Jack Thompson




Posted by WILLETH FOR MONTHS

I'm sure we all know about this man, so I'm not going to watse my energy typing out a quick summary - for those who don't know or want to find out more before you reply, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_thompson.

The following is a letter I've drafted, that I'm going to send to the BBC as soon as possible.

[quote]To whom it may concern,
I'd like to bring a man known as John 'Jack' Thompson to your attention. He is a 55-year-old Florida lawyer, with extreme conservative views on violence and 'unsavoury' acts in the media. He has, conversely, history of slander against Janet Reno. Recently, he has become a speaker at the forefront of the movement against video games.
He claims that interactive entertainment is a "murder simulator" or "sexual stimulator", and that a rise in recent violence is due to videogames being more prolific. Being a Christian, he says that video games are "not of God".
To make these arguments, Thompson seems to base them on fact and medical studies. But he also views them with an extremely biased point of view - there are many studies that show a link between violence in the media and violence in society, with such a case as Warren LeBlanc's murder of Stefan Pakeerah being a poignant example in this specific area of the media1. However, there are also studies that go beyond this. While a link between violent entertainment and media may exist, an article at GameRevolution.com says that violence as a whole is decreasing2. A biased source, possibly, but the point still stands - if violence on the whole is decreasing, and violence in the media is rising, surely the link between the two becomes more tenuous. Not only this, but the studies that he does reference have been widely discredited.
Jack Thompson has garnered much attention in America with his stance against video games, both positive and negative. The owners of the popular gaming webcomic Penny Arcade3, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, had an altercation with him fairly recently, about a video game that Thompson proposed to be made involving a murder victim's father exacting revenge upon the video game industry in the style of a 'typical' video game, and offering a $10,000 reward to the person who did so. Mike and Jerry (AKA Gabe and Tycho) promptly pointed out on their website the hypocrisy of this, which prompted an unprofessional telephoned reply from the lawyer himself, claiming "satire". When a modification , or 'mod' for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Thompson's favourite game to discredit, due to a recent scandal involving removed sexual content) was released, giving the player precisely the same abilities Thompson himself had stipulated, he retracted his offer, for the same reason he gave Penny Arcade. Mike and Jerry then donated $10,000 to charity in his honour4.
Similar stories involving Jack Thompson and webcomics are abundant on the Internet. Scott Ramsoomair, proprietor of VGCats also had a rather bizarre set of emails with him5.
Many gamers have reacted to Thompson's comments with rage, and hatred - a few apparently with death threats, seemingly giving credence to his theories, although it is more likely that a lot of emails were written during initial outrage and what the general gaming community sees as slander and libel towards them. Many bulletin boards have taken to including a 'sticky' - a permanently viewable thread - about him, rather than have to deal with the multitude of threads that angry gamers create.

The most recent act that Thompson has performed, and the one that spurred me to contact you in this way, is one that I find very difficult to describe objectively. In the early weeks of January, a member on a gaming forum6 posted a thread detailing his depression and thoughts of suicide. Many of the members tried desperately to get in contact with him, succeeding on January 4th. Despite this contact, however, Mitchell ended his life.
Soon after, MetalGearSolid.org received an email from Jack Thompson. It can be read in full at both MetalGearSolid.org and in the news item for Saturday, January 21st at Ctrl+Alt+Del (a very popular gaming webcomic run by Tim Buckley). In it, he attributes this person's death to video games, with no basis, and very little respect. This has, again, prompted an outcry from the gaming community.

I am a gamer myself. I have been for several years, and am currently studying software development in my first year at Sheffield Hallam University, with a bias towards developing for interactive entertainment. my course is shared by only twenty-six others in the entire University, but every single one is an honest, well-rounded individual. We play games well, and often. None of us has ever felt the need for extreme or unnecessary violence. As Tim Buckley said, "I play violent video games. There are thousands of gamers just like me, and we've never killed anyone."
Gamers are a minority group. We have suffered slights and oppression by the media for some time, and this elevates it to a new level. Jack Thompson is entitled to his opinion and the use of his platform to project his views, but the counter-arguments are rarely publicised away from the gaming community. His writings are often libellous; his speeches, often slanderous. His defamation of our community is minority abuse. It has to stop.

