Let's Go To Court! - 12: Video Game Lawsuits with the Gaming Historian

Episode Date: April 19, 2018

This week, we discuss video game lawsuits with our special guest, Norman Caruso, the Gaming Historian. How did we get the Gaming Historian on this little dog and pony show? It’s hard to say. It could be that he’s a huge fan of obscure podcasts. … or it could be that he’s Kristin’s husband. What can we say? It’s a gigantic mystery. In this episode, Kristin starts us off with Devin Moore, a teenager who shot two police officers and a 911 dispatcher. When the police finally caught up with him, he said, “Life is like a video game. Everybody’s got to die sometime.” That mindset left a lot of people asking whether violent video games were to blame for his murder spree. Then Norman brings us our only non-violent crime of the day when he tells the fascinating story of Atari Games vs Nintendo. This lawsuit focused on the very first unlicensed games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Brandi wraps things up with Daniel Petric, the 16-year-old boy who shot his parents after they took away his copy of Halo 3. His defense attorney said that Daniel’s recent infection made him more susceptible to the game’s violent themes…. But we’re a little skeptical. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “The Rise and Fall of Video Gamings Most Vocal Enemy,” Kotaku “Court Rejects Appeal in Alabama Suit Blaming Game for Slayings,” WSFA “Grand Theft Auto Player Gets Death Penalty,” The Inquirer “Can a Video Game Lead to Murder?” CBS News “Driven to Kill?” People Magazine In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Game Over For Teen Who Killed Mother Over Video Game” by Edecio Martinez, CBS News “17-year-old Accused of Killing Mother Over Halo 3 Video Game May Get Verdict Soon” by Marvin Fong, The Plain Dealer “Petric Sentenced to 23 Years To Life: Father Says Son Regrets Shooting Mother Over Halo 3 Video Game” by Jordan Cravens, The Morning Journal In this episode, Norman pulled from: “Game Over” by David Sheff A History of AT Games (http://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/at_games.html) Atari Games Corp v Nintendo http://digital-law-online.info/cases/24PQ2D1015.htm

Hey everybody. So the good news about this episode is that we had special guest The Gaming Historian on. The not so great news is that it sounds like we recorded this episode in a large cave. We did our best to clean it up. I think it's a really good episode so I hope you'll stick with us. If it's too much for you, please check out some of our other episodes. If it's too much for you, please check out some of our other episodes. One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts.

I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about Devin Moore, a man who shot and killed three people. Did Grand Theft Auto make him do it? And I'll be talking about Daniel Petrick, the 16-year-old boy who shot his parents over a video game. This week, we have special guest Norman Caruso, the gaming historian. Welcome, Norm.

Hello, and I will be talking about the Atari Games vs. Nintendo lawsuit, which focused on the very first unlicensed games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. So I just want to start by thanking our special guest, Norman Caruso. He begged to be on the podcast. I mean, since we've started this, he's been like, when are you going to let me be on? I want to be on so bad. I don't just want to, you know, it's not enough for me to set up your audio equipment each week.

I just want to be featured as a guest. Please. Are people aware that I'm your husband, Kristen? They are now. Here's the problem. Now they're going to be like, he slept his way to the top. I slept my way onto this show. Which is the only way to get on this show.

Guess so. Can't wait for future guests. Stay tuned for Channing Tatum. He recently divorced Channing Tatum. So it could be a possibility. My sister sent me a text. Well, actually, no. She posted this on our Facebook page. And she was like, hey, you talked about how you love Channing Tatum.

And now he's getting a divorce. Yeah, it's clearly because he found out you're into him. Yeah, clearly. He's also a big fan. He's one of our 12 listeners. Man, that's crazy. No, we really do appreciate you being here. You're welcome.

Because as your wife and your business partner, I know firsthand how much you love being on very small podcasts that no one listens to. So I guess I should explain what I do for the listeners that have no idea what I do. Okay, you're giving me this look like I should have done it already. So I will do it. So the reason Norman is on this show right now is to promote his tiny little YouTube show. Yeah. No. Norman has an excellent YouTube show where he talks about big moments in video game history.

He does documentary-style videos that are really great. He just released an hour-long episode about Tetris, which is fascinating. He's been doing the show for, what, 10 years? 10 years, officially. And that's why this episode is going to be dedicated to video game lawsuits. I noticed both of you chose violent lawsuits. Well, see, we established that I'm a fucking psychopath and love court cases that specifically,

typically revolve around stabbings. I'm branching out a little bit today. I'm doing a shooting. Couldn't find a stabbing? Yeah. No stabbings in video games. Dang. Brandi was Googling and so mad.

Yes, I was so pissed. Stab and Nintendo. Zero results. Aw, that sucks. Yeah. And I don't always do the violent ones, but I enjoy a violent one. Yeah, no, you usually balance me out with some more civil cases and stuff like that. Those are just not that interesting to me.

For some reason, when you said civil, I wasn't thinking like civil court. I was thinking like more civilized cases. And then it flashed in my head the, you know, insight boner pills one I did. So what we do here, Kristen, is a court podcast. What? And a branch of the court system is civil court. And so when I said civil court,

I meant lawsuits that are handled in civil court. Ma'am, I do not like the way you were talking to me. I like to be dumb but not have it pointed out that I'm being dumb. No, is there anything else we need to, oh, should we, we should plug the Blu-ray. Yeah.

So Norm also has a great Blu-ray out, Gaming Historian Volume 1. It's got stuff on it and things. Wow. it's got stuff on it and things wow it has 16 classic episodes plus never before seen footage stuff that you will never see uploaded to youtube that's right and you can get it signed when you order it through our website the gaming historian.com kristin finally got the website. Oh fuck. The website. Brandy always has to correct me. I think it's because she's constantly going to the website. Yes. Multiple times a day.

Lots of pictures on there. I understand. It's gaming historian dot com. No it's the gaming historian either one works believe it or not oh my god i actually created this website and i bought the domain names it's weird how i know how to get to the website how do i get to my own website no no it's the gaming historian okay wow we have just been you been schooled on our own fucking podcast. To be clear, we're here doing this as a favor to you. Oh.

As it turns out, we are not going to have a guest on this episode. Yeah, I'm leaving. I am now going to stab Norm and blame video games. Yeah, I'm going to Chipotle. I don't have time for this. Okay. Okay. blame video games yeah i'm going to chipotle i don't have time for this okay okay it was early in the morning on june 7th 2003 fayette alabama police officers arnold strickland and james crump spotted 18 year old devin moore sleeping in a stolen car. So Officer Strickland goes over, he arrests the kid and takes him into the station on suspicion of grand theft auto. Not a huge deal. They run

Devin through the system. They don't see anything on him. He's totally cooperative. Again, just not not a big deal. So they take Devin to the station and while they're there, they find out from the emergency dispatcher that a dry cleaning business near where Devin had been picked up had been burglarized. I think it was, it had been burglarized that night. And at the scene of the crime, there was a shoe print. So they're like, okay, well, if the shoe fits. That's exactly what they said. So at this point, Officer Strickland and Devin are alone. And so, again, Devin's been totally cooperative this whole time. Officer Strickland uncuffs him and takes Devin's shoe to get a print of the shoe.

That's when things went bad. and takes Devin's shoe to get a print of the shoe. That's when things went bad. Devin lunged for Strickland's gun, shot him in the head. Oh my God! So he got his gun? Yeah. Did he pull it out of a holster?

The articles didn't say, but surely he must have had it undone. He wasn't just like laying on the table. I would hope not. I'm going to lay my gun right. With a sign that says, please take me. I'm going to go get this print done. I'm going to lay my gun right here. Now, don't you touch it, Devin.

Don't touch the gun, Devin. No, so, you know, Devin shoots Officer Strickland. I think it was three times, once in the head. So, obviously obviously the other officer comes running down the hall he hears this commotion that was officer james crump so i don't think he was prepared for devin to be the one who had the gun because by the time devin shot him like he didn't even have his gun out you know, yeah, he was totally unprepared. So then Devin starts running down the hall and that's when he comes across emergency dispatcher, Ace Miller.

He shoots him several times. Oh my gosh. Once in the head. You really nailed the pronunciation of dispatcher. I'm pretty jealous. Norm, I don't know if you've heard, but I heard Brandy struggled. Big time. For some reason i'm dispatcher don't show off norm she can say dispatch she can say the er on the end yeah interesting yeah she calls it the 9-1-1 9-1-1 lady 9-1-1 9-1-1 boy

so he shoots three people again this is a really small town so he has just wiped out the night shift police force in this town yeah in one minute oh. I mean, we're talking boom, one guy, boom, the next, boom, the third one. In the course of all this, he takes one of their car keys and leaves the station. With one shoe on. Okay. This is where I think it gets kind of weird. So he leaves the building. He realizes, oh, shit, I forgot my shoe.

He tries to go back into the building, but it's locked. So, okay, now he's shoeless, which, I mean, priorities, I guess. But there's a fire station that's attached to the police building. And so he comes across two firefighters. And he's like, hey, guys, something bad happened out front there. You might want to check it out. Then he gets into the police cruiser and he drives off. Oh, my gosh.

With one shoe. With one shoe. To me, I guess the crazy thing is like that killing sounds so cold-blooded and so out of nowhere but then to like run into some firefighters and be like hey guys could you go check on that that just seems weird to me were the firefighters did they like register that this is a civilian driving off in a that's what i was wondering i don't think they saw that okay i i I really, there wasn't much info on that. It seems like I'm the only one who thought that was unusual. Yeah. Because I saw that in like one place and then no one else mentioned it.

Okay. So here's the crazy thing. He's driving away in a police cruiser, but he can hear the search for him going on over the police radio. And so anyway, they eventually caught up to him in a field. When they caught him, he said, life is like a video game. Everybody's got to die sometime.

Yeesh. That's not necessarily true in video games, though. And that's what the officer said. You can beat the game. You can beat it. The officer pushed his glasses up his nose and was like, actually. Actually, Devin. It depends on how good you are at video games.

Actually, Devin, I did a five minute speed run in Mario Brothers and I didn't die once. So do not at me. So there goes your theory. die once so do not at me so there goes your theory i'm just saying devin's quote is not not accurate so that's your one problem with this story no continue continue what he did was wrong but he also what he said was wrong okay okay and i put him on the same level but just saying okay you don't have to die in a video game boy I am so glad we have special guest gaming historian here. Anyway, continue. Okay, so obviously when he said that, that got huge media attention.

