The Case of the Guitar Hero Thomas Cartman, a 13 year-old boy, and his mother are suing Harmonix,

a video game manufacturer, for injuries Thomas suffered after playing the video game Guitar Hero. After playing the video game for many hours, Thomas noticed a pain in his wrist. His doctor later diagnosed him with carpal tunnel syndrome. Thomas, who is also a star piano player, may not be able to play the piano again. Thomas says Harmonix put a hidden message in the video game to make kids want to play the game all the time. Harmonix denies this. Who should prevail? The Case of the Guitar Hero Fact Statement In 2006, Harmonix Music (Harmonix) published a video game named, Guitar Hero, for Play Station, Xbox and other video game consoles. The object of the game is to play songs by matching colors on the screen to those on the neck of the mock electric guitar that comes with it. As the player advances through each round, the songs and changes get harder to follow. This game was patterned on the immensely popular Dance Dance Revolution and other interactive arcade video games. Thus, it was no surprise when Guitar Hero became the mega-hit of the video gaming world, winning Video Gamer Magazines Best Game of the Year for 2006. Thomas Cartman, our 13 year-old guitar hero, loves this game. He is obsessed by it. He plays it all the time. I mean ALL the time. Thomas parents both work long hours, providing him with a comfortable life, but lots of unsupervised free time - which, of course, he uses to play Guitar Hero. It is not unusual for Thomas to spend five hours or more per day playing Guitar Hero. But at what cost?

Page 1 of 9

Thomas Cartman is also a gifted piano player. His mother believes he is a prodigy because his ability appears much greater than that of other players his age. He routinely competes in and wins competitions in his age group throughout the state. In fact, piano is the one thing Thomas Cartmans mother, Melody, takes any interest in. She sees to it that Thomas practices piano every day so that he is ready to perform in the competitions in which she enters him. But something has happened to young Thomas' piano play of late. It is suffering and he is having trouble achieving the complicated phrases in the Brahms piece he is to play at the upcoming Bay State Ultra Competitive Piano League Championships. Thomas knows the problem, but won't tell anyone - it's the result of the massive hours of playing Guitar Hero. Playing guitar hero uses different muscle groups in the hand than playing piano. He has experienced shooting pains in his hands and wrists when playing the piano, but not when playing Guitar Hero. The pains only started after Thomas began playing long hours of Guitar Hero. Melody Cartman is shocked when Thomas is diagnosed with a mild case of carpel tunnel syndrome, which has inhibited his ability to play piano. Little did Thomas and his mother know that Harmonix embedded in the game's code a highly addictive subliminal message causing certain kids (and adults) to crave game play. Harmonix denies that it has purposefully designed an addictive game and takes the position that it is the parents' responsibility to make sure their kids are not "abusing" video games of any kind. They argue that all games could be addictive to an unsupervised child. Thomas Cartman and his mother sue Harmonix for damages relating to his lost piano career, in-patient rehab treatment, and emotional distress.

Page 2 of 9

WITNESS STATEMENT OF THOMAS E. CARTMAN My name is Thomas Cartman. You can call me Tommy. I am 13 years old and am in the 8th grade at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts. Ever since I can remember, I have loved music of all kinds. I could sing and play piano from an early age. My mom, Melody, is also a piano player and she got me started playing before I could walk! But that was fine with me because music comes easy to me and I love to play. I live with my mom, although she is gone a lot because of her job as a fashion designer. We have a nanny who watches me when my mom is gone, but she pretty much lets me do whatever I want. Most of my life is dedicated to playing piano, from my school, to my piano lessons, to the many competitions I enter. I probably compete about six times a year, at all of the top state and northeast regional competitions. I like to compete because of the rush of performing in front of a big audience. There are so many competitions to play in, if I wanted I could compete every week. But my mom thinks its better to take extra time to practice and prepare for the harder competitions. You want to play against the best, dont you?, she always says to me. Then you have to practice - practice hard, and practice well. She is constantly riding me about practicing, which I do about 2-3 hours a day after school. The thing is, I just like to play. Practice is for the birds. Id much rather tackle a new piece than work on an old one over and over until Im sick of it. Anyway, my feeling is that youre either talented or youre not and that practice isnt going to make a big difference. Luckily, I think I have the talent, and Ill probably turn pro at some point when I get older. My other passion these days is video games. I got a PS2 for my birthday a couple of years ago and I play it a lot. In some ways, the PS2 is like my best friend. I spend a lot of time playing when my mom isnt home to hang out with me. If she were home, I would be practicing piano, not playing video games, thats for sure. The latest and greatest game out there is Guitar Hero. I dont know what it is about that game, but I just cant get enough of it. Maybe its just my love of music coming through. Sometimes, Ill be playing Guitar Hero after school, and Ill look up, and it will be completely dark outside. The hours will pass by and I wont even notice. I think the longest Ive played was about 15 hours straight one weekend when my mom was away on business (taking bathroom and snack breaks, of course). After that session, I thought my eyes would pop right out of my head. Also, I had a strange tingling sensation in my hand and wrist the next day. It went away pretty quickly so I didnt really think anything of it. Unfortunately, the strange feeling came back, and eventually, turned into a real pain in my hand and wrist. Mostly, I feel it when I play piano. Curiously, I didnt (and dont) feel it when I played Guitar Hero. Maybe this has something to do with the different hand positions. This pain has taken a serious toll on my piano playing. I cant make the same kind of stretches I used to, and my finger speed is way down. I cant play really fast pieces at all without agonizing shooting pains in my hands going up my entire arm.