Yours in earnest,

Will Templeton


1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/computerg...273786,00.html
2. http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/articles/violence/violence.htm
3. http://www.penny-arcade.com
4. http://www.joystiq.com/2005/10/17/penny-arcade-donates-10-000-in-jacks-name-to-charity/
5. http://www.vgcats.com and http://www.vgcats.com/jack.php
6. http://www.metalgearsolid.org
7. http://news.gaminghorizon.com/media2/1137635340.3198.html
8. http://www.cad-comic.com



For those who skimmed past it - I recently read on http://www.cad-comic.com about Jack Thompson's most recent act. You can read the full story for yourself there, as well as on http://www.metalgearsolid.org. In short, a gamer recently committed suicide, after posting about it on the MGS.org forum and the members of said forum contacting him by phone and trying to talk him out of it. Jack Thompson quickly got wind of this, and sent a very condescending, impolite and inconsiderate email to the forums. Here it is:
[quote]Your "gamer friend" will find peace through the Lord, Jesus Christ, but sadly it's too late for that.

There is a void in every heart. You can fill it up with the things of God, or the things not of God. This unfortunate soul chose to fill it up with combat games. The playing of these video games is masturbatory activity, meaning senseless self-stimulation. If you gamers could use a dictionary you would know that that term is not necessarily a sexual one.

The real tragedy here extends beyond the life and death of this one fellow. There are literally millions of young people and young adults whose despair is deepend by turning to the things of this world and then finding them meaningless.

All of you gamers need to put down the controllers and get a life. The utter inanity of the vast majority of postings here shows how vapid "gaming" really is.

You are one of the cheerleaders for this wasting of time and the wasting of lives. Do you feel any remorse for having contributed to this "culture of death?" Of course not. Hey, let's all play MORE games, and ignore all the really productive things to do with our lives.

Let's pretend to be shocked that a gamer might descend into deeper depression, as his gamer "buds," knowing he was killing himself, couldn't figure out how to call 911 themselves for him. That would have involved leaving their computers I guess.

Sad. Sad for all of you.

I've talked to Cronoan, who lives in Florida, and she's willing to pass a copy of this letter to the law board there, where Thompson practices. However, I was wondering - is there anything else that anyone would want put in this letter before it's sent?

Discuss.


Oh, and try to keep the comments about Jack Thompson being an idiot or anything similar to a minimum, please. Mods, can you be quite stringent on this - INTELLIGENT DISCUSSION ONLY. Anybody saying 'Jack Thompson deserves to be killed in return' is not only a moron, but is just proving his point.




Posted by KoH

I'd kill him.

After that inevitable comment... good job on the letter. I'm thoroughly impressed. I can see where Jacky-boy's coming from, but at the same time I can't agree with it and would call it 'paranoid humbuggery."

I've no real suggestions, all I've had to say is I agree, and good job on wording it so eloquently.

And if that's not good enough for you, to hell 'witch ya.'

"The sexual scenes in question showcase a fully clothed wheelchair-bound man pleasuring a straddling woman, who is also fully clothed. Although she moans, indicating a sexual orgasm, neither nudity nor intercourse is illustrated in the cut-scene. The same scene in a movie today might warrant only a PG-13 or, worst, R-rating."

Now, who hasn't seen worse in a movie with sex in it?




Posted by Cronoan

I've told you I'm extremely impressed. I'll be more than happy to forward it to the board. That is one of the best presented and written argument essays I've ever read. I have nothing to add.




Posted by WILLETH FOR MONTHS


Quoting KoH: "The sexual scenes in question showcase a fully clothed wheelchair-bound man pleasuring a straddling woman, who is also fully clothed. Although she moans, indicating a sexual orgasm, neither nudity nor intercourse is illustrated in the cut-scene.

Where'd you get THAT from? Wheelchair-bound? This is not Hot Coffee.

Cronoan: Thanks, again. :)



Posted by KoH

Hot Coffee... No.. no... Jacky's "most recent act."