There was a lot of focus on just that line alone. Yeah. Because for quite a while, you know, people had been talking about whether violent video games would promote violent behavior in real life. And so people kind of took that as maybe it does. Maybe it does. Here's the proof.

This kid said it and he just killed three people. Yeah. So that's exactly what Devin Moore's attorney wanted to say, look, Devin loved playing violent video games, and it created this script in his head so that when he was in that situation, he just did what he had been trained to do. So let's talk about his habits. Devin loved violent video games, specifically Duck Hunt. And that's the most violent video game. you couldn't say that with a straight face i could see right through that okay fine fine it was grand theft auto yeah

so devin loved grand theft auto specifically grandft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto Vice City. So, let's talk for just a minute about these games. It's an open world. You can do a lot of bad shit, including Grand Theft Auto. You can kill hookers. Yep. And get your money back from them. Okay, now, hang on, hang on.

I've got an issue with get your money back. Yes. from them. Okay, now, hang on, hang on. I've got an issue with get your money back. Because if they perform a sex act on you and then you kill them and take the money, then you've robbed a sex worker. You didn't get your money back. No! If I go to Walmart right now, I'm like... What if they only took the

$20 that they paid and left the rest of the money? No, because that's... She's provided a service to you. All right. Now, hold on, hold on. I'm serious. If I go to a store that I've shopped at before

and I just take money, I'm like, I can't be like, I'm taking this back. Yes, I understand. What if you were unsatisfied with the services rendered? And then you killed the cashier. I feel like, I feel like, again, the cashier has to give you the money back.

Like, I'm sorry, we want to keep you as a customer. We want to keep doing sexy things to you. All right. Okay, okay. Carry on. Let's see. So, yeah, like we were saying, you can do a bunch of bad stuff in Grand Theft Auto, including kill cops. Yes.

And, of course, that was the thing that people really glommed on to. You can kill cops in this video game. So, like I said, at the trial. Glommed on to? What's glommed? Did I use that wrong? I don't know. What is glommed?

I assume, I always thought it was like. Glommed? Add on. No? I've just know. What is glom? I assume, I always thought it was like- Glom? Add on? No? I've just never heard the word glom. What if I just made it up? I hope you did. I love it.

It's a very cromulent word. Shut up. Okay. Okay. So at the trial, the defense wanted to present this argument, So at the trial, the defense wanted to present this argument, that Grand Theft Auto, coupled with PTSD from his abusive childhood, basically programmed Devin to kill.

So a little bit about his childhood. His mom had had a drug problem for a lot of when he was growing up. He bounced around different foster systems. Are you laughing at this? I'm laughing at Norm. We just burped into the microphone. I didn't pick it up on audio it's fine he warned us that that's what he was gonna do i when i grabbed the coke i was like i'm gonna burp into the mic during the podcast i thought you were joking i bourbon, but the mic didn't pick it up. It's fine. It's fine, Kristen.

It's fine. Brandy just saw my facial. I tried to ignore. It looked like you were a little volcano over there. Okay, so. Sorry, back to his horrible childhood. Yeah. This person we were all laughing at. To murder three people.

Yes. Yes. So Devin, his mom had a drug problem for a lot of his childhood he was in different foster homes there's some controversy over his relationship with his dad some people said his dad was a very strict disciplinarian and other people were like well, it kind of crossed that line from strict discipline into just abuse. Abuse, yeah. So anyway, the defense attorney wanted to argue this was scripted behavior. These games plus the childhood put him into a dissociative state where he couldn't tell what was real and what was fake. But they were not allowed to use this defense in court.

They wanted to, but the court was like and i think part of the reason why the judge didn't allow it was because there weren't enough scientific studies linking video games to violent behavior so you know you you can't really use what year is this again i think this was 2003 yeah that was like during the height of Grand Theft Auto. Yeah. Controversy. It was a very, very popular game at the time. So the defense was like, okay, we'll have to roll with this. We can't mention the video games, but he definitely had PTSD.

So the prosecution though, so Devin pled not guilty by reason of mental defect. The prosecution argued that Devin wasn't insane, that he knew what he was doing. And then District Attorney Chris McCool told the jury, he's not crazy. He's just mean. Wow. That's quite the argument. He's just mean. He's just mean. He's just mean.

What? So the jury deliberated for one hour, and they agreed with the prosecution. There was no mental defect, and they sentenced him to death. Wow. Yeah. Kill two law enforcement officers and a dispatcher, yeah. And it's Alabama. And it's Alabama. You're going to get the death penalty no yeah i i was kind of i don't feel good about that but

but i don't think it's surprising yeah yeah okay so you may be wondering how the victim's families felt about all this like how they felt about this idea that video games played a role in this shooting um they actually wanted video game companies to be held responsible for what happened they agreed with it so the day after the verdict came down in this case they teamed up and filed a 600 million dollar civil suit against Grand Theft Auto manufacturer Take-Two Interactive, Sony, Walmart, and GameStop. Now, you said this is a civil suit? I know you've never heard of this before, Brandi. It was a civil suit.

We'll put definitions in the show notes. So they included Walmart and GameStop because apparently those were two places where he had bought the Grand Theft Auto games. Walmart sold Grand Theft Auto? Yeah. I thought that they were like one of the, I thought that was part of their

we don't sell, I don't know, stuff over a certain rating. They don't sell adult only rated games. They sell rated, Grand The. They sell rated M... Grand Theft Auto is rated M for Mature. Okay. And I think that was part of the argument is, so M for Mature, that's 17 and over, right?

Correct. So I think Devin was under 17 when he bought some of these games. And so, you know, that was part of the argument. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now this is gonna get real fun. Representing the families was Florida attorney slash activist Jack Thompson.

Oh, boy. Do you know anything about Jack Thompson? Oh, he's a lunatic. Anyway, continue. Don't spoil it. No spoilers. This guy. He's a real life Looney Tune.

He is. He's really something. So let's talk about him. He was a lawyer and anti-video game violence activist. But he was anti a lot of other things too, including being nice. So I'm going to tell one of my favorite stories about him because there's a ton of stories you could tell. But this one I, says so much. So let's see here. In 1988, he ran for state attorney against Janet Reno.

And Janet Reno, of course, later became, I think she was the first female attorney general of the United States. So Jack Thompson was not a fan of Janet Reno. He said she was way too liberal, blah, blah, blah. So they're running against each other. And one day before one of their debates, he passed her a note. Was it like folded up? That is exactly how I imagine it. Yes.

Yes. Do you like me? Check yes or no. Okay. It's so funny you say that let me tell you what this note said so you gave her a check check one note okay the note said i janet reno am a check one homosexual bisexual heterosexual yeah what the what did she check then it said did she check anything then it said if you do not respond by and then such and such day then you will be deemed to have checked one of the first two boxes

oh my god that's like harassment um yeah he's a total douche oh my god so That's like harassment. Yeah. He's a total douche. Oh my God. So that's what he did. So what do you think Janet did? Norm, you think she responded? Probably not. She probably, did she bring it to the attention of the media? She probably, yeah. Here's what she did.

She went over to him, put her hand on his shoulder and goes, I'm only attracted to virile men, which is why I'm not attracted to you. Wow. Got him. But now here's my favorite part. Guess what he does back? He sued her for battery.

What? For putting her hand on him? Yeah. Yeah. Poor guy. So he sues her for battery. And he goes on, I think it was like Nightline or some news show. And he goes, she grabbed a hold of me and shook me.

She didn't hurt me, but I was annoyed. Oh, my God. I was annoyed. I was annoyed. I got really annoyed by she didn't hurt me. Because I feel like if you're trying to make a case it's not battery then Kristen annoys me a lot

I can't just sue her every time she annoys me though please do take all my money I'm suing my wife she annoyed me I just feel like he wanted to make it clear that he was not harmed by a woman in any way yes yeah

exactly so janet reno of course was like um i think this issue should be investigated go ahead and go ahead and figure out get to the bottom of it did i did i do something wrong here and of course they were like uh no you didn't jack thompson we see you this was clearly just a political ploy shut up forever shut up forever so janet won the election how do you think jack took that loss not well no not great a few years later janet reno was on the board of a non-profit um called switchboard of miami and i think it's basically like a crisis hotline you call in and they'll refer you to different social services programs so jack came out and said that the group was placing homosexual education tapes in schools what yeah this guy like homosexual education like

how to be a homosexual i assume which i don't know educational tapes with a homosexual theme like jo Joey has two moms. Why does Joey have two moms? I like to think that it was just graphic porn. Yeah, just hardcore gay porn. Let him know. It's an educational thing. That's what I hope it was.

You know what I'm saying? So, at this point, it was getting so ridiculous that the Florida Bar Association made him take a mental exam. I love that. But he passed. So then he went around and bragged that he was the only certified sane lawyer in Florida. Oh, of course he did. That's good marketing. Yeah.

So we're closing in on this time where he starts to get obsessed with video games but it started with music sexy music sexy music okay do you guys remember this song me so horny yes oh yeah so i um i listened to it a lot yesterday. And that song gets like in your head. Yeah, because it's so, it's very repetitive. And I gotta say, it is stupid. I copied down some of the lyrics. I'm like a dog in heat, a freak without warning. I have an appetite for sex because me so horny.

So this was by Two Life Crew thompson was not a fan and he said that their album violated obscenity laws and i gotta say it was pretty gross he also went after madonna and iced tea but then in 1997 he shifted his attention to video games because he wasn't getting any attention for his music lawsuits? I assume because they weren't successful. He was getting a lot of attention. People were just like, yeah, tell him to shut up, and now he's moving on to the next entertainment medium.

And he saw an opening for this. In Kentucky in 1997, there was a school shooting, and during the investigation, they found that the killer played a lot of violent video games. So that kind of started this ball rolling. They did the same thing with Columbine, right? Columbine, yeah. They played Doom.

Played a lot of Doom. Yeah. So Jack Thompson represented the victim's parents and sued a ton of different video game companies during that thing. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, amongst others. And his logic was these games convinced the killer to disregard human life. But the lawsuit got dismissed. But here's the thing. When they dismissed that lawsuit, the court didn't specifically say, hey, you can't do this because video games are protected by the First Amendment. So since they didn't say that, I guess the lesson there was kind of like,

okay, find a new way to attack video games and your lawsuit might work next time. Left an opening for him. Yeah. Yeah. So he kept trying, but his cases kept getting dismissed. Story of his life. Then the Devin Moore case comes up. The one I started talking about in the beginning with the triple murder.