Page 3 of 9

The problem is that those fast, hard pieces are the ones that win competitions. As you can imagine, my mother completely freaked out when I told her something was wrong with my wrist. I went to so many doctors I lost count. I was diagnosed with carpel tunnel syndrome, whatever that is. All I know is that it has something to do with repetitive motions causing stress and damage to nerves bundled in the hand and wrist. Oh, and it kills when I play fast runs on the piano. Needless to say, I will not be a favorite to win the upcoming Bay State Ultra Competitive Piano League Championships - the World Series of piano competitions. I was going to play a piece by Brahms that just rips, but now, I can barely hit all of the notes at any tempo, much less the allegro that it called for in the music. My mother is also quite ripped. Apparently she had been bragging to the community of piano virtuoso parents (an extremely shallow and jealous crowd) that I would be taking home first place at the Championships. Now, with egg on her face, she is really worked up and looking for people to blame. As for me, well, I guess I can take the extra time to refine my Guitar Hero skills. WITNESS STATEMENT OF MELODY ENGLES-CARTMAN My name is Melody Engles-Cartman, or Mel for short. I am a fashion designer, running my own design house out of Boston. In the last five years, business has really taken off, and as a result, so have I. I think I spend more time on airplanes that a pilot. Its really the nature of the business - constant trips to New York, Paris, Milan and London to schmooze and show off our wares. The good news is that people really seem to like my stuff. At least, the people who can afford it do. I have a son from my previous life as mother/wife. His name is Tommy and he is without question the apple of my eye. Everything I do, I do for him. All of the long trips and longer hours are so that we can have a comfortable life and not worry about money. So, while I dont see Tommy as much as Id like, at least I know he is getting a good education and is able to pursue his dream of becoming a professional piano player. Youd be surprised how much lessons with a top-rated teacher can cost, not to mention the cost of the beautiful Steinway in our living room, travel to competitions, and everything else. It all adds up very quickly. Tommy definitely gets his love of music from me. I was a piano player when I was younger, but I was never as good as Tommy is, even at my best. I always wanted to be a musician, though, and I put everything I had into it for a few years. Eventually, I realized that a future as a professional musician was not in the cards for me. I settled on loving music rather than playing it. I still dabble on the keyboard every now and then, but mostly I just like to listen to Tommy play. He is really good. Hes so good that he routinely wins piano competitions all over the northeast. Soon he was to start competing in the more prestigious national competitions, where I expected, he would do quite well. The upcoming Bay State UCPL Championships was to be his last local competition before moving to the big time. Page 4 of 9

So it was strange when I noticed that Tommy was having trouble hitting all of the notes in the piece he was practicing to play at the Championships. Normally, Tommy doesnt have any problem with speed as his fingers were always fast. His issue has always been phrasing and playing musically. When I asked him about it, he told me that his hand and wrist were bothering him. I immediately took him to our family physician, Dr. Burton. He said it looked like it could be carpel tunnel syndrome, a repetitive stress injury. He then referred us to an orthopedist and hand specialist, Dr. Rodriguez. Again, we were told that it looked like carpel tunnel, but the doctor didnt think the source was Tommys piano playing, since he had been playing for so long without incident. The doctor didnt know what else could be the cause. When I saw a special on Frontline about addictive video games and their side effects, a light bulb went on in my head. Tommy sure plays that Guitar Hero game a lot. It seems like every chance he gets, he plays it. I never thought anything of it because hes a kid and it is music after all. I did some digging around on the web and found that there is a whole group dedicated to addictive video games, and sure enough, Guitar Hero was one of the prime suspects. Some even suspect that it contains subliminal messages encouraging kids to play more and more. And I suspect it might be the mysterious cause of Tommys carpel tunnel syndrome. Our hand specialist agrees that excessive Guitar Hero playing could be the cause. One thing is for sure, Harmonix is going to pay dearly for destroying my sons future. Witness Statement for Dr. Stephanie Bucks I am a well-respected neurologist who specializes in treating patients with carpal tunnel syndrome. I have been practicing for 15 years, and specializing in carpal tunnel syndrome for 10 years. The Court asked me to examine Thomas Cartman, a 13-year old boy who has been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome and is pursuing a claim against a video game company, claiming that its game caused him to get carpal tunnel syndrome. Both the boy and the company have hired medical experts, but the Court thought it could be helpful to have a neutral expert offer testimony. I examined Tommy and reviewed his past medical records. I also obtained information from him and his mother about his daily routines, etc. I have concluded that Tommy has carpal tunnel syndrome. I think it is highly likely that the Guitar Hero game has contributed to his condition. What I cannot determine with precision is whether the Guitar game caused the carpal tunnel syndrome or whether his piano playing and other video game-playing caused it, and the Guitar game exacerbated it. I think it is likely that the Guitar game and other computer use made Tommys carpal tunnel syndrome as debilitating as it is today. I think he is in extreme pain when he tries to play the piano and that in the future, after some physical therapy, and with some braces, he will be able to play again. It is unlikely that he could play as well as he did before. I have never treated a patient who had carpal tunnel syndrome and attributed it to playing Guitar Hero. Page 5 of 9

