NORWALK, Conn. — A city woman is suing a video game maker after her son allegedly died at the hand of a friend as they imitated a fight scene from the "Mortal Kombat" arcade game.
On Nov. 22, 1997, 13-year-old Noah Wilson died about an hour after a knife wielded by his friend on a South Norwalk sidewalk severed his aorta, according to police reports.
The slain boy\'s mother, Andrea Wilson, filed suit Nov. 22 — the third anniversary of Noah\'s death — against Midway Games Inc., a Chicago-based company that manufactures "Mortal Kombat" for home video games and arcades.
Savvas and Athanasia Ioannidis, owners of the Norwalk Dairy King restaurant where Noah and his friend allegedly played an arcade version of the game, also are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Savvas Ioannidis said yesterday he had never had a "Mortal Kombat" arcade game in his store and that he believed the youths visited another store before the incident.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New Haven, claims Midway Games should have attached a more explicit warning label on the game. The suit seeks more than $75,000 in compensatory and punitive damages and attorney\'s fees.
A spokesman for Midway Games did not return a call seeking comment yesterday from The (Stamford) Advocate. Phone calls by The Associated Press went unanswered this morning.
The suit alleges that Noah and his friend were playing the game at a store and were on their way to see the movie "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" shortly before the stabbing occurred.
"Mortal Kombat" is described in the suit as a "realistic, violent and bloody fighter game that rewards its viewers\' \'killer responses.\'" The suit describes how a player "finishes" an opponent by "ripping another\'s heart out" or by "tearing off his opponent\'s head, leaving his spinal cord still dangling."
Wilson\'s friend found a kitchen knife on the sidewalk as he, Wilson and three other friends walked to a nearby cinema, the suit states. Police reports on the incident have described the same scenario.
The friend, "who was still feeling the effects of and was controlled by the Mortal Kombat video, picked up the knife and began wielding it in the direction of Noah Wilson and the other juveniles in simulated action moves from the video game Mortal Kombat," the suit alleges.
Details of a juvenile court case against the alleged attacker are confidential.
Andrea Wilson\'s suit alleges that her son and his friend were "obsessed" by the game, "believing that they could simply hit the replay button and start the \'game\' over with the victims coming back to life, only to be slain again."
Andrea Wilson said she tried to keep the game away from her son by prohibiting "mentally addictive and excessively violent video games such as Mortal Kombat in her home." The suit claims the company circumvented her efforts by making arcade versions of the game available in stores such as Dairy King.
The suit states: "Mortal Kombat was intentionally and/or negligently designed by defendant Midway to addict young viewers to its realistic violence through the use of virtual reality, while convincing these immature viewers that what they observed was only a game and no one would be harmed if these viewers \'played\' out the violent acts they observed, notwithstanding the very real violence portrayed in the video game."
Noah Wilson was a West Rocks Middle School student who had achieved some success as a professional actor and model. He had appeared in a national toy commercial, performed in the "Nutcracker" with the New York City Ballet, and had a featured role in the independent film "Hide and Seek."
Topic: Woman sues Midway for son\'s death. Blames Mortal Kombat. (Read 5355 times)