Thanks for reminding us. Who's Devin? Now, what did you do? I hate you both. This was the case I originally brought up. You know what I hate about you guys? You're both very similar. And so... originally brought up. You know what I hate about you guys? You're both very similar, and so...

Let me remind you who Devin was. Hey, why don't you burp into the mic? So anyway, Devin Moore, who I spoke about in the beginning. Oh yes, Devin. So Jack Thompson is all in on this $600 million civil suit. He's very excited. So he goes on 60 Minutes. Oh, my God.

I'm going to read a quote because this is, the quotes from this guy, pure gold. Here's what he told 60 Minutes. What we're saying is Devin Moore was, in effect, trained to do what he told 60 Minutes. Brandy is laughing at but for. She's holding it in. You put so much emphasis on but for. Yeah, I thought that was a weird. Wait, so I'm the bad guy here?

Yeah, but the way you said it was but for. You're like, but for. But see, you've got to put the emphasis on it because then it'll sound weird, right? You just say but for. You didn't say but for. But for. But see, you've got to put the emphasis on it because then it'll sound weird, right? You just say but for. You didn't say but for. But for. But you're like, but for. We're never having a guest on this podcast again.

Guess not. Okay, so anyway. Then he said, the video game industry gave him a cranial menu that popped up in the blink of the eye in a blink. Oh, shit. The video game industry gave him a cranial menu that popped up in the blink of an eye in that police station. And that menu offered him the split second decision to kill the officers, shoot them in the head, flee in the police car, just as the game itself had trained him to do. So, Norman, I've got a question for you. All right.

He calls Grand Theft Auto primarily a cop-killing game. Yeah. Is it? No, not at all. That's my impression, too. Can you do it in the game? Yes. Are there consequences for doing it?

Yes, there are. But the primary goal of grand theft auto is not to kill cops yeah i mean that's that's what struck me yeah amongst other things about this quote is it just seems like total bullshit what really struck me it's it's almost you could make the same argument that super mario brothers is a turtle killing game. Right. You can stomp on Koopa Troopa turtles in Super Mario Brothers. Is that why I'm always killing turtles? I see dead turtles everywhere around this house.

You have been trained. You've been trained by Super Mario World to stomp on turtles. It's a murder simulator is what it is. It is. Oh my gosh. And it's also why i'm always eating mushrooms by the way um i think pita had a huge campaign against mario for for that reason not not not

just killing turtles but like he wears the tanuki suit and they're like mario wears fur yeah yeah anyway well we can talk about that later continue with with Looney Bin, Bugs Bunny, the lawyer. It gets even worse. Okay. Ain't I a stinker? Okay. This guy's nuts. So they have the 60 Minutes episode, but that was not enough attention.

So he starts churning out press releases, and they were fucking nuts. he starts churning out press releases, and they were fucking nuts. In one, he pointed out that in some areas of Japan, you can't sell Grand Theft Auto to minors, but that Sony has no problem, and I'm quoting here, dumping this garbage into American kids' brains.

Oh, God. He called it Pearl Harbor 2. Holy shit. Electric boogaloo yeah he made it sound really fun pearl harbor 2 can you fucking believe that so he based so he because he blamed sony sony is a japanese company he was like oh my god that's horrible i mean it's it's stupid for so many reasons one of them it's like okay yeah in certain areas of japan they won't allow that game to be sold to minors sony a japanese company sells the game in the united states those two things are not related in any way it's like he's acting like something

that happens in japan and a company that's based in Japan, they're all the same. Right. Yeah, that's... And he's also under the assumption that Sony is somehow involved in the development of Grand Theft Auto, which is not true. Right. It's developed by Rockstar,

and it was published by Take-Two. It was licensed to Sony for their console, but it's not like Sony was actively marketing Grand Theft Auto. No, yeah, you're right. I mean, it's just stupid on so many reasons. It seems like he understands about half of what is going on, which is the Kristen Pitts story.

So people were pretty offended by that Pearl Harbor 2 electric boogaloo comment. Yes. Why did he add electric boogaloo on there? I don't know. I guess he thought more people would pay attention. Yeah. So Jack apologized. Just kidding.

I was like, what? Yeah. No, he doubled down. So someone from the media called him up and was like, hey, dude. About that comment. About that Pearl Harbor thing. And he doubled down. So someone from the media called him up and was like, hey, dude. About that comment. About that Pearl Harbor thing. And he doubled down. And he was like, no, they dump pornography and violent video games into our country.

And he called it a, quote, slow motion version of Pearl Harbor. Holy shit. So obviously the video game industry was like this guy is nuts you can't trust him um jack actually brought that up in his press release and he was like take two interactive is quote the most reckless video game company in the world he said that them accusing him of being unethical was like, quote, a nuclear bomb calling a cap gun explosive. So. Wow. Yeah.

The lawyer for Sony and Take-Two went to the judge in the case and was like, please take this douchebag off the case. Just dismiss the case in general. Well, they wanted that too. But he was like, this Jack guy is going to turn the courtroom into a circus. Please stop this. Jack tried to fight back, but eventually he swooped in heroically and was like, you know what?

This case is not about me. This is about the victim's families, and I don't want to insert myself. I'm going to withdraw myself from this case. And then a hero comes along with the strength to carry on. So the judge was like, no, you can't withdraw from this case because I'm kicking you off. Good. That judge wrote an 18-page letter criticizing Jack's behavior and then temporarily barred him from practicing law in Alabama. So there was a lot of back and forth after this, but you get the gist.

You know, Jack's a bucket of sunshine and the judge is like, we've had enough sunshine. Yeah. Goodbye. It's a little hard to figure out exactly what happened from here on out, mostly because once Jack was gone, the media circus kind of died down. But what is clear is that the video game makers moved to dismiss the case. They were like, look, at the time of the sale, it wasn't illegal to sell these games to minors.

And they really wanted to argue, like, this is protected by the First Amendment. Come on, come on. And the judge was like, no, we're not going to dismiss this case. There's still some stuff to be decided here. That decision went all the way to the Alabama Supreme Court and the court affirmed the lower court's decision. We're not going to dismiss on these grounds that you're bringing up.

I did find an article by Kotaku that said that eventually this case was dismissed, but it was on the grounds that Jack failed to file several key documents correctly. Oh, God. So, wrapping up here, where are they now? Devin Moore appealed the death penalty decision, but they upheld it in a 5-0 vote. He is currently on death row. Jack Thompson is permanently disbarred in the state of Florida. Video games, thanks to a 2011 Supreme Court decision, are protected speech under the First Amendment, just like basically any other form of media. In the decision, Antonin Scalia wrote, like the protected books, plays, and movies

that preceded them, video games communicate ideas and even social messages through many familiar literary devices, such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music, and through features distinctive to the medium, such as the player's interaction with the virtual world. That suffices to confer First Amendment protection. But for. No, he didn't add that. But for. So I'm curious about your guys' thought on

did Grand Theft Auto make him do it? No No No Yeah No To me it's like it sounds like he had an exceptionally rough childhood

Yeah It is interesting to me like do violent images play a role or desensitize you in some way? I can see maybe that but i don't see that being like the tipping point for murdering three people no i agree millions of people play grand theft auto and uh it's not like there's millions of people running around murdering people and be like well i played grand theft auto well cause me to do it and to be fair that's not like there's millions of people running around murdering people. And you're like, well, I played Grand Theft Auto.

Caused me to do it. And to be fair, that's not what his lawyer argued. His lawyer argued it was the PTSD. It was the childhood plus the video games. I agree that he probably has some mental issues. Yeah, I think so. But they were probably present without the game. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I yeah yeah but I they were probably present without the game right yeah yeah yeah and of course yeah if you have mental issues maybe combining that with a violent video game maybe you don't fully understand that it is just a video game but whoa did you just change sides no no I'm just I'm just saying like people with mental health issues yeah uh shouldn't play video games no heard it here first the gaming history like um people that suffer from i know i know i've talked to people that suffer from anxiety they can't play games where you're like jumping very high in the air on platforms because it gives them anxiety that oh i'm gonna fall and that scares me so I don't know maybe there's a connection there it doesn't make them do anything in real life okay

listen I just look back on my own life and I'm like hey I played a lot of video games I'm okay but but Brandy and I were talking about this last week we were talking about that episode of the walking dead so I guess spoiler alert but this But? But Brandi and I were talking about this last week. We were talking about that episode of The Walking Dead.

And, okay, so I guess, spoiler alert, but this is several seasons back. So if you're this far behind, then I don't know. It's your own fucking fault. Yeah. So do you remember when we watched the episode of The Walking Dead where Negan comes out and Negan murders Glenn? Fucking bashes his head. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

So I was horrified by that i was super effective effective super affected i was shaking i was just like i could not get that out of my head for days and i remember talking to you about it and you started laughing you were like man i guess i have just played too many video games because that did not affect me that's true because you know i've seen worse stuff in video games and movies and stuff and i was just like yeah it didn't i didn't think about it for days yeah to me i was just like oh that's and my mom who doesn't play video games at all quit watching the show over that episode yeah yeah i Yeah, I mean, to me, it was absolutely horrifying. Yeah.

It was the worst thing I've ever seen. Yeah. Yeah, and to me, I was like, I was like, oh no, Glenn's dead. But I didn't like, I didn't like think about

how he died at all. See, so I wonder if maybe it does desensitize you a little. Sure. Yeah. I could see that. Definitely.

That also explains why you keep bashing people's heads in. Yeah. Mystery solved. he's got eyeballs popping out all over the place yeah i definitely think um it's worth studying more because i feel like there's no conclusive evidence either way uh-huh so i think it's interesting what this says about us because our cases are very similar really yes okay and mine has nothing to do with violence at all

okay i'm excited yeah i'm ready let's let's take a little break from the violence okay okay i'm gonna throw in a stabbing though yeah i just really like stabbing. And then Mario stabbed Luigi. Okay. So my case is about Atari games versus Nintendo. This was a big lawsuit in the late 80s, early 90s. This was when Nintendo was dominating the video game industry after it had been proclaimed dead. Okay. The video game industry had been had been proclaimed dead. Okay. The video game industry had been proclaimed dead? Yes.

