Jack Thompson's idea for a game.

[Open the Muggy Gate 0]

http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5883

 

Attorney Proposes Violent Game October 10, 2005

 

by: Matt Saunderson

 

Jack Thompson will give $10,000 to charity if any videogame company makes and releases a game based on a scenario he created.

 

Miami, Florida Attorney Jack Thompson, a long-time outspoken critic of violent and sexually explicit videogames, has done something totally unexpected. Thompson today actually proposed a violent videogame, and will pay $10,000 to the favorite charity of Paul Eibeler (the Chairman of Take-Two Interactive) if any videogame company will "create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006" based on a scenario he created.

 

Thompson's proposal is titled A Modest Video Game Proposal and has been sent to members of the press and apparantly to Douglas Lowenstein, President of the ESA.

 

Here's Thompson's proposal (italics are his, not ours):

 

"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.

 

Jack Thompson is a Miami lawyer who has for 18 years been involved in efforts to stop the marketing of adult entertainment to minors.

 

It is unlikely that Thompson's proposal will actually be turned into a game, as most videogame companies do not simply accept proposals from individuals. We'll keep you updated, however, as it is very likely that there will be some sort of response to Thompson's proposal from members of the videogame industry. 

 

I have no idea what to say right now. The man has lost his fucking mind.

[Special K 0]

Wow, shoot up E3 and GameWorks? Apparently the guy now hates all video games. Guy needs to chill out and play some Katamari. Why is the U.S. the only country that seems to have these problems? Oh, that's right, because lawyers here exploit their clients with these ridiculous defenses to make a name for themselves.

 

You don't see this guy reported on anymore because he's blown every shred of credibility he ever had with his fucking insane rants. He said the Sims had shots of penises, labia and pubic hair for God's sake.. Then he refused to admit he was wrong when it was proven that even if you download the patch, they look like Barbie Dolls. I'm hoping he's just being a lunatic here because he's out of the press.

 

It would be trully awesome if they actually DID make some 2-minute long, Atari quality shit game to show him up, but he'd never pay because he's a douche, and why would they mke the effort?

[Slayer 0]

This has made the rounds with the gaming webcomics, with some funny and scathing results

[Anya 0]

He's like a message board troll.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

What a game developer should do is agree, but then add in a patch where all the guys you're supposed to kill turns out to look like Jack Thompson.

[The Amazing Rando 0]

He's like a message board troll.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

A Modest Advertising Proposal?

[Darthtiki 0]

What a game developer should do is agree, but then add in a patch where all the guys you're supposed to kill turns out to look like Jack Thompson.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Could we get a game where the goal is to kill all lawyers?

[Rendclaw 0]

It would be the best-selling game of all time, to be sure.

 

Shakespeare had the right of it.

[Guest clockworkraven]

This has made the rounds with the gaming webcomics, with some funny and scathing results

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I heard about this through http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2005-10-12. If anybody's seen any better ones (likely), you mind telling me where they are?

 

"Even baseball bats. Especially baseball bats." I'd buy it. Sounds like the best way to kill time ever.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Thompson's proposal is titled A Modest Video Game Proposal

Aw, I thought it was going to be about eating babies

[AndrewTS 0]

Jack always keeps you guessing. You don't know if he's just a self righteous scumbag or just batshit insane.

[Ced 0]

You know he's going to immediately turn around and sue any company foolish enough to make this game.

 

Somebody needs to send this man a copy of We <3 Katamari, stat.

[Angel_Grace_Blue 0]

You know he's going to immediately turn around and sue any company foolish enough to make this game.

 

Somebody needs to send this man a copy of We <3 Katamari, stat.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That was the topic of today's Penny Arcade: Shouldn't he have to sue himself if it's made?

[Eclipse 0]

This man must be shot in REAL LIFE for even proposing this game.

[Scroby 0]

Maybe if we give him the Bible game, maybe he'll shut up.

[Masked Man of Mystery 0]

You mean something by Wisdom Tree? That might make HIM violent

[Black Lushus 0]

I'd play it...

[Open the Muggy Gate 0]

Give him a copy of the Bearenstein Bears: Extreme Sports and let's see him find something in there to go off on.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

You mean something by Wisdom Tree? That might make HIM violent

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You mean you didn't know there was a new Bible Game coming out?

 

Damnit, man, why aren't you keeping up with the whole Bible-based videogame scene?

[AndrewTS 0]

This just in: Thompson a lying sack of shit.

 

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

[chirs3 0]

This just in: Penny Arcade picks up the slack.

[Guest ABOBO]

That's great.

[Special K 0]

Man, a Bible game would be the shit. There's be so much fucking, and killing, and child-murdering, and raping, and bigamy, and incest, and torture, and stoning to death with stones. I'd play it in a heartbeat.

 

Wait, it's probably one of those lameass games where you're an angel, and you don't even get to wipe out any villages, right?

[AndrewTS 0]

Thompson tries to get the PA guys arrested: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3144843

 

Take a look at that run-on sentence in Jack's third paragraph.

[Ted the Poster 0]

[jimmy no nose 0]

Every time I read one of these articles that are against video game violence the author mentions some game where you get to cut off heads and urinate on them. What game is this and why have I been missing out for so long?

[El Psycho Diablo 0]

He's fucked.

 

Article

 

The lesson in this? Angry video game fans can do something, after all.

[AndrewTS 0]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Since when has Thompson justified his positions on a religious basis?

 

Not saying his ilk doesn't, but I don't recall him ever doing so.

[Special K 0]

He does, though I can't find a particular quote right now.

 

Check this out:

http://fradical.com/Sniper_trained_on_video_game.htm

He wrote this article about himself in the third person, using himself as the only source. That kind of arrogance is almost admirable.

[Justice 0]

The funniest thing about his letter to the Seattle Police is that he doesn't actually state a case. He just bitches about video games and asks Penny Arcade to be arrested.

 

All in all, though, Penny Arcade is just fucking him up. This is a one-sided feud to put Scotsman to shame.