[URL="http://ps2.ign.com/articles/639/639839p1.html"]http://ps2.ign.com/articles/639/639839p1.html[/URL]

Killer 7, dude.

I have to say that I agree with Jack on Hot Coffee though. Rockstar even ****ed me off with what they did. It was just seriously pushing it way too far, at least to me.




Posted by WILLETH FOR MONTHS

Oh, I see. Well, hm. Isn't Killer7 a 15-rated game?

Also, Hot Coffee was removed. Access was prevented. It can only be seen with a hack or patch. They realised it was too far, and the trigger was removed.




Posted by KoH

Mno. As far as I know it was rated M. So 17+. That was what you meant, right?

I'm glad they did that. It just ****ed me off that Rockstar tried pushing the limit. My view of Rockstar will forever be that they're absolute dumb*sses.




Posted by WILLETH FOR MONTHS

Well, M is 17+, but in England we have different ratings - U, PG, 12A, 15, 18, R-18. 12A is over 12 unless with adult consent, 15 is over 15 (with implied adult consent otherwise) and 18 is over 18, although there's not really a rule about adult consent here. R-18 is pr0n, and not for games, but meh.




Posted by KoH

Oooh, I gotcha. Got confused. :(




Posted by WILLETH FOR MONTHS

Anyway. Jack Thompson. The floor is open.

This is one thread I don't want to stray off-topic.




Posted by Ant

I think your efforts are kinda...pointless. But whatever makes you happy.




Posted by WILLETH FOR MONTHS

Well, we see a lot of articles in the media from Jack Thompson and people like him. We don't often see the views of the gamer. I'm hoping this letter (along with others, see Ctrl+Alt+Del) might spur the BBC to do a story, however small.

Not only that, but sending it to the Florida law association is another black mark against him. He's already been up for disbarring once.




Posted by Crazy K

That is the best written letter I have ever read, good job Wings. ;)

but anyways, Im so tired of people like Jack Thompson saying it was video games that caused the problem at hand. And seriously not all people are christian and believe in god.

[Quote]All of you gamers need to put down the controllers and get a life. The utter inanity of the vast majority of postings here shows how vapid "gaming" really is.

Well don't he know that there is jobs that you can play video games and get paid? How idiotic can someone trully be? Jack Thompson needs to get a life and fast.

And besides all that there have been people out there who have commited suicide, and had yet to play video games. Seriously Jack Thompson needs to start backing up on what he's trying to say.




Posted by Fate

Just so you know, KoH, Rockstar thought that the Hot Coffee bit was too much, but instead of deleting the code they just lazily covered it up. Pushing the limit shouldn't bother people in the least bit considering that you don't have to play it in the first place, there are worse things out there, and that it was badly done and supposed to be a funny ha-ha thing anyways. The only offense I took in GTA: SA was that the code wasn't taken out, but I quickly got over it.

I say to oust the "minority abuse" sentence. Other than that, I approve.




Posted by Crazy K

I trully dont care to much about the Hot coffee. I wont be getting the cheat to open it or anything like that anyways. But Rockstar should of known better anyways to put that in there.

But if any of you want to petition Jack Thompson and to get him fired you can go here: http://www.petitiononline.com/FireJack/petition.html




Posted by WILLETH FOR MONTHS

Well, games are weird. In-game, the event still happens - the control is gone, as are the visuals and the sound - but it happens. This is because if you remove such a large segment of a program, you can get very weird errors and glitches. No program is perfect. There will be some dependancies written into some scenes that seem arbitrary, but can be key, and it's not worth the risk of complete removal.

Also - I really do see it as abuse. "If you gamers could use a dictionary," for example. Or "culture of death".


EDIT: That petition's a travesty.




Posted by Fate

It is "abuse," but it just sounds odd to put it in. The rest of the document colors that Jack has bad practices, not that gamers are being picked on. It just sounds kind of whiny at that moment, since the rest of the doc already implies it without being directly said.