Wow. Okay, so I'm going to take you back to the early 80s. Let's go back to 1982, 1983. This is when Atari was like the number one video game company. Atari 2600, you know, like Pong and, you know,-man uh yar's revenge all these et all these are like really popular uh atari games pac-man's an atari game they ported it to the atari it's not an atari game but okay atari had a version of pac-man that sold a ton of copies um so the video game industry was this big it was a very new entertainment medium and so everybody wanted to cash in on it so atari was number one but then you had

uh the calico vision you had the mattel had a video game system called the intellivision you had the uh fairchild channel f radio shack had a pong clone uh sears had a freaking video game system the department store uh so you had all these video game systems and there was no like company regulation over it so like um purina dog chow made a video game no no it was like a mail-in. Did you get it free with your dog? If you bought, yeah, if you like mailed in rebates of your dog chow, it was called Chase the Chuck Wagon. Oh my gosh. Which is part of their marketing where like the little Chuck Wagon goes

and the dog follows it. So yeah, there was a game about like cleaning your teeth by some like dental organization, I'm pretty sure. So all these, just games everywhere no regulation on if they're good or not yeah so tons of consoles tons of games and basically consumers got burnt out by it there's just too much we don't know what's good we don't know what's bad um the personal computer is comes out and uh they're pretty competitively priced so they're like why would you buy a video game system when i can buy a computer and I can do all this extra stuff?

Right. So the video game industry in 1983 in North America, it crashes. So games that were like $40 are now like $4. Wow. Consoles that were $150 are like $30 now. And Atari loses a ton of money uh by the end of 1983 they lose 539 million dollars oh my god oh my god um they lay off 700 employees in 1984 so basically atari is owned by warner communications which is a massive you massive entertainment conglomerate.

And the president of Warner, Steve Ross, he's like, okay, video games are dead. Let's pull the plug. So he splits Atari into two. So he splits Atari into the Atari Corporation and then Atari Games. So Atari Corporation handles consumer products, personal computers, video game consoles, and Atari Games handles software, the arcade games, so basically hardware and software.

So he's like, we're going to split the company and we're going to sell them to the highest bidder because we want to make the most money. The Commodore Computer Company, which was a very popular computer in the 80s,

they buy the Atari Corporation. So they get access to all of Atari. Did you know Atari made personal computers? I did not. No. Yes. So Atari made personal computers. Did you know that, Kristen?

No, I just like that he called us ladies. I didn't say ladies. I think he said in the 80s. Oh, I thought you said ladies. Now, ladies, did you know? I thought it was so weird. I was like, I don't think I've ever heard him say that. Hey, ladies, did you know?

That's why I started Game Historian, to pick up women. Anyway. Working it out, man. Oh, he's not wanting to answer that question this is somewhat of a long story so I want to get through it keep fucking moving no time to talk about

his conquests so many ladies it's not because there weren't any oh no hey we know there was one. You were it. She's in this room. She's here.

Talking into the mic. So, the founder of Commodore, Jack Tramiel, he buys the Atari Corporation. He's not interested in video games. So, he just buys the Atari Corporation. Even though he could have bought Atari Games for, like, nothing. But he's like, video games uh so he just buys the atari corporation even though he could have bought atari games for like nothing but he's like video games are dead fat why would i buy this so atari games is sold to a japanese company uh called namco you familiar with namco no they developed pac-man oh okay they developed the galaga so some pretty popular uh games back then still popular today actually so messiah nakamura who is the owner of namco he buys atari games

uh for 10 million dollars so suddenly he has the rights to all of these classic atari licenses and arcade games it was actually a good move because the video game crash happened only in North America. In Japan, video games were still booming. Yeah. Masaya Nakamura gives Atari games to his underling named Hideyuki Nakajima. He previously ran Atari of Japan. Okay. So he has a connection here. So back in the 70s, he was put in charge of of Japan. Okay. So he has a connection here.

So back in the 70s, he was put in charge of Atari Japan. But Atari Japan was basically a huge failure. They did not make a lot of money. Employees were stealing from them. It was a huge disaster. So Atari Japan was sold to Namco. And then Namco buys Atari games like 10 years later whoa weird

yeah yeah so anyway nakajima says okay we need to make atari games profitable again so he lays off some people he freezes all uh rate employee raises and uh the other thing is he wants to get into video games again but as i said earlier you know atari was split in two the atari corporation that was given to commodore they owned the consumer portion of atari so atari games couldn't just like make video games and say these are atari games so they made a subsidiary called tengan okay so they sold video games under this company called tengan okay and uh at this point it is 1987 sorry 1986 it's a good year great year 1987. Sorry, 1986. It's a good year. Great year.

I was born that year. Do we have 85, 86, 87? Yeah, I'm 87. Okay. Explains why I'm so much more mature than you guys. Explains why I say but for and you guys just giggle. So Hideyuki Nakajima. What?

So this dude running Atari Games slash Tengen wants to get into video games, and in 1986, the Nintendo Entertainment System is the number one selling video game console in North America. Nintendo brought over the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, where everyone thought video games were dead because of that huge crash, and they revitalized the industry basically on their own. So everyone wanted a Nintendo Entertainment System. Video games were back. So Atari Games wants to sell games on the Nintendo Entertainment System under Tengen.

But Nintendo has very strict licensing policies. They didn't want to make the same mistakes that Atari did. They didn't want a cat food company making a Nintendo game. So you have to get permission from Nintendo to make a same mistakes at a target they didn't want a cat food company making a nintendo game yeah so you have to get permission from nintendo to make a game on their console and they had some really strict uh demands so some of their demands were like a company can only make five games a year because they didn't want to overload the market yeah um you have to buy the cartridges from Nintendo. A minimum order of 10,000 cartridges. Wow. Now, was that just to make money? It was kind of both.

Yeah. Nintendo controls the product, and they make money from the companies that want to make games for their system. Sure. When you're the number one video game company, and you have like 90% market share, you can kind of do whatever you want. You get to make the rules yeah yeah nintendo also had very strict uh censorship so you could you couldn't have blood in your game you couldn't have religious symbols in your game because they wanted to make it family friendly um the other thing nintendo did was they had some uhout technology. So to prevent these random companies from making games for their system,

they put in a lockout chip in the Nintendo Entertainment System. So how it worked was there's a lockout chip in the Nintendo and then there's a lockout chip in the game cartridge. And when those chips communicated, it let the game play. Okay.

So if some random company made a game... And they wouldn't include that chip so the game wouldn't Okay. So if some random company made a game. And they wouldn't include that chip, so the game wouldn't play. They wouldn't include the chip, right. So the chip and the program that communicated with those chips was copyrighted. Okay. Okay. That's pretty smart. That is really smart.

Yeah. I will say that some companies did find ways around some of their licensing things. So, you know, you can only make five games a year deal. Would they create like a new company? They would create a subsidiary and be like, oh, we're not Konami. We are now, we have another company called Ultra. Yeah, okay. Yeah, there's a lot of fun little subsidiaries back then so they can make more games.

So, Nakajima, the head of Tengen, does not like this licensing agreement. And he goes to Nintendo president Minoru Arakawa, and he goes, hey, we're Atari Games. We were like a big deal back then. We're Atari. Give us a better licensing deal. We want to make games for Nintendo. But Nintendo of America says, no, we have to treat everybody the same.

It's not fair if we give people special treatment. So Atari Games is like, well, all right, we'll become a Nintendo licensee. And they released three games as an official licensee. So they released gauntlet pac-man and rbi baseball um and the other thing that happens is nakajima and nintendo of america

president minoru adakawa they become friends and they hang out a lot together and they go to dinner together they play golf and uh minoru adakawa noticed that nakajima kept asking him questions like hey how does uh how much money do you make on this licensing like how do you control retailers blah blah like a lot of insider information well behind closed doors atari games again they don't like this licensing deal. They are trying to find a way to get around the lockout chip in the Nintendo console. Oh, shit. Was this a fake friendship? Maybe a little bit, yeah.

Yeah. So there's engineers at Atari that are trying to get around this lockout chip. That's the number one reason they can't go rogue and go on their own. This lockout chip is preventing them. So they try to reverse engineer it. And, uh, it's not working. One of the COOs of Atari Games hated this licensing program Nintendo had. He said, the way Nintendo did business was like Ford introducing a car

that could only use Ford gasoline. So you can imagine having a Ford car, you had to go to a Ford store and get your gas. Again, Atari Games wants to go rogue. Their lawyers read over the licensing agreement. Games wants to go rogue. Their lawyers read over the licensing agreement. The only way you can make games for the NES legally getting around the licensing agreement is you have to be able to get around that lockout chip.

They can't reverse engineer it. They've given up. They know the program is copyrighted, so they come up with a plan. So there is no legal way to go around the lockout chip then if you reverse engineer the lockout chip legally you can't oh so you just have to be smart enough right okay program's copyrighted they can't crack the code so they go to the copyright office and well here's the deal with copyrighted material you can go and look at copyrighted material you can look at, but you can't take pictures of it.

You can't take notes on it. You can just look at it. There's one exception to that rule, though. If the material is the subject of litigation, you can take pictures and take notes. Oh, my gosh. Because it's part of the discovery process, right? Okay. So lawyers for Atari Games go to the copyright office, and they notes. Oh my gosh. Because it's part of the discovery process, right? Yeah, right. So lawyers for Atari games go to the copyright office

and they lie and they say, we're being sued by Nintendo. We need a copy of the lockout chip program. So they just, they walk in and they get it. Oh my gosh.

So they take... That is so messed up. That is! Yeah, they just lied. So all of a sudden they have the program and they make a clone of the lockout chip and they name their clone the rabbit. That's the code name, rabbit chip.

So they put it in their unlicensed game and it works. And so they have found a way around the licensing agreement. Wow. When you started this, and so they have found a way around the licensing agreement. Wow. So. When you started this, I thought they were going to send some guy with a great memory in there. Exactly what I said. Now, that would be an idea. The photographic memory.

So they have a way around the lockout chip. They haven't done anything with it yet, though. So now we're in 1988, and there is an industry-wide chip shortage. All electronics, there's a chip shortage. There's just so many new electronics coming out, and there's just not enough chips to go around. That includes video

games. So because Nintendo controls all the manufacturing, they can basically tell companies, we're only gonna make X amount of your game because we don't have enough chips. And so this pisses off Atari games even more because they're like, you're preventing us from making money.

