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February 15, 2006 Link to this post
ARE Videogames really death trainers?
Wow. For a few years, I've been openly scornful of the attitudes of Jack Thompson, the lawyer who's made his career suing videogame companies for wrongful death; I've felt that his arguments are specious at best, and maliciously deceptive most of the time. Well, the guy just got a helping hand from a surprising source - the Washington Post. (Don't forget that bugmenot.com will help you read that, if you don't have an account.) It's an article in which both soldiers, and those who train them, state plainly that the videogames they play help them both in battlefield tactics, and in breaking down the barriers to shooting another person. Yeah, there are a couple of paragraphs in the story devoted to soldiers who were NOT made insensitive to death by video games - but it feels like a tacked-on afterthought in an attempt at 'balanced coverage' to me. Any way you cut it - you can be sure this article will turn up in court, in Jack's briefcase. Lots of people pointed this out to us - looks like Paul Marsh was first. And while Snowy_Duck was 10 hours behind Paul, he did start the first forum thread on the topic. Go discuss. Update: Same article is available without a login at msnbc.com - thanks, Dry Ice. (Louis Wu 12:40:07 UTC)
