Court tosses disabled gamer's suit against Sony

How did you even type that?

@Da Largest

Are you sure we really want to know the answer to that?

How'd you get to Joystiq?

Or like me going after Curtis Mathes because games like Mass Effect 2 are unplayable on my 15 year old CRT... Then again I use my PC's LCD to enjoy some 1080p goodness.

well, considering some cases like a wheelchair bound person, life sucks enough without having to wheel your ass through an entire mall parking lot.

I wouldn't think their life sucked but i wouldn't know either way. Still, the court tossed this case for a reason.

The quality of life of the disabled has declined tremendously since the passage of the ADA. Companies call them lawsuits on wheels, obviously due to the rapid increase of lawsuits, most of which are frivolous (see above). As such, they do everything the can to not hire the disabled and disincentivise business patronage since doing so would generate regulatory compliance costs well beyond the benefit of the employment or business. As such, unemployment among the disabled has spiked to a high of 40% after the law passed and the disabled are the first to be let go in today's weakening economy to reduce regulatory burden costs along with the wage.

And all of this is being done within the legal requirements laid out by the act itself. It's nothing but a good intention that paved the proverbial road to Hell. The disabled community was better off without the law in place. Businesses were more than happy to hire the disabled and make accomodations for customers. Tge disabled are still people who have valuable skills and money to spend. But why hire or attract the business when there's a high risk of blackmail or legal action if some individual finds the most obscure part of the building that can't fit a wheelchair?

^^^ Too wise to be on Joystiq. I agree with your logic. You sound well informed on this.

Well I wouldn't blame the ADA then, I'd blame - and I know I'm gonna get flak from the PC people - greedy cripples who wants to do no work and get free money. Those are the bad [whatever is supposed to go into this expression] that ruined it for everybody.

Who the Hell is "they", HighFive?

Disabled people get whatever they want??? Do you really believe that?

Seriously, I want you to rethink that thoroughly before your respond again. I have quite a few stories I could tell you about disabled people not 'getting what they want'.

Your story is one sided, laughingtarget.

I have a friend who was in an automobile accident and is parapalegic as a result. He has to use a wheelchair to get around (unless he wants to walk on his hands and hang his colostomy bag off his belt . . .). He had to buy a special car with a pneumatic device that lowers him and his chair to the ground.

This caused problems with the condo development he lived in, because they didn't have handicapped parking spots. The important thing about those spots isn't that they're close to the door, its that they have that space marked off to the side so people like him can get out of their cars. He had to piss and moan, and eventually threaten to sue, to get his complex to comply with the laws (and fwiw, he lived there before the accident, so you can't say he was looking for trouble).

This was in a small town, and so his problems didn't end there. We weren't exactly flush with basic needs businesses like grocery stores, so if a store didn't have handicapped ramps, he couldn't buy groceries or postage stamps (or whatever). In Los Angeles, he'd be fine--if Stater Bros doesn't want his business enough to build a ramp, he can just go to Albertsons, Vons, Smiths, or Wal-Mart. But most of America is still made up of small towns.

The way I see it, the problem is that people who own businesses, decent and good people, don't really *understand* the reason behind the laws. That condo development had decent people running it, the problem was simply that they didn't understand *why* just giving my friend a parking spot by the door was insufficient accommodation--without space to get out of his car, it didn't matter where the spot was.

So while its easy to point out the drawbacks to legislation like the ADA (every law has its "bugs"), its important to note that the ADA was drafted the way it was for a reason. It is a very important piece of legislation, and while it could be improved, getting rid of it would be a human-rights nightmare.



Oh, and this guy who sued Sony is an idiot. Video games require eyes, just like they require hands. And playing games isn't exactly a biological mandate or anything; you don't need them to live.

[be respectful]

Wow, deaftly, your sensitivity toward the disabled is really something . . .

LaughingTarget is an Ayn Rand-type Libertarian ideological zealot, so there's not much point trying to convince him that any laws are good.