So they decide in December of 1988 to sueintendo for antitrust violations and unfair competition for a hundred million dollars at the very same time they do this they release their unlicensed games to retail stores oh my god wow so was that like a like look over here at this thing yeah basically or it could have just been like a one-two punch like yeah and here's a lawsuit and here's our unlicensed games okay so you all know what a nintendo cartridge looks like it's the gray cartridge yeah well the tengen cartridges looked very similar but they were completely black and it said you know tengen on it and it had a little seal of approval like the tengan seal

of approval so kind of like the nintendo yeah kind of like the nintendo seal of route is the tengan those these were the very first unlicensed games on the nintendo entertainment system because nintendo again was super they didn't want another video game crash so they wanted to control everything yeah um so this was the very first crop of unlicensed games and they were actually pretty good tengen put out some pretty good games on the nintendo entertainment system it'd be a shame if they didn't after all that yeah um one of my favorites is rolling thunder great arcade game that was ported to the NES. And again, here's another interesting thing. Sega,

Nintendo's big rival back in the day, Sega licensed some of their games to Tengen, so there are some Sega games you can play on the Nintendo Entertainment System, like Afterburner. Wow. Which is really weird to think about. So,

Nintendo finds out about this lawsuit at their 1988 Christmas party. At the party. They get a call that they're being sued by Atari Games. Oh, jeez. So they contact Nintendo

of Japan, who was, you know, daddy, basically. You just had to work out a way to say Daddy. I had to find a way to say Daddy. Nintendo's main headquarters are in Japan. So their president, Horoshi Yamauchi, says... Daddy. Big Daddy Yamauchi,

says to Nintendo of America, you need to stomp this in the butt right now. Into the butt four. Stomp the butt four the butt right now. Into the butt four. Stomp the butt four right now. Okay? He's like, we are not going to have another video game crash. You need to get rid of these unlicensed games.

And, you know, crush them like the little buggies they are. Make daddy happy. Ew! God! Okay. You know, it's funny we we were on board with everything until make daddy happy that is the grossest thing you've ever said so nakajima and arakawa you know they were best buds that golfed together at dinner they meet to discuss the lawsuit and nakajima says look um i'll withdraw the lawsuit just let us make our own games let us manufacture our games and uh nintendo america is like no no way i don't blame them i don't either you don't get to sue me and then

do this other shady thing yeah no so um atari games goes to the media and says nintendo is purposely creating a chip shortage in order to keep prices high and control the retail market. Which, that's not true, is it? It's not true. There was an industry-wide chip shortage. Yeah. And Nintendo denied the claim and said it was absolute nonsense. Nintendo Vice President Howard Lincoln was like, I am going to destroy Atari games.

He started off as their lawyer. And he was a badass lawyer. He started off as their lawyer. And he was a badass lawyer. He's a really good lawyer. Vietnam veteran, great lawyer. Later would run the Seattle Mariners. That's a whole other story. He said it was a total betrayal on Atari Games' part. Because they had that initial licensing agreement

and they even released games. And now they were suing and releasing unlicensed games. So he goes, you have no idea what you have taken on. A tiger who will skin you piece by piece. Damn.

He's mad. Okay. So Nintendo, in February of 1989, so two months later, Nintendo countersues Atari games and says they entered the licensing deal fraudulently.

They got technical support, they got detailed information about retailers, and they only entered the licensing agreement so they could make their unlicensed games. Yep, yep. And they sued Tengen for the unauthorized and unsupported games on the NES and patent infringement on their lockout chip. Because they were like like how the hell is this working yeah and uh they found out they went to the copyright office and were like we're being sued which was a complete lie how did they find out do you know it doesn't say okay but they

they found out yeah um so they took all of these allegations and countersuits and they just put it into one case. And actually, the media was rooting for Atari games, believe it or not. Why? Because this was American media, right? This is American media. And Atari had been an American company, right? It was really more about creating a more open industry. Well, because then you could have more

games, cheaper games. Right. Dennis Lynch from the Chicago Tribune had a quote. He said, if the makers of hardware had veto power over what software gets made, consumers would suffer. Fewer programs would be available, and they would certainly cost more.

So, just what I exactly said, more games, cheaper games. Yes, Brandy was on point. And way more concise. Which is a fair point, but I also see Nintendo's side of you don't want things to go crazy, and you have another video game crash where people are making all this crazy stuff for your system i think that's that's kind of the point for me is i feel like you can't really compare it to just any other industry unless there was a similar crash in that industry you really like somewhere in the middle is where this needs to land where you can have more games cheaper games but the quality of those games is kept intact yeah and it definitely is that way

today there's a nice little medium yeah but back then nintendo was super strict okay so nintendo employs a strategy of intimidation outside the courtroom so they go to all these retailers and they're like yo if you're selling tengin products we're gonna cut you off from our nintendo stock and some of these retailers uh 50 of their sales were nintendo well yeah that's gonna make a much larger percentage of their sales yeah so it's too risky a lot of retailers they're like okay it's too risky to sell these atari games totally not worth it so uh yeah uh toys r us walmart target and circus world don't So, yeah. Toys R Us, Walmart, Target, and Circus World. Don't know if you remember Circus World. Not at all.

Old toy store. They all stopped selling the Tengen games because Nintendo basically threatened them. Wow. Well, Atari Games goes to the court and they say, Nintendo's threatening our customers. Yeah. So the judge, Fern Smith, who's overseen the entire case, says, yeah, you can't interfere with each other's customers. So Atari Games is still allowed to sell their unlicensed games,

and Nintendo can't threaten retailers. Okay. Despite all of this going on, Atari Games was making a lot of money on their unlicensed games. Their sales were up by 40% thanks to this. So they were having

a good old time. Yeah. But now comes the actual court case. So it all boils down to that rabbit chip that Tengen made.

And the question was, was it an exact copy of the lockout chip that Nintendo made? Like, could they prove that they actually stole it from the copyright office? Yeah, okay. Atari Games argued that the only reason they took the documents

from the copyright office was because it was crazy to think that someone could reverse engineer a chip just by, like you said, having a good memory and memorizing it. Right. Because reverse engineering is fair use. That has been determined to be fair use. Okay. If you want to reverse engineer an electronic device. Okay.

They felt they were entitled to self-help. What? Okay. And they also claimed the documents they took weren't important anyway because they had already reverse engineered Chip. Then why did you need them? Yeah, exactly. That's what Judge Fern Smith thought.

Yeah. That doesn't make sense. Here was the killer, exactly. That's what Judge Fern Smith thought. Yeah. That doesn't make sense. Here was the killer, though. So the copyright on Nintendo's chip was dated 1985. But in 1987, they actually updated the chip. So they deleted some unnecessary code in the chip in 1987. But the copyright was from 1985 the tengen rabbit chip had code from the 1985 version so that proved they didn't reverse engineer the chip

that they just blatantly they blatantly took the copyright wow um nintendo also when they made the 10 NES chip they purposely added garbage code to it that doesn't do anything it's just simply there to prove if somebody copies it oh that's so smart well the rabbit chip had the garbage

code yes so it was very clear to Judge Fern Smith that the rabbit chip was a direct copy of the 10 NES lockout chip, and she ordered Atari Games to immediately cease producing, distributing, and selling their unlicensed Nintendo games.

And they had to recall all their product currently on store shelves. And she also criticized the company for their actions. Yeah. Yeah. So they got a little talking to in court. Like a finger wagon. Atari Games would appeal.

And they said, look, if you shut down Tengen, we're going to have to lay off all of our employees. It'll be a huge financial impact. And Judge Fern Smith was like, she actually agreed with them. What? She said it would be a huge financial burden on them. So they remained on store shelves for a little bit longer. She actually agreed with them. What? She said it would be a huge financial burden on them. Wow. So they remained on store shelves for a little bit longer. And finally, and Atari Games appealed, of course,

in 1992, it went to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., and they finally ruled that they had to cease production on all those games. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, on all those games. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, that is so ridiculous. Yeah. So the appeals court agreed with Judge Fern Smith's original decision. Atari Games had stolen the code.

They ordered them to stop making and selling their unauthorized game cartridges. So after four years of litigation, it was finally over. But while all this was happening,ari games made a deal with sega to make games for their console the sega genesis which was new and upcoming yeah and they actually had a licensing deal with sega they didn't make unlicensed games for them sega had a nice of them had a very favorable licensing deal as opposed to nintendo um the problem was this whole legal battle really opened up other legal battles with nintendo so do you remember when commodore bought atari corporation like back when atari was split in two yeah so jack tramell who bought them he also sues Nintendo for $250 million for antitrust violations.

Wow. Okay. He claimed that Nintendo's practice of console exclusivity for two years prevented Atari from getting good games. So here's what happens. Jack Tramiel, you know how I was like, he wasn't interested in video games?

Well, then Nintendo comes, the video game industry booms again. He wants back in. Oh, wait, no, I want in. He wants in. Let me back in the pool. He goes to these companies, and he's like, hey, will you make games for our system?

And they're like, no, we have a deal with Nintendo, and it's a two-year exclusivity deal. Yeah. So if a company makes a game on the Nintendo Entertainment System they can't make it for another system for two years which is crazy crazy good deal for Nintendo

but the case is ultimately dismissed and Atari never really gets back into the video game industry but this also opens up the Federal Trade never really gets back into the video game industry. Yeah. Yeah. But this also opens up the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Nintendo because they're getting so many antitrust lawsuits.

So they, Representative Dennis Eckhart of Ohio, he urges the Justice Department to look into Nintendo for unreasonable tactics to restrain competitors. So this leads to an investigation by the ftc the ftc and nintendo decide to settle which was good news for nintendo they had to um well they didn't have to but their their agreement was nintendo was like okay well maybe we were kind of like monopolistic. So we're going to send out coupons to anyone that bought a Nintendo product between 1988 and 1990.

Wait, is this the Today in History episode? Yeah. Okay, as part of that agreement, Nintendo admitted no wrongdoing. Nintendo admits no wrongdoing, which is true. Way to get in person. Well, I thought it was such a crazy good deal for Nintendo because they made no wrong doing it.

Internally, they knew. Well, of course they did. Deep down inside, Kristen. Deep down, they knew. Well, anytime you're giving up to $25 million in rebates, you know you did something shitty. Well, the crazy thing is they send out $5 coupons to people that bought Nintendo products from 1988 to 1990. So it's basically like, if you bought a product, you get $5 off your next Nintendo purchase.