Posted by KoH

[quote=Wings]Well, we see a lot of articles in the media from Jack Thompson and people like him. We don't often see the views of the gamer. I'm hoping this letter (along with others, see Ctrl+Alt+Del) might spur the BBC to do a story, however small.

Not only that, but sending it to the Florida law association is another black mark against him. He's already been up for disbarring once.

You must know that the media is very screwed up. It exists as a biased organization of sobs that find it fit to come up with more opinions than facts and tell select stories that can easily change the way you think about a subject.

I hate to break your hopes, but exactly how many times have you seen the gamer's point of view about this stuff in mainstream media? Me? Never. No, this does NOT include the horrid channel known as "G4."

But maybe because you wrote the letter so well that it might spark some sort of chain of events that will allow it to be known, but again, I doubt it. I agree with Ant. However valiant your attempt at this is, it is most likely a waste. But hey, whatever to ease your mind.

[quote=Fate][COLOR=skyblue]Just so you know, KoH, Rockstar thought that the Hot Coffee bit was too much, but instead of deleting the code they just lazily covered it up. Pushing the limit shouldn't bother people in the least bit considering that you don't have to play it in the first place, there are worse things out there, and that it was badly done and supposed to be a funny ha-ha thing anyways. The only offense I took in GTA: SA was that the code wasn't taken out, but I quickly got over it.

I say to oust the "minority abuse" sentence. Other than that, I approve.[/COLOR]

I think you're misunderstanding the actual company of Rockstar with press agents, marketing consultants, and lawyers. Those three aspects aren't what I meant when I said that Rockstar ****ed me off, I meant the actual programmers and lead developers. The people who thought up the concept.

btw I did know the original story

It's not whether or not I have to play, it's whether or not I have to hear about people constantly *****ing about it, obviously people like Jacky-boy above. This, not only leads to my being annoyed, but it also might lead to country-wide changes in game ratings or worse. (however unlikely) I'm sorry to Rockstar and the gaming population... but I really don't see the humor in it. I don't mean to sound like an arrogant prick when I say it, I'm just saying. It's immature and rather stupid. Can you honestly disagree?




Posted by Fate

Yeah, I can. I'm pretty sure you've had a bad idea that you wish you could erase. I'm pretty sure you've said something you wish you could take back. They ****ed up, so big deal.

I'm not going to debate immaturity or humor with you of all people. You also fail to see that other people just aren't bothered by it and see it as funny. I don't care that you think it's unfunny, and you don't care if I do. So leave it. Whatev.




Posted by Slade

I honestly hope that your writings, which are done very well, make a difference here, and basically help get Jack fired.

I have nothing to add to it.




Posted by WILLETH FOR MONTHS

I don't know if I want to get him fired. Ultimately, what I'd like to do is to get him to realise that not all of us are the impressionable idiots with the mind of a pre-teen that he seems to think we are.




Posted by Vampiro V. Empire


Quoted post: Ultimately, what I'd like to do is to get him to realise that not all of us are the impressionable idiots with the mind of a pre-teen that he seems to think we are.


He's clearly a stubborn ***. Nothing anyone says will make him think any different because he's buried himself so far into this thought that there's no way he can think any different.

So, in that sense, the letter's pointless, as I'm sure others have done the same thing. Though, it is a very well-written letter and it's worth a shot I guess.



Posted by Klarth

[quote=Wings]Oh, I see. Well, hm. Isn't Killer7 a 15-rated game?
I was in Game this morning, and I was sure I saw an oversized BBFC 18 icon on both the GCN and PS2 versions. Very well-done on the letter, I might add - Thompson's getting surprisingly little media attention on this side of the pond, which I find a bit weird.

I hope he gets de-barred.




Posted by Fragliche

I wish you the best of luck with this letter, because I'm honestly getting tired of hearing about Tack Jhompson (I did that on purpose :<).

Although this letter probably won't do much good, it might very well make him think about himself. Because for being so rude by sending that e-mail after that boy commit suicide, he should feel bad. He could atleast have been kind enough to leave Video Games out of it.