Guardian, I think "Ayn Rand-type Libertarian" and "ideological" are contradictory terms. Fatalistic realism is not idealism.

JCD, while it's unfortunate for your friend that he was in his accident, I can easily see the contrary argument that a private business owner in a small town shouldn't have to foot the bill of building a ramp, rearranging his parking lot, etc. all because one person had an unfortunate accident. Perhaps handicapped people would be better served by moving to bigger markets so as to defray the cost of private business compliance. Perhaps if the ADA earmarked government funds for compliance costs (this would be a nightmare), it'd be another issue, but I'm not surprised a small town grocery is reluctant to accommodate a single person. To some extent, I think all lot of these protectionary laws applying to private enterprise are ridiculous and border on thought police: if a person wants to discriminate against a type of person, let him lose business from that group and other sympathetic types until he goes out of business.

wiizer, this is why i don't like the ADA. "they" is not targeted toward anyone in particular, just those who created it and constantly stand behind it to get whatever they want. Its like those people who get a rascal to ride around in while they shop for groceries that get pissy when you might get in their way.

ugh, forgot the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT2YET6sg5I

Don't make me out to be a hater of the disabled however. I just hate this lawsuit.

I don't like Ayn Rand. She's an arrogant hypocrite.

JCD - I understand that situation, but we have to balance out the overall impacts of a piece of legislation. For every person like your friend in his special wheelchair that was helped, a dozen others were hurt. It's important to take a bit of advice from a Frenchman named Frédéric Bastiat. His most memorable bit of advice is to not look at just the seen (your friend), but also to look at the unseen (the countless others who are harmed). I do agree that on the surface, the ADA looks like a good idea. But my argument is that the bugs you mentioned cannot be ironed out. Any attempts to forcibly wrench society into behaving in a specific manner will frequently backfire.

There was nothing that said your friend couldn't have gone to the apartment management and arranged for a special parking spot. You'll find that most businesses, an apartment complex is a business, are reasonable to requests. With the way the rental market has historically been, they'd be more than happy to accommodate him. I know I would, his rental means revenue and all I'd have to do is repaint a parking spot. Instead, the US Government just told the apartments they had to repaint the entire parking lot and make special provisions for every building. What if he's the only disabled individual living there? Was it a reasonable expectation to demand that all (as a hypothetical) 300 residents in a 200 unit apartment complex should fund available provisions for the remote possibility that someone in the future may or may not need the accommodations? This is how every single apartment complex, mall, office building, or any other location is forced to operate. Make huge adjustments at their own expense for the remote possibility that some of them may be used.

There would not have been a human rights nightmare as you claim. Most businesses had wheelchair ramps by the mid 1980s, well before the law ever passed. The first wheelchair ramp was installed in California in 1880. Computing companies like Microsoft and Apple have made efforts on their own, without requiring legislation, to make their product as accessible as possible to a broad range of disabled. Companies are developing text to speech primarily around individuals who cannot operate a keyboard. None of these advancements came around because of legislative decree. None of them required fines and lawsuits to come to existence. They came around because the disabled people of the world still have wants and needs and there will be businesses that grow up to cater to them. The disabled still have valuable skills and businesses will find ways to employ them to get access to those skills. The businesses that refuse to hire or do business with the disabled are well within their rights to do so, but the public relations around the decision will destroy that business faster and more effectively than any Congressional act could ever hope to accomplish. Turning down perfectly good labor and perfectly good money over such a thing is silly.