So they basically made more money. Yeah, no kidding. But they also, before all this, Nintendo basically set the prices for their games, consoles, accessories, anything. And if stores didn't sell them at that price, Nintendo threatened them. Well, after the FTC investigated, Nintendo told retailers, you can sell our products at whatever price you want, which makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah, the suggested retail price suggested nintendo didn't want people to think their product was cheapened so if toys r us was like we're having a blowout deal on the nintendo entertainment system yeah it might make nintendo look bad

what did the nintendo entertainment system originally retail for the suggested retail price was 159.99 which in today for adjusted for inflation it's about 320 dollars okay so fairly expensive yeah yeah for for what it was Um, so let's, let's, uh, wrap this up in a little, little nice little bow. Okay. So in Japan, Namco, who remember bought Atari games way back when, they had a nice little licensing deal with Nintendo in, in Japan only. This is when Nintendo first released their console. And so they wanted people to make games for their system. So Namco had a exclusive licensing deal with Nintendo,

which gave them very favorable treatment. Well, they had to renew their license. Um, so Namco's president, Messiah Nakamura, he meets with Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. He's like,

Hey, let's get a new new deal going well after all this went down you know Yamauchi was pissed about what Atari games did yeah so he's like no you don't get a favorable licensing deal

you have to do what everybody else does so Masaya Nakamura of Namco is super pissed so he calls out Nintendo publicly for their monopolistic practices. And then he declares that we're not going to make games for Nintendo anymore. We're going to make games for the Sega Genesis.

So that happened. And then Atari Games continues to make games for the Sega Genesis. In 1994 Time Warner purchases sorry, Time Warner communications Time Warner still owned a share

of Atari Games. They basically fold the company into a new company they call Time Warner Interactive. So Atari Games is no more. atari games is no more tengin is no more hideyuki nakajima uh battles lung cancer and passes away in 1994 um but you know a lot of people see him as like nintendo obviously saw him as a bad guy, but him bringing this, you know, battle up really, really ended Nintendo's crazy licensing policies and monopolistic practices. So, you could argue that what he did was a good thing. Yeah, there's not just one way to look at it.

Did he and the Nintendo guy stay friends? Minota Arakawa? Probably not. I can't imagine. I can't imagine they went golfing after that. Yeah. So that is my case. Atari games versus Nintendo.

The whole stealing the program. Yeah. We're being sued. We need a copy. That is pretty crazy. Actually, the copyright office changed their policy after this. Well, yeah, you can't just come in and say you're being sued.

Right. So now you have to present proof you're being sued. Oh, imagine that. You can't just walk in. Oh, my God. What a crazy concept. You can't just walk in and be like, I'm being sued. I need access to every copyrighted material.

Man. The 80s. Oh, God. Crazy stuff. That was really good. I thought that was super interesting it was good and i loved that nintendo put garbage code i know it's like that whole paper towns thing like um old cartographers so map makers would put in these fake towns on maps and then that is how they knew

if somebody copied their map if that fake town then appeared on another map that was proof that that person had copied their map still still a practice today in most most programming yeah programmers will usually put in like comments or or just code that doesn't do anything all right we're ready to get back in this let's do it brandy's case okay so of course you know we have this this episode we're gonna have a guest on we need a video game themed case and i of course had to find one that involved murder because as previously mentioned i'm a psychopath so i like how norman and i didn't try to correct you or anything. We're like, well, there you go. Okay.

In October of 2007, Daniel Petrick was a 16-year-old boy living with his parents, Susan and Mark, in Wellington, Ohio. Mark Petrick was a minister at the New Life Assembly of God in Wellington. And as such, he objected to Daniel playing video games with violent themes and adult ratings. Okay. So a religious family? Yes. I would imagine.

Very good, Norm. Okay. So even though his parents objected to these games, Daniel would play them at his friend's house, and he was even known to sneak. Naughty. Naughty Daniel. Naughty. games daniel would play them at his friend's house and he was even known to naughty naughty so he even was caught multiple times sneaking out of his house at night to go buy these games that he liked and then sneak them back in the house he was caught multiple times multiple times doing this good grief um mark his father would later testify that um daniel did this multiple

times and when he would discover the games he would destroy them oh so okay this next part this is this next part we're just fucking barely into this thing and i'm gonna be like well i'm not sure about this this is this timeline here's a little bit confusing there's not that much information available about this case but okay um so sometime in late 2006 or early 2007 daniel contracted a staff infection and he became housebound um during that time daniel became obsessed with the game halo 3 so halo 3 is a violent game i guess i think you shoot first person shooter aliens right aliens takes place in space in space in space yeah very popular video game franchise thank you for that commercial i'm not endorsing it stating I'm just stating the facts. He would play reportedly up to 18 hours at a time without breaking to eat or sleep. Now that is a gamer.

Yeah. Mad respect. Mad respect for Daniel there. Eventually, his mother Susan caught him playing and informed. Well, I would expect so. Yeah. 18 hours. How do you hide that for 18 hours? So, mom, don't get in.

Don't get in. Don't get in. Mom, I'm in the way. So, she informed her husband, and this led Mark to taking the game away. He, this time, though, for whatever reason, he did not destroy the game. This time, though, for whatever reason, he did not destroy the game. He locked it up in his safe that also held his 9mm Taurus PT-92 handgun. Uh-oh.

Well, maybe he wanted to play some Halo. So it's interesting that you say that because in multiple articles that I read about this, it's mentioned that that was Daniel's belief. That his dad took the game because he was going going to play it and so this was something that was grading on him like i'm not getting to play this game and my dad is gonna play this game do you think there was any truth to that no not at all i yeah i doubt his dad wanted to play but it is weird he didn't destroy it yeah this this time yeah that is weird yeah so yeah i mean i don't know you want to play some Halo. Yeah. Maybe you like, you know, Halo is kind of a, you know, angel religious thing.

The Halo, you know. Yeah, I got it. Maybe it's a religious game. Brandi, do you know what a Halo is? But for. For our listeners who don't know what Halos are. But for. So Daniel, by all accounts, is beside himself. Days went by and he grew more and more angry.

His lawyer would later argue that by this time he was exhibiting signs of withdrawal. Withdrawal. Why? So he was addicted to Halo 3. From a video game addiction. Yes. Then on October 20th, approximately one week after his parents had confiscated his game, Daniel stole his father's keys, used them to unlock the safe,

and from it he took his Halo 3 game and his father's handgun. Oh, no. He then walked up behind his parents, who were relaxing on the couch in the living room watching TV. And as he walked up behind them, he said, close your eyes. I have a surprise for you. What?

Daniel then proceeded to shoot both of his parents. He shot his mother in the head, arms, and chest and she died almost immediately. Then he shot his father in the head. Miraculously, his father survived and later described the moment his son shot him. So he said, you know, Daniel walked up behind him, said, close your eyes, I have a surprise

for you. And he was expecting, you know, some kind of pleasant surprise. And instead he heard the bang. He felt his head go numb. And then he saw blood pouring down over from his skull. He then remembered Daniel saying, hey, dad, here's your gun. Take it. As he's like placing the gun into his dad's hand.

Daniel was attempting to make the scene look like a murder suicide. Yeah. Oh, my God. That is so fucked up. Yeah. Super fucked up yeah super fucked up just minutes after the shooting heidi and andrew archer daniel's sister and her husband came to the door as they had plans to watch the cleveland indians alcs game against the boston red sox boston red sox won 12 to 2

thank you for that detail so in the article read, it just said a baseball game. And I was like, October 20th? That would have been a postseason game. I'm like, I wonder what they were into. There would only be one game, yeah. These are things I would have never looked into. So the part of Ohio that they lived in was just like 20 minutes outside of Cleveland. So they were like big Indians fans.

that they lived in was just like 20 minutes outside of Cleveland. So they were like big Indians fans. So Daniel goes to the door and he attempts to keep them from entering the house by saying, you know, you should leave. Mom and dad are fighting. It's been really bad. Like,

did he know that they were coming over? You think? I don't know. It's not clear to me. I would think that he maybe would have picked a different time. Yeah. So as the, as the as their this exchange is going on at the door and he's trying to get them to leave the sister hears groaning

and like moaning in the background and she pushes through and finds this grisly scene in the living room her mom is dead her dad is bleeding and he's you know barely alive oh my god um and so she calls 9-1-1 daniel meantime runs out the front door gets in the family van and takes off he takes with him only his halo 3 video game oh my god yes puts it in the passenger seat oh my god yes takes nothing else with him yeah this is how like this this reminds me of like i saw something like tlc special of people in love with inanimate objects oh yeah he was like legit in love with halo 3 yeah oh my god yeah um so police pursue him and they were able to stop him at a roadblock a short time later. Yeah.

As he's taken into custody, he yells, my dad shot my mom. So he's still trying to like sell this murder suicide. Sure. Thing. Um, Mark ends up in a coma for like three days and somehow he survives and like fully recovers from a fucking gunshot to the head yeah crazy yeah i mean he's a minister so maybe he had like a you know direct line to god and yeah god was marked to god marked come in god help me out here. Come in, God. Help me out, buddy. Yeah. So following this shooting, Microsoft, the owner of the intellectual property for the game, refused to comment other than saying, we're aware of the situation and it's a tragic case.

Yeah, I don't blame them. What else do you say? Yeah. Yeah. What else do you say? Yeah. Are games that good? I don't know them. What else do you say? Yeah. What else do you say? Yeah. Are games that good? I mean.

Yeah. It's great to hear someone is so passionate about Halo 3. Please leave us a review. Oh, God. Yeah. In stores now. Halo 3. Our game is so good, you'll shoot me, Darren. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, God. No, I think they definitely made the right call saying nothing. Yeah, I think so. Daniel was charged with aggravated murder, aggravated attempted murder, and tampering with evidence. So the tampering with evidence is because he put the gun in his father's hand, you know. If convicted, he faced a sentence of life in prison. He was 16 at the time, so he was too young for the death penalty.

God, I forgot he was only 16. Yes. This is crazy. This is interesting. Daniel waived his right to a jury fuck juror the rural juror daniel waived his right to a jury trial and put his fate in the hands of lorraine county judge james burge so he only his trial only appeared before the judge wow do you think he could like woo the judge over i

think such a charming boy i think his attorney's theory was like this is a topic like you know because their argument is similar to the violent violent video games cause them to do this this is a topic that is so polarizing that if we just maybe have one judge who's looking at this and we don't have to have 12 jurors who we don't know what stance they will take on that yeah we have a better chance i would think having a jury would be better though i don't i think juries can be so emotional and a case where you killed your mom yeah uh i i wouldn't do a jury yeah i i didn't know if maybe there would be a tactic of like you know such polarizing opinions maybe it would be a tactic of like, you know, such polarizing opinions. Maybe it would be a, what's that, a hung jury?

