It was announced on Monday that several relatives of the Columbine school shooting victims have filed a $5 billion lawsuit against a slew of video game publishers and entertainment companies including Nintendo of America, Sega of America, Sony Computer Entertainment of America, Atari, and AOL Time Warner, among others. Video game violence has been a hot topic for special interest groups in recent years, and Senator Joe Lieberman was a staunch critic of video games during his campaign to become vice president on the Al Gore ticket.

　　While it's arguable that GameSpot is the last place to find an unbiased opinion on the matter, the lawsuit has most certainly struck a nerve with our readers. Both the main story and the follow-up with comments from Id Software's CEO Todd Hollenshead have been flooded with Talkback comments from our readers. Normally our Talkback comments feature a wide variety of opinions, but this is one topic that nearly all our readers seem to agree upon. It should be noted that the majority of the Talkback respondents mentioned that they feel incredibly sorry for the loss of life that occurred.

　　Most of our readers feel as if the blame for bad parenting is being pawned off on the video game industry. Sam L. from Canada thinks the blame should be placed squarely upon the parents. "What happened was not these companies' fault but rather the fault of parents who didn't care enough to watch and communicate with their kids," he claimed. Manny Ramos was afraid that the parents of the slain children are looking for peace in the wrong places when he wrote, "Not only will they never get their sons and daughters back, but they are also using these companies as scapegoats for what happened. This is completely ludicrous and shows how greedy our society is when victims' families believe getting money for the lives lost will ever change anything." J.T. Parton from Kansas City, Mo., agrees. "It's nice to see the parents can put a price on their children's lives," he quipped. Joe Quinn from Ohio thinks there's someone to blame but it's not video game manufacturers. "If you want to blame somebody, blame the gun companies," he exclaimed. Philip Wheeler from Florida has found another group that should be held accountable for the shootings: "If anyone should be sued it should be the bullies who pushed them to do it, or maybe the media for glorifying it so much to where it becomes the cause of more school shootings." Tabar Brasar from San Diego concurred when he retorted, "How about blaming the news and the newspapers for sensationalizing these tragedies for ratings?"

　　While most believed that the parents of the killers are to blame for the murders, others believe that the rash of violence among adolescents and the resulting lawsuits are a reflection of American society. Evan Ferstenfeld of Minneapolis believed that America's sue-happy denizens have gotten out of hand when he asked, "Will Americans ever take responsibility for their own actions or dig deeper to find the real problem beneath pointless lawsuits?" Phil from Delaware questions the timing of the lawsuits. "I find it interesting that they waited this long (one day before the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits probably expires in Colorado)," he speculated.

　　Of the scores of Talkback comments added to the stories, only Ben from Oregon believes that the families of the victims may have a point. "Video games are an easy scapegoat, but that doesn't mean that game players or members of the industry can simply rule it out. I never used to think that video games would affect me, but then I bought my long-awaited copy of Perfect Dark. When I had dreams about it, I envisioned real people in the game instead of 'bots," he explained.

　　Many of our readers are tired of video games being the whipping boy when bad things happen to young kids. Adam Keeth from Arkansas believed the killers' actions were an isolated incident when he wrote, "Based on the facts of this incident, I believe the same thing would have occurred whether or not Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had ever played Doom. Millions of others have bought and/or played this game without ever harming a soul." While it's often difficult to find the lighter side of situations such as these, Sky from Ohio had no such problems: "As Chris Rock once said, whatever happened to crazy? Can't people nowadays be plain-old crazy?"

　　There were a variety of opinions expressed on the subject, but Steve Berry of Massachusetts succinctly summed things up. "By pointing the finger with huge, frivolous lawsuits, you are doing nothing but contributing to the problem. The more you sue, the more publicity the Columbine killers get, and the more others will want to follow in their footsteps. It's funny how two high school kids have [people] eating out of the palms of their hands, and they aren't even alive. This is exactly what they wanted. Let's put an end to all of this crap now. Stop blaming and start educating and paying attention to your children," he wrote.