EIDOS DISCHARGED FROM $5B LAWSUIT
Copyright 2001 www.tombraiderchronicles.com

[ August 19th 2001 ]

Eidos Interactive, the U.K publishers behind Core Designs Tomb Raider video game, have been discharged from a $5 billion lawsuit bought forward by families of victims from America's Columbine High School Massacre who claimed videogames directly influenced the shooting and made "violence pleasurable and disconnected from reality."

Final Fantasy 7, the videogame published by Eidos Interactive and played by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who killed thirteen people in 1999, did not involve guns and Judge Lewis Babcock subsequently ordered the lawsuit against the company to be dismissed without prejudice.

The court ruling will come as a relief for Eidos following a plague of financial problems and management upheavals which culminated in a call to arms mid June after the company went to market with a discounted rights share issue to raise £52m for the development of future projects just days after announcing a major increase in losses from the previous year. AOL Time Warner, Paramount Pictures, Sega and Sony - also embroiled in the same complaint - are yet to be heard.