Yeah, a mistrial. I don't know. Yeah. Anyway, the lawyer probably knows better than I do. Well, no. Hey, on this podcast, we're very confident. Yes. So his murder trial began december 15th 2008 um so a little more than

a year later about 14 months later um daniel's sister and father both testified as well as one of daniel's friends heidi the sister told the court court that Daniel had become addicted to video games during that time that he had become housebound due to the staph infection. Okay, so here's the note here. One article read, said that it was a jet ski accident. One article said that it was a snowboarding accident. So who fucking knows? He was either out there shredding some waves or killing some fresh powder. And he ended up housebound for close to a year.

Killing fresh powder. Bottom line, he had a staph infection. That's right. He had a staph infection. And apparently he was some sort of, you know, sportsman. Okay. All right. sort of, you know, sportsman.

Okay. All right. Mark testified that he and his son had a great relationship, but that he had put his foot down when Daniel wanted to play the Halo video games. It had become so heated that he told his son to leave the house if he could not give up the game. And at that time, at that time, Daniel left the house and spent the weekend with a friend. That friend was Jonathan Johnson. Did Jonathan have Halo 3?

Yes. You know he did. Of course he did. Johnson is the friend that testified at trial, and he testified that it was during that weekend when he stayed at his house for the weekend after getting in the argument with his family that um daniel marathoned the game playing it for up to 18 hours straight with no breaks no food no sleeping nothing can you imagine having someone over your house that's that's a certifiable addiction yeah i love video games obviously but i couldn't i there's no game i could play for 18 hours straight. Yeah. That's crazy.

Yeah. Well, no, because you're putting aside your basic human needs. Yeah. Yeah, that's an addiction. I for sure agree. Yeah. This marathon weekend was roughly one week before the murders. Murder and attempted murder. Yeah, yeah. Only one person died, I guess. Just one.

He only murdered one parent. Everyone back off. Yes. Daniel's defense attorney, James Kersey, argued that due to the enormous amount of stress put on him by his severe infection, Daniel was more susceptible to being influenced by the game. I feel like this is a really tough thing to argue

because there's no fucking science behind that whatsoever. The stress of the infection? The stress of the infection led him to be more susceptible to the influence of the game. Okay, so in a way... Maybe they're like, because he was housebound he needed entertainment

And when the entertainment was taken Away from him it stressed him Out unbelievably Well and you know in those times in your life When you're really sick You know everything kind of falls By the wayside so I kind of Yeah but that's

Not a valid argument for murdering somebody. No, I agree. I can see being upset about it, but not murdering. And it's a hell of a statement to make when you have nothing to back it up. You have no case studies, no science of any kind to back it up. I mean, you can just say whatever the fuck you want, but you have to have something to back it up. but you have to have something to back it up. So he also argued that Daniel was not in the right state of mind to understand the finality of shooting his parents.

He said that he had been playing the game so long that he did not comprehend the fact that death was real and permanent. Because if you die in a game, you just start it back up and it starts over. Come on. Hmm. I don't know. I can't see anyone believing that. Yeah, I can't either.

Especially, so he was 16? 16, yeah. That's old enough to understand death. And that in Halo, you're shooting space aliens using these fake weapons.

Yeah. It's way off base. Whatever. The prosecuting attorney disagreed. And he said that not only did Daniel show no remorse for his actions, that he had the forethought to steal the keys, steal the guns, and then set up the shooting as a murder-suicide.

So this was something he thought through. Yeah. He was like, I'll set up as a murder-suicide, then I'll get to play Halo 3 all I want. Exactly. So I wasn't able to find, like, my understanding is that the case only went on for a few days, but then the judge sat with it for several days before he, even maybe a couple of weeks before he made a judgment on it. Because he didn't make a judgment on it until January of 2009. So this was being argued like in December.

And then in January, he came back with his verdict. What do you think his verdict was? Guilty. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. He found Daniel guilty. And then six months later, everybody was back in court for sentencing um so on june 15th um the sentencing hearing was held daniel's father mark spoke to the court and asked the judge for leniency and this this is what he said. He said, I know without any doubt he has

severe regret, remorse, and guilt for what he did to his mother and I that evening. He's not a throwaway kid. He does have a conscience. Danny can set an example for other young people not to get involved and do the things that he did. And I believe he can do that. He still doesn't understand why he did something so terrible. He has severe regret, guilt, and remorse, which I think he said twice, but. Hey, it's worth saying twice. That's right. I see the pain in his eyes. He's sorry for causing everyone so much terrible pain.

He's sorry for causing everyone so much terrible pain. And like he had to stop multiple times during that statement because he was super emotional. And this was reportedly like the only time Daniel got emotional in court is during the whole trial. All the testimony wasn't emotional at all. And then he was like visibly shaken and crying during his father's like statement to the court. So. Patrick's attorney. Told the judge that his client was blinded by the reality of the finality of shooting someone due to the video games. So it's kind of what the argument was before.

Like, you know, he was so entwined in this video game world that he didn't understand that what he was doing was reality and final. And then he asked the judge to impose the minimum sentence. His final statement was, the addiction and withdrawal from video games to young men who have hormones raging in their systems is exactly what caused Danny Petrick to do what he did. I don't really understand that argument. I don't know what the raging hormones have.

Listen. Let me tell you about my raging yeah tell us all about it norm i've got nothing i just think that's silly i think that's a crazy weird thing to say yeah hormones yeah um anthony sillow an assistant lorraine county attorney. So he's the prosecuting attorney on this case. He said Daniel Petrick deserved the maximum sentence and had already received a break because he was under 18 years old at the time of the crimes and was ineligible for the death penalty. So he's like, look, this kid already got a break.

He's already getting off too easy. So we need to impose the maximum sentence. Where he's already getting off too easy. So we need to impose the maximum sentence. Daniel was given an opportunity to speak to the judge on his own behalf prior to sentencing. But he had become so emotional during his father's statement that he was unable to compose himself enough to do so. He even rose as if he planned to speak, but he was crying so hard that he ended up sitting back down without saying anything. And the hearing continued on. Before imposing his sentence, Burge addressed the court.

So this is what the judge said. He said, that if there were no such thing as violent video games, I wouldn't know Daniel Petrick. In my opinion, Daniel Petrick isn't the same young man that he was on the evening he attempted to kill both of his parents. And he will be a different human being, I'm certain, 20 years from now. What do you think about that, Kristen? No.

Yeah. No. I don't agree with that at all. I think it's a really interesting statement. And he addressed the court after he imposed the sentence. And I'll read you what he said there in just a minute. But he definitely has a view on the video games influencing violent crime um so ultimately judge burge sentenced daniel to 20 years to life for aggravated murder 10 years for attempted aggravated murder and five

years for tampering with evidence all to be served concurrently he was also given a three-year firearm specification which will be served consecutively to the 20-year term so he will be eligible for parole after 23 years that is the minimum sentence allowed by ohio state law so he got the minimum wow yeah i don't think a jury would have done that i don't either i don't think a jury would have done that. I don't either. I don't think a jury would have done that at all. No. A jury would have done life without parole. Yeah, I agree.

I agree. Okay, so this is what... So this is the opinion that the judge gave after handing down his sentence. And this is... I think this is interesting. I also think it's fucking crazy. Okay. Okay.

The court must enter a finding of guilty on the counts set forth in the indictment. That being said, it's my firm belief as a human being and not as a jurist that Daniel does suffer from a serious defect of the mind. This court's opinion is that we don't know enough about these video games. In this particular case, not so much the violence of the game, because I believe in the Halo 3, what it amounts to is a contest to see

who can kill the most aliens, but it is my firm belief that after a while, the same psychological responses occur that occur in the ingestion of some drugs. And I believe that an addiction to these games can do the same thing, the dopamine surge, the stimulus, the same as an addiction, such that when you stop, your brain won't stand for it. The other dangerous things about these games, in my opinion, is that when these changes occur, they occur in an environment that is delusional because you can shoot these aliens and they're there again the next day. You have to shoot them

again. And I firmly believe that Daniel Petrick had no idea at the time he hatched this plot that if he killed his parents, they would be dead forever. Give me a break. I just,

I can't agree with that. I can agree with the addiction stuff. Yeah. Sure. I completely agree with that. Yes. Do I believe

that you can become addicted to it? Sure. Absolutely. You can become addicted to running. Yes. Do I believe that you can become addicted to it? Sure. Absolutely. You can become addicted to running. Yes. I mean, yeah. Yeah.

The whole like he thought if he shot his parents, they would come back to life. No, no. They he did not think that. Yeah. I don't agree with that at all. That's unreal. It is. It really is.

that's unreal it is it really is and so this is kind of what we were talking about earlier when like this judge if there would have been science to back up this argument he reportedly said like if he could have found him not guilty by reason of insanity if there was science to back that up he would have he, he would have. Yeah. And so like, what's odd is, um, if he claimed there wasn't enough scientific evidence, like how could he make a judgment himself? Exactly.

How could he be like, I think there is. So I'm going to rule on it. But no, that's just it. That's what he said. You know, he said,

I believe that this is true, but as the judge, I have to say, yes, he is guilty on this indictment for these reasons but i'm gonna sentence him to the minimum minimum because this is what i believe yes yeah i'm just stunned yeah isn't that crazy yeah yeah okay so I have one final question.

Okay. As we wrap this case up. So here's my question. Were Daniel's parents right? Was he influenced to commit this horrible crime by the violence of these video games? Or was he driven to commit these crimes by overprotective, oppressive parents? Would the result have been the same had the game not been taken away? No.

I feel like. Absolutely not. I'm going to disagree. I feel like if you're the type to murder someone, you're probably going to do it. The circumstances can change. Maybe it's because they took away Halo 3 one day. Maybe it's because they grounded you the next day. But I kind of feel like if you've got that in you,

you'll probably do it at some point. But would he have done it to his parents? Not necessarily. Yeah, I think he probably had some like. Yeah, I think anyone that murders somebody, there's definitely something in them that makes them capable of doing that. Makes them capable of doing that. But I think in this particular situation, speaking not as a parent. Yeah.

But I think their over-aggressive need to censor what he was seeing, I think, led to them being the target of that rage that he had. Right. And not the exposure to the video game that they feared so much would have some horrible influence on him. You do wonder, like, what if he was addicted to Super Mario Brothers instead of Halo 3? Would he have, do you think he would have still murdered his parents yeah because their argument yeah because because their argument was well the game was violent and so it made him you know yeah and their argument wasn't against all video games

because they allowed him to have a video game console they were against specifically violent video games. Yeah, see, I feel like he was driven to kill more by entitlement and rage. Yeah. Yeah. And not the exposure to the violence of the video game. No. Yeah, I agree. I also, I'm curious about what his home life was really like.