I'll counter your anecdotal story with one of my own. My aunt is also disabled and requires significant special accommodations to function in the workplace. She was regularly employed up until 1993. Ever since then, she's had a difficult time finding any employment. Companies that had no trouble hiring her throughout the economic stagnation of the 1970s were now turning her down left and right through the 1990s boom period. The only differing factor between the 1970s and 1990s is the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Your friend got a wheelchair ramp. My aunt got the indignity of a decade of unemployment and living off social security checks because companies were afraid to hire her. This is why I have a problem with the ADA and argue that it's complete repeal will be of the greatest benefit compared to trying to fiddle with the law to "fix" it. The ADA can never be fixed, the very foundation the law is built on is rotten to the core. To forcibly install a ramp in a building requires people to go through far, far worse than they would have without the law ever existing. The ADA has done nothing more than reverse and undermine a century of advancement for the disabled community by the single stroke of a pen.

@Aristokat, you're another Libertarian? Blech.

@LaughingTarget

Let's start with where we agree: Ayn Rand's opinions and writings were rubbish. I wouldn't call my worst enemy a Rand-ian.

I think, ultimately, the difference between us is ideological in nature. You are among those who believe that, all other things being equal, the best thing for society is for businesses to be as unfettered as possible. Free market forces will result in the best situation for all. Am I being fair in my assessment?

I, on the other hand, am among those who believe that, all other things being equal, businesses must be "forced" to be "good civic citizens," because without legislation forcing them to do the right things, they will instead do only what is fiscally expedient. This is the fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats, and I have no problem agreeing to disagree on this point.

However, I will state that, from my own knowledge of history, I believe that my perspective is the more pragmatic of the two. During the industrial revolution, the government had to "force" businesses to pay their employees a living wage via a minimum wage system (this happened around the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century). Businesses had to be forced into providing employees with safe working conditions--this is where OSHA came from. Businesses had to be forced to lend housing money to people regardless of race (equal housing opportunity laws). The list goes on and on.

Regarding your aunt, I am sorry she experienced such discrimination. It was a violation of the ADA for those businesses to discriminate against her in such a fashion, by the way, and if she has a sufficiently impressive resume, she can (and should) pursue legal damages against those companies that may have hired a less desirable employee simply because he or she was not disabled.

However, that still doesn't change the fact that for my friend, the stipulations of the ADA were not simply a convenience--they were a necessity for him to be able to perform the mundane tasks of leaving the house or buying food. And FWIW, he owned a condo, he did not rent--so aside from his HOA dues, he wasn't making anyone money. He already owned the place.

What's more, these condos were built in the early 00's, which means the ADA had been federal law for 20 some years. They should have been ashamed of their lack of ADA compliance!!

I'm sorry, but I simply can't agree with you that the ADA is anything other than a part of reasonable government "force" pushing businesses into doing what is right rather than putting their own bottom lines over human needs.

And to those who think my friend should have moved (his name is Joe--saying "my friend" is getting old, lol) because a small town shouldn't have to accommodate the handicapped, shame on you. I sure hope none of you ever experience such a horrible life-changing event, only to be told that you need to leave your home town because no one wants to comply with federal law and allow you to buy food or clothing in their stores. I'm sorry, but that is just plain unconscionable to me.

wow... one of the most "educated" arguments i've seen on joystiq >.> I am still on the correct site? :P

Somewhere out there, one of those ambulance chasing TV lawyers is salivating at the thought of it.

It's not like they can call in a complaint or anything.

Apple is currently fighting lawsuits about the Ipod causing deafness.

What?

Lionel Hutz, what is that a broken neck? Great!

They cost you $10 more due to much higher development costs. SNES games were the same price, heck i remember Turok on N64 being $60, but development costs were much much lower. We're getting far more value now than back then! If the price of games had kept up with development, we'd be looking at US$100 games.

Thats the "HD tax"

games cost $60 because game companies discriminate against the poor

That's so cool Xizer. How can I be cool like you, be a "rebel" who knows how to use a bit torrent client. Rockin' man!

- Anyways lame ass, it's one thing to pirate games when you're broke. It's another thing to come online and brag about how cool you are and how little you support the industry and encourage shit DRM like AC2 and Spore, not to mention the death of the companies that made the game you stole.

