Jack Thompson Over the Edge?

[XxSephirothxX]

Everyone should go to Penny Arcade and read Tycho's latest entry about Jack Thompson and take a gander at their strip.

Thompson's proposal
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule

This writer has been saying for seven years that violent video games can be "murder simulators" that incite as well as train some obsessive teen players to be violent.

I've been on 60 Minutes and in Reader's Digest this year explaining how an Alabama teen, with no criminal record, shot two policemen and a dispatcher in their heads and fled in a police car--a scenario he rehearsed for hundreds of hours on Take-Two/Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto video games.

I have sat with boys in jail cells, their lives over because of murder convictions, after they, with no history of violence, have killed innocents while in a dreamlike state. Said one cop who investigated such a murder in Grand Rapids, Michigan: "The killing was like an extension of the game."

The video game industry, through its lawyers, its spokesmen, and its head lobbyist, Doug Lowenstein, the president of the Entertainment Software Association, all say it is utter nonsense to suggest that what is dumped into a kid's head hour after hour, day after day, year after year, could possibly have behavioral consequences. Cigarette ads can persuade kids to smoke, but interactive simulators in which these same kids punch, hack, bludgeon, and maim affect not a wit their attitudes and behaviors, notwithstanding the findings of the American Psychological Association, published in August 2005.

The video game industry says Sticks and stones can break my bones, but games can never hurt me. Fine. I have a modest proposal for the video game industry. I'll write a check for $10,000 to the favorite charity of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc's chairman, Paul Eibeler - a man Bernard Goldberg ranks as #43 in his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America - if any video game company will create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006 like the following:

Osaki Kim is the father of a high school boy beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14-year-old gamer. The killer obsessively played a violent video game in which one of the favored ways of killing is with a bat. The opening scene, before the interactive game play begins, is the Los Angeles courtroom in which the killer is sentenced "only" to life in prison after the judge and the jury have heard experts explain the connection between the game and the murder.

Osaki Kim (O.K.) exits the courtroom swearing revenge upon the video game industry whom he is convinced contributed to his son's murder. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay" he says. And boy, is O.K. not kidding.

O.K. is provided in his virtual reality playpen a panoply of weapons: machetes, Uzis, revolvers, shotguns, sniper rifles, Molotov cocktails, you name it. Even baseball bats. Especially baseball bats.

O.K. first hops a plane from LAX to New York to reach the Long Island home of the CEO of the company (Take This) that made the murder simulator on which his son's killer trained. O.K. gets "justice" by taking out this female CEO, whose name is Paula Eibel, along with her husband and kids. "An eye for an eye," says O.K., as he urinates onto the severed brain stems of the Eibel family victims, just as you do on the decapitated cops in the real video game Postal2.

O.K. then works his way, methodically back to LA by car, but on his way makes a stop at the Philadelphia law firm of Blank, Stare and goes floor by floor to wipe out the lawyers who protect Take This in its wrongful death law suits. "So sue me" O.K. spits, with singer Jackson Brown's 1980's hit Lawyers in Love blaring.

With the FBI now after him, O.K. keeps moving westward, shooting up high-tech video arcades called GameWerks. "Game over," O.K. laughs.

Of course, O.K. makes the obligatory runs to virtual versions of brick and mortar retailers Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Wal-Mart to steal supplies and bludgeon store managers and cash register clerks. "You should have checked kids' IDs!"

O.K. pushes on to Los Angeles. He must get there by May 10, 2006. That is the beginning of "E3" -- the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- the Super Bowl of the video game industry. O.K. must get to E3 to massacre all the video game industry execs with one final, monstrously delicious rampage.

How about it, video game industry? I've got the check and you've got the tech. It's all a fantasy, right? No harm can come from such a game, right? Go ahead, video game moguls. Target yourselves as you target others. I dare you.

Who thinks he's justified? Who thinks he's loopy? Personally, I think the guy is a conservative nutjob.
Also, a family group he often cites has distanced itself from the lawyer.
Discuss.

[Rye]

I find it ironic and hilarious how he is basically making a video game that perpetuates the cycle of violent video games. Seriously, the stuff he wants in his video game is more violent and disgusting than almost all the video games I play.