Yeah. Sure. Was there abuse? I'd love home life was really like. Yeah. Sure. Was there abuse? I'd love to know more. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's what I'm thinking about with my case was obviously Devin Moore had a really, really tough. Who's Devin Moore?

Shut up. Yeah. Wait, you already went over your case? I thought you were up next. You know what? This is going to be the trigger for me. Oh, no. I've played some violent games in my day.

Oh, boy. On the next Let's Go to Court, we're live at the Kansas City Courthouse. Aladdin for the Super Nintendo. They're going to look into that game. They're going to be like, so she kicked them both, and she expected them to like fade out for a few seconds and then reappear she's addicted no shit what was i saying oh yeah so devon moore had a really messed up childhood and yeah it's it's just hard for me to believe that someone would

totally snap like your guy after a totally normal childhood. From the stuff that I read, it didn't go a lot into his childhood, but his father was very supportive of him even after everything, you know, completely forgave him. His sister was very supportive of him. And so, you know, I don't know. Man, I'm thinking like if one of my family members did that, I don't think I'd be like, I don't think I'd stand behind them. His church family stood behind him. See, and I think that's weird. I kind of think it's weird.

If my brother or sister murdered somebody, I'd. Murdered your mom. Yeah. Yeah, not just somebody, your mom. Your mom and tried to shoot your dad. I mean, consider that. Yeah, I don't think I'd be like, leniency on them. I'd be like, no, give them the max.

I'm trying to put myself into it, and I think that I would try to maintain a relationship. But, yeah, I agree. I wouldn't be like, oh, wait. Yeah, I think as a direct family member, yeah, you should definitely. No, I just thought of this. What? As a direct family member, yeah, you should definitely. No, I just thought of this.

What? It is easier to accept, to say, hey, have some leniency on my child. This wasn't them that did this. This was the horrible video games so that you free yourself from that belief that your child could have just done this to their parents. You blame it on something else. Yeah. No shit. Yes. Yes. And of course. Yes. You blame it on something else. Yeah. No shit. Yes. Yes.

And of course. Yes. It's easier on everybody. Absolutely. Might be one of the driving reasons like people blame forms of media for like these horrible things. It's an easy target. Yes.

It frees you from so many things including did I do a bad job raising this kid? Yeah. Yeah. This wasn't my kid. This was this video game addiction, this exposure to these. My kid, no, judge, I need leniency for my perfect baby boy. You know, this is not what he did. This is the horrible violence of video games.

And he can tell people, you know, in the future how horrible these things are. I think that's 100% it. Yeah, it definitely is. Case closed. That's it. Solved. Stamp it. Do they stamp those?

Case solved? They should. Yeah. You know, I feel like the video games are evil argument comes up every few years, and we'll continue to have it come up every few years. I'm surprised you haven't brought up the point that I've heard you make before about how these violent video games are everywhere, internationally. Yeah. Take it away. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Let's, yeah. So one thing that is interesting is, like, recently Donald Trump blamed violent video games for the Parkland shooting in Florida. He said these violent video games are giving these kids these ideas. But these video games are sold internationally. Every country, pretty much every country has access to these games. Why aren't these horrible things happening in other countries? Right. You know?

In Japan, there are some... Because they have stronger gun control. And if you thought games were crazy and weird in North America, go to Japan. There's some even weirder crazy stuff coming out of Japan. And they don't have these horrible mass shootings. Yeah. And they don't blame video games for these horrible tragedies. So, yeah, it's, I don't know.

Like I said, every few years it comes up in the news. Fox News a few years ago there was a game called Mass Effect that had a you could form relationships with characters and you could have sex with them like if you fell in love in the game and Fox News like went nuts about it like oh my god you can have sex in a video game you don't see anything it's just you you can tell the characters are gonna have sex and. Went nuts in what way? Like they were really mad about it? Yeah, they couldn't believe there was a sex scene in a video game.

It's like, do you watch movies? Do you watch TV? What is the big deal here? The Sims have been doing that for years. I know. They heard of Sims. The Sims can have sex. And I guess I just don't understand the outrage over that i mean who cares

yeah you know when you did your the hot coffee episode yeah grand theft auto the hot coffee right um the guy that made the hot coffee mod so the characters can have sex his quote about why why do people care more about sex in a video game than the violence in a video game. I feel like one is between consensual adults and the other is like you're literally murdering somebody. Yeah. By the way, if you want to know more about that episode, you can order the Blu-ray.

Gaming Historian Volume 1. Available at... TheGamingHistorian.com or GamingHistorian.com or gaminghistorian.com I just found out today you can go to my website from two different URLs. You know what? You're not invited to lunch with us anymore.

No, please. I'm hungry. This podcast has been going on forever. I liked this. I liked having a guest. I mean, we won't invite this particular guest back yeah I liked having a theme yeah it was cool to have a theme

it was fun to have a theme next week clowns no Brandy's afraid of clowns I'm afraid of clowns so am I legit I have a fear of clowns

okay did you guys both watch it as children no mine does not come from it I didn't watch it because I was afraid of clowns mine comes from killer clowns from outer space from Killer Clowns from Outer Space.

Ooh, yeah. This horrible B horror movie. Uh-huh. But I saw it when I was like... Too young? Four or five. Yes. What?

And the fucking clowns wrap people in cotton candy and suck their blood out. Ew! Wasn't there a bunch of clowns complaining that It caused the downfall of their careers? Why are you pointing to me for that? Because you told me about this. Oh, I don't remember that. Maybe. Kristen, weren't you really pissed that your clown career ended because of It?

Kristen's clown career ended because of It. I had a reality show lined up on E! I had everything. And then that movie was released i think clowns are just creepy they're super creepy i mean maybe back in the day when there was less entertainment yeah i guess it would be cool to see a dude in makeup with a big red nose super vivid memory um of my parents so my dad and my mom So I was young because I got divorced when I was, I don't know, like four or five. And so they took me to the shrine circus and they wanted me to take my picture with a clown. Clown central.

And like the clown was going to like hold me or something. I just remember I have this vivid memory of just like screaming my head off. Heck no. Like while they wanted me to take my picture with this clown. Get this creepy clown perv daddy away from me. Perv daddy. Okay, now, am I making this up? I feel like one time

when we were pretty young, we were at the mall. And a clown followed us around the mall? Yes! Yes! Yes! A clown followed you? I remember Brandy was losing her shit. Yes! I'd be losing my shit, too. Yes! Why was he followed you? I remember Brandy was losing her shit. I'd be losing my shit too.

Yes. Why was he following you? Because he's a fucking clown. He's a creepy ass fucking clown. Okay. Here's something interesting. Hate clowns love balloon animals. So I learned to make balloon animals.

You separated them from the clown. That's right. Even though clowns are primarily responsible for balloon animals. Sometimes you've got to separate the art from the artist. I had to learn how to make my own balloon animals. I do like balloon animals. They're pretty cool. Who doesn't like balloon animals?

I don't know. I hate to know that person. I know. If you take away a balloon animal from Brandy, she might commit a horrible villain. Okay, I just pictured... Brandy was addicted to balloon animals. No, I just pictured Brandy jumping into her car

with only the balloon animal. And sitting in the passenger seat. Yeah, and buckled in. Like, she leaves her purse and everything behind, but she's got the balloon animal. Man. Oh, gosh. Well, Norm, I hope this was fun for you. This was entertaining, yes.

Thank you for being our first and only guest ever on this podcast. You're welcome. Before you came over, Brandi, I'm just going to be honest. I was like, but Norm, come on. Are you kind of excited to be around us? And he goes, I see you two losers every week. Yeah. You guys come over every week.

Well, technically, I don't come over. I was going to say, you just come here for me and Kristen. You don't actually live here. I'm kicking Kristen out. We have a very strained marriage. Join us next week when we'll be experts on. Yeah, what are we talking about this week? Shut up.

What are we talking about next week, y'all? Norman, you're not invited. Oh. I got to set up the mic, so technically I am invited. I just can't be on. And then you have to leave. I feel left out. I didn't do a murder case. I did a. I think leave I feel left out I didn't do a murder case

I did a I think it's probably good that you didn't do a murder case yeah yeah probably switch it up a little bit balances it out do you want to come on

some other time and do a murder case murder case yeah yeah sure yeah alright think about what you know a murder case you're really a big fan of

we should do a clown theme oh god let's go to court that would be fun surely some clowns have gone to court. Oh, Gacy. Oh, John Wayne Gacy. John Wayne Gacy. He was a clown. That's right.

Yeah, he's a creepy-ass fucking clown. That might be the number one clown case. Oh, yeah, for sure. Should we start doing themed episodes more often? You totally should. Hey, if you like the idea of us doing a themed episode, stop by our Facebook page. Facebook.com slash Gaming Hist and talk about your favorite themes our facebook page um tweet us at let's go the number two court uh check out our instagram leave us a comment at lgtc, or send us over an email at lgtcpodcast at gmail.com

and suggest some themes. Maybe we'll go somewhere with this theme idea. I'm digging the clown theme. I like the clown theme, too. And also, if you're... I don't mind the clown theme. If I could talk about a shitty-ass clown,

I'd do that. By the way, Brandi, I've been lobbying for you all to talk about the man at the Royals game that got hit in the eye with a hot dog so if you ever have like a baseball themed episode or a hot dog themed like food when food items attack when food items i think i've seen that show well surely there's been a lot of court cases with food sure yeah so have me on for that one because i do love some food. Okay. Yeah. And I'll talk about the hot dog in the eye guy.

No, I'm going to talk about it. You look so excited. It's one of the funniest cases I've ever read about. Well, don't spoil it. No, I won't. I'll save it for the episode. Anyway. If you enjoyed the podcast, please do us a huge favor.

Tell your friends. Yes. Just, you know, like one person. I'll tell my friends yes just you know like one person I'll tell my friends just tell a hundred people yeah that's all we ask that you make a sandwich board

yeah one or one hundred people you know Norman Norman are you gonna tell people yeah I'm gonna share this out okay to my millions of followers anyway

join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from Kotaku, CBS News, and People Magazine. And I got my info from articles for CBS News, The Plain Dealer, and The Morning Journal. And I got my info from the book Game Over by David Sheff,

the New York Times, and the University of Wisconsin La Crosse Library. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.