------------

Back to OP, Street Fighter 2 on SNES cost $120 when it was released, Final Fantasy III was $80. I'm sure those weren't lone dogs that carried such a heavy price tag either. $60 for games now-a-days is fair price I think... Not to mention in 6 months their value greatly decreases (usually clearanced down to 30 or less by then)

@Punkrawk Bbob

Yeah I agree that the great thing about PS3 and 360 games is that they don't take long to drop in price so it more than makes up for their starting point of $60. Meanwhile Nintendo games start at a seamingly more reasonable price of $50 but then they stay there. Even launch titles like Super Mario Galaxy are still $50.

Buying games that have awful DRM gives them permission to keep doing it. The ideal solution is to not play the game at all or pirate it in a way that isn't counted in their (totally bullshit) piracy rates, like HTTP.

Damn you people are idiots. You downvote Foetoid simply because he states a truth which shatters your ability to defend your cheapness.

First things first, just to get it out of the way: Blu-ray discs do not cost $10 more to manufacture than a DVD, especially not when purchased by the tens of thousands. Take your PS3 fanboy bullshit elsewhere. Meanwhile, Turok and other N64 games cost $60 because cartridges did have a much higher cost to manufacture versus CDs, hence PS1 games being $40 or $50.

Now, on to the reality of things. Are you all seriously so daft as to believe that development costs haven't jumped up significantly in the last generation? Or is it that you're so naive that you think just because there's a handful of several-million-seller games that all games are all of a sudden selling more than in the past, making up for those higher costs?

Creation of graphics is the highest factor of development costs. Now you might be thinking, "But programmers make more than 3D artists," which is true but negated by the fact that a development studio employs far more or the latter versus the former. So yeah, all those pretty HD graphics and super-detailed environments and characters we have now add to dev costs significantly. It's not as if 3D artists simply load their base models into Zbrush, Mudbox, or what have you and it just auto-pumps out some higher-detailed version. They can spend several weeks modeling a single character these days, and this as opposed to the PS1/N64 days where they could be pump them in out in a day. Even last generation didn't require anywhere near the amount of resources for graphics creation as this one. Although, it did require more than the previous one, which is why the

Of course the rebuttal here is that not all games have the same level of high quality yet typically still cost the same, which is true. But the fact of the matter is even those lesser quality games (or at least the majority of) still cost lots more to make than most anything from last gen.The exceptions are largely just licensed games (typically for kids), in which case you're paying for the license (the cost of which has also rose considerably thanks to the heightened popularity of gaming), along with certain niche Japanese developer's games, where the devs simply haven't caught up to current generation's standard and are just going with the flow of prices. There's no excuse for that, but it's hardly relevant when looking at the grand scope of things. Only other thing worth mentioning is PC games' costs, but you better believe that everything Sony and Microsoft requires accounts for that extra $10 or so. Aside from the royalty on every game sold which makes up for the majority of that $10, there's all sorts of other overhead costs that factor in, like general licensing fees, development kits and tools, technical requirements testing, submission costs, etc.

Moral of the story: None of you have any idea what you're talking about, and your propensity to defend being a cheap bastard is highly laughable. I'll gladly welcome any of when you make that foray in to the real world, get a real job, and realize that an extra $10 is highly insignificant, ideally due to having both the intelligence and acceptance to understand the reasoning behind it.

Side note: That wasn't really directed at the OP, since he seemed to just be making a general quip.

Damnit, that was supposed to be a reply. Now I look like the douchebag that re-initiated blind jokes instead of the guy that came in and batted cleanup for the glorious hero that was first to make a politically incorrect joke, thereby saving America.

it's ok, i still had a chuckle.

Come to think of it, it'd be hilarious if Sony put a written disclaimer in the manual or on the PS3 itself saying something like "Requires a reasonable level of visual capability to play".

You couldn't reply to me? Why? : - 0

Happened to me too.

Nerdy, take the apostrophe out of your name. It's a glitch in the code or something..