting these titles (I was especially disgusted how State of Emergency had an M rating while Grand Theft Auto 3 did not).

I'll be able to post more on this subject later, but I cannot due do to the constraints of school time.

edit- I also forgot to write that it is not my intention to preach how games promote or interest children in violence.

-----

Only a fool wants to hear the echo of his own voice.
This comment was edited on Mar 8, 10:38.

>Absolutely its a political question. But if you cant trust
>studies because they are done by folk with biases then it
>would seem there is no point doing *any* research and just
>let the political arguments play out. That way madness
>lies.

Well I'm not saying don't trust any studies. I'm saying don't blindly follow the conclusions reached by biased groups. Read the studies and see if they are relevant. If a study shows that kids are more likely to hit a buzzer after playing wolfstien than they are after playing a slow non-violent educational game, then don't use that to justify video game censorship in a case like columbine. I'm sure other things would have an effect on buzzer hitting... like watching a good movie with an exciting sports match at the end. Anything that drives mood or adrenaline. It need not be violent. That's just my opininon of course but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true.

I understand fully that you also disagree with the lawsuit in general, but my initial statement... the one you disagreed with... was that there aren't any serious studies that link columbine type violence with mass media. In fact, the opposite is true. They generally have not been able to show conclusive causality. I never said there wasn't *any* effect did I? I won't disagree that there are short term effects on agression and adrenaline and copycat behaviour. It's just that one and the other aren't the same.

I tend to feel that video game violence falls into the same category as cartoon violence. It has little effect on real violent behaviour because it isn't viewed as real violence by the player. Certainly as games become more realistic and graphics approach real life it brings up new questions, but these are very recent developments, and there certainly isn't any level of proof to warrant a lawsuit.