Class Asks Nintendo To Give Childhood Back

A class action filed against Nintendo today in Delaware District Court is seeking damages as the result of, among other things, a “lost childhood.” The complaint zeroes in specifically on the Nintendo Entertainment System, an 8-bit video game console released in the United States in 1985. Class members claim that addictive games like Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt and Mike Tyson’s Punch Out inhibited them from developing basic social and academic skills.

The named plaintiff, Martin Empers, alleges that his obsession with saving Princess Toadstool of the Mushroom Kingdom from the evil King Bowser caused him to bomb pre-Algebra and Geometry. As a result, Empers claims he was never able to catch up in high school math classes and therefore landed at Community College. He is now barely able to make a living selling wireless phone plans. If not for Nintendo, individuals like Mr. Empers allege that they’d have risen to successful positions at places like NASA, Google, or the at least the now defunct Lehman Brothers.

The action’s fraudulent misrepresentation claim is supported by allegations like the following: “Super Mario Brothers gave numerous children a false sense of reality that in life they can get ahead by just jumping on people like they would with the Goombas and Koopa Troopas.” Another part of the complaint claims that, “The only thing that was taking a ‘Body Blow’ while the plaintiffs were playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, was their cerebral development.”

Documents obtained by the plaintiffs apparently show that Nintendo was aware that once children started playing video games they would be unable to put them down for hours at a time. A memo from Nintendo management also shows that the plan was to breed a nation of video game players that would allow companies to market games to adults – a clear indication that the Wii concept has been in the works for decades.

Nintendo’s sinister plan, claims the class, was to ensnare the United States in a “tangled web of worthlessness” that would likely culminate in lower education and less civic engagement. Surprisingly, no link was made in the complaint between the use of video games and the recent mortgage-backed securities induced economic crisis.