People shouldn't worry too much about him, and rather just laugh at him. Because he is funny. I loved that part in the PA article that was like "Would he have to sue himself if his game is violent?"

[XxSephirothxX]

I'm sure he's being sarcastic and knows no company would actually take his idea; still, I thought it was pretty funny that they pointed out he'd have to sue himself if the game was ever made. And I know this is a site of gamers, so it's unlikely many people, if anyone, will agree with him--but does anyone think he's really making a good point, or just absolutely batty?

[edczxcvbnm]

Some family group he kept using as a source and stuff has made a press release telling him to not associate them with himself as they do not agree with the things he does and says.

[DJZen]

If I were a developer, I'd make that game. I'd also give it really high quality CG movies with tons of extra gore. I'd make the entire thing very graphic and disturbing and I'd take great pains to make it a very good game in every possible aspect. I'd also put Jack Thompson's name all over it (as in "concieved by Jack Thompson" and have billboards in the background advertising his law firm), and make it as non-farcical as possible. Then I'd say to him, okay, cough it up. I'd then donate all revenue from the game to the charity he had in mind, and I'd also give twice his donation to it as well. After the game went platinum, I'd sell Jack the rights to the game.

Yes, I'm being serious. I don't do it often, but I mean it. I'd do it. Why? He's trying to make a point. If any company put out this game, it would defeat his point. He's trying to say that the industry is so horrible and yet self righteous that it would make games as violent as the Vietnam war (and just as disturbing), but would never efface itself. He also seems to think nobody would call his bluff. He also probably thinks that a company making a game like this would only prove his point that the entire game industry is without morals and would jump at the chance to make something this gory, but in reality, it would just show that Jack Thompson has a sick mind and that even game companies give to chairty. But mostly it'd just show how pompous he's been.

[Rye]

If I were a developer, I'd make that game. I'd also give it really high quality CG movies with tons of extra gore. I'd make the entire thing very graphic and disturbing and I'd take great pains to make it a very good game in every possible aspect. I'd also put Jack Thompson's name all over it (as in "concieved by Jack Thompson" and have billboards in the background advertising his law firm), and make it as non-farcical as possible. Then I'd say to him, okay, cough it up. I'd then donate all revenue from the game to the charity he had in mind, and I'd also give twice his donation to it as well. After the game went platinum, I'd sell Jack the rights to the game.

Wow, you've won the internets today, good sir. <3

I agree with that. I'd actually BUY his game, if it'd ever come out, just to laugh at it.

[Venom]

Jack thompson could find something violent in tetris for god sake!

[Rye]

Jack thompson could find something violent in tetris for god sake!

I have to do it. xD

[omnitarian]

Jack thompson could find something violent in tetris for god sake!

Don't you know? The pieces represent sexual organs! Think of the children!

[Ouch!]

That's so absolutely ridiculous.

Torren, you've got my support all the way. =3

[Big D]

A "game" of the kind he sarcastically proposes is probably not too far off. I'd give it a couple of years, maybe. The game developers will be able to defend their actions by saying "it's not real so it's harmless".

There have been a lot of silly arguments on both sides of the debate in this issue, but I have to agree with one of his ideas: turning deliberate cruelty and the brutal murder of innocents into a game is seriously messed up, as well as socially irresponsible. If material that promotes such things, even tacitly, is going to be made then it needs to be regulated. Just like we regulate pornography in literature and film.

It shouldn't be about removing all violence from games, but rather taking a serious look at the kind of violence that is turned into fun.

[MecaKane]

D, I don't know if you know this, but everyone in the state of San Andreas and Cities of Vice and Liberty are dickheads. Big fat dickheads! They have it coming, and it's very obvious for people who play the games. The try to kill you if you bump into their cars! Innocents my foot!

[Big D]

I wasn't trying to comment on any games in particular, but rather on general trends. There's an ever-increasing swag of games that allows, or even courages, the player to wantonly slaughter any passing individual, usually without real consequence.

[Elite Lord Sigma]

I thought Jack Thompson was an idiot the first time I ever heard about him.

[Lionx]

http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000743063662/


http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000627063759

Lawl, best ever..O_o