But that's just me. d=




Posted by Echo

Very good, Wings. I've always respected your writing ability, and this is an extremely well written letter. I sort of agree with Ant that it probably won't do too much, but you never know. There isn't anything I can really think of adding, but I see what Fate is saying about taking that sentence out. I don't think it would make or break the letter, but it might be better without it.




Posted by Cronoan

This letter may do nothing whatsoever to influence anything Jack Thompson says or does, but I'd say if anything a gamer ever says will influence anything in this area, that letter's the best bet. And it's so well written and presented, it would be a waste not to bother, I'm still all for it. Plus, it would make me feel a lot better cause Thompson's an as*rag. :D




Posted by Shade

[quote=Arseface]Your "gamer friend" will find peace through the Lord, Jesus Christ, but sadly it's too late for that.

There is a void in every heart. You can fill it up with the things of God, or the things not of God. This unfortunate soul chose to fill it up with combat games. The playing of these video games is masturbatory activity, meaning senseless self-stimulation. If you gamers could use a dictionary you would know that that term is not necessarily a sexual one.

The real tragedy here extends beyond the life and death of this one fellow. There are literally millions of young people and young adults whose despair is deepend by turning to the things of this world and then finding them meaningless.

All of you gamers need to put down the controllers and get a life. The utter inanity of the vast majority of postings here shows how vapid "gaming" really is.

You are one of the cheerleaders for this wasting of time and the wasting of lives. Do you feel any remorse for having contributed to this "culture of death?" Of course not. Hey, let's all play MORE games, and ignore all the really productive things to do with our lives.

Let's pretend to be shocked that a gamer might descend into deeper depression, as his gamer "buds," knowing he was killing himself, couldn't figure out how to call 911 themselves for him. That would have involved leaving their computers I guess.

Sad. Sad for all of you.

I bet Zell Miller is proud.




Posted by Arwon

Jack Thompson's long since gone off the radar of sanity, he's beyond the pale, and is no longer a threat.




Posted by Linko_16


Quoting Ant: I think your efforts are kinda...pointless. But whatever makes you happy.


Months ago, I would've agreed, but I've heard that Jack Thompson really is finally starting to lose respect. Maybe this letter won't be the great decider of his fate, but every step counts.

I do want to add something to the letter... something a comittee of lawyers should consider.

"Jack Thompson's understanding of videogames and those who play them is sorely unreasonable. It can be understandably recognized that some game-playing individuals will adapt to concepts presented in videogames, as well as other forms of media, and allow it to affect their behavior in negative ways. It is arguable that some games can have so awful an affect on such individuals that the presentation of these games, either it's creation or sale, should be reconsidered.

However, Jack Thompson has, by a wide margin, generalized the game industry and gaming population. This is proved every time he expresses his perception of gamers, as seen in his letter to MetalGearSolid.org regarding the suicide of one of their members, usually claiming they are ignorant, immoral, unholy, violent, un-driven lumps on the face of society. Some gamers fit this description, of course, but Jack Thompson fails to recognize the far more numerous amount of who don't make the evening news because they threatened a teacher, those of us who enjoy videogames without becoming criminals. Likewise, Thompson has made attacks not only on games that have potentially negative influence on the impressionable, but also on games that are perpetuate no ill values whatsoever. He is quick to condemn innocent franchises with irrational excuses, probably withholding from taking the entire industry on at once because he has no direct claim against it.

In short, Jack Thompson has shown that he groups all games and gamers into one basic category and labels it as a threat to society. Our role in his little world is so firm that he Such is directly akin to racism, sexism, and other forms of oppressive tendencies unbecoming of a lawyer representing a court in which all are to be treated equally. I believe it is true the violence related to videogames and other forms of media is an issue more than worthy of attention, but Jack Thompson is unfit to address them as a biased, discriminating individual."




Posted by Dragner

I laugh so hard every time I read the set of e-mail between him and Scott. Anyways it was a good letter with a lot of good points I hope it has some impact. Good job :D .




Posted by WILLETH FOR MONTHS

Yeah, I, uh, still haven't sent it. I wanted to include some other points, and a lot of people made the very good point that he'd just garner more media attention.

I think I'll just contact him directly.