Families of Uvalde shooting victims sue Activision over Call of Duty’s role

Enlarge / Is this an aspirational image for mass shooters? (credit: Activision)

The families of multiple victims of the 2022 mass shooting at Uvalde's Robb Elementary School are suing Activision in a California civil court, alleging that the company's Call of Duty games act as a "training camp for mass shooters."

The lawsuit (as obtained by Polygon) compares Activision's Call of Duty marketing to the cigarette industry's use of now-barred spokescartoon Joe Camel, putting the gaming company "in the wildly lucrative business of training adolescents to become gunmen." The Call of Duty games "are chewing up alienated teenage boys and spitting out mass shooters," the lawsuit alleges, and in Uvalde, the games "knowingly exposed the Shooter to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as the solution to his problems, and trained him how to use it."

Meta platforms is also a party to the lawsuit for "explicit, aggressive marketing" of firearms to minors via Instagram.