WITNESS STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE CROFT My name is Lawrence Croft. I am a video game designer and President of Harmonix Games. People who know me say that I was meant to design video games for a living because I play them so much. In fact, I get most of my best ideas while Im playing games and Im in the zone. You might think that someone who does what I do would need an advanced degree in computer programming from MIT, but it turns out that you can hire people who do that part of it. No, I just come up with the ideas and then work with the programmers to make sure what I envision shows up on the screen the right way. Its actually pretty easy for me since I know in my head how the games should work and I know what sells. Like most of my game ideas, the idea for Guitar Hero came to me while I was playing a different game called Dance, Dance, Revolution. That game involves people standing on a pad with arrows on it and following the dance steps that come up on the screen. The dances get faster and more complex at each level. I thought, wouldnt it be cool if we added musical instruments to this game, so that rather than dancing to your favorite songs, you were actually playing your favorite songs with a full band. As a longtime lover of guitar-rock music and worshipper of guitar gods Hendrix, Page, Clapton, and VanHalen, this game was my chance (and everybodys chance) to shred like the legends without having to learn how to actually play. When I got to work with my technical people at Harmonix, we rigged up a faux guitar that looked just like the Gibson SG played by Angus Young of AC/DC fame. Only it had colored bars instead of frets and strings. We created a system of coordinating different color combinations to form chords and a visual system of mapping the progressions on the screen in concert with the particular song. When the player hits the right combination, the right chord is played and points are gained. I knew right away we were looking at video game gold. As I played the prototype, it was everything I had hoped, but its still needed something to spice it up. It needed a hook. When I spoke with one of my programmers, Jack Atari, about adding something to make the game more addictive, I only meant that kids should want to play it and keep playing it. He said hed come up with something, but I never understood what it was. All I knew was that the next version of the game I played was much more compelling. I almost couldnt stop playing. I never asked Jack exactly what he did, but he said hed tweaked the code to make it more playable. I guess I should have taken a closer look at what was going on because there have been recent reports that people are becoming addicted to Guitar Hero. Now, as an inveterate gamer, I think that all video games can be addictive to certain people. I also think that people who get addicted to games have that propensity and are unable to properly control it. It has nothing to do with the games themselves. In Guitar Heros case, I know that there is nothing in the design of the game that should make it addictive other than that it is a really good, really fun game to play. After all, the hallmark of a Page 6 of 9

good game is that people want to play it over and over again. I havent actually looked at the code of the game to see if something has been done to it, and even if I did, I probably wouldnt know what I was looking at. As I said before, programming is not my department. The highly competitive video game market place is not a place for the weak. Whatever Jack did (if he did anything at all), it must be working because Guitar Hero is the companys biggest seller. It is literally a phenomenon within the industry. And Harmonix is cleaning up as a result. Thats all good news for me.

Page 7 of 9

CITIZEN SCHOOLS DISCOVERING JUSTICE MOCK TRIALS UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS ________________________ ) THOMAS CARTMAN, ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) ) HARMONIX MUSIC, INC., ) Defendant. ) ________________________) JURY INSTRUCTIONS
Charge to be read to the jury: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, you have heard all of the evidence in this case and must now base your decision on that evidence together with your assessment of the credibility of each of the witnesses. In order to find the Defendant liable for the claims asserted, you must conclude that: 1) the Plaintiff was injured; 2) that the Defendant caused the Plaintiffs injury; and 3) that the Defendant had a duty to protect the Plaintiff from injury and breached that duty. If you find that the Plaintiff did not prove 1, 2, and 3 above, you must find for the Defendant. If you find that the Plaintiff did prove 1, 2, and 3 above, you must then determine what amount of money damages, if any, the Plaintiff should recover from the Defendant. If you find that the Plaintiff is more than 50% responsible for his injury, you must find in the Defendants favor. If you find that the Plaintiff is 50% or less responsible for his injury, you may apportion liability between the Plaintiff and Defendant and reduce the Plaintiffs recovery, if any, by that percentage.

Page 8 of 9

VERDICT FORM

We the jury find in favor of the

Plaintiff

or

Defendant

(circle one).

We the jury award the Plaintiff $_______________ in damages.

Signed __________________________, Foreperson

Page 9 of 9