RF Generation Message Board

We've got a trilogy going here, now.  Here's the most recent episode of Jack Thompson's antics:

The trial in Alabama starts this week against Sony, Take Two, Wal-Mart, GameStop, and Devin Moore (note how he is listed last).  Everyone's favorite lawyer is of course responsible for filing the suit.  For those who have forgotten, Devin Moore killed several police officers after "training" on Grand Theft Auto.  So, Thompson has sued the aforementioned, blaming them all for the deaths of said officers.

Yesterday, the defense motioned for Thompson to be removed from the trial.  Now...

As if his blaming these companies wasn't bad enough, Thompson is now talking more trash than Chad Johnson does on Sunday afternoons.  What kind of lawyer does that?  Read more:

http://www.gamepolitics.com/

P.S.  I didn't post it here the other day, but Devin Moore wrote a long, rambling letter to Thompson a few days ago, telling Thompson that his case would not do well in Alabama.  He said, among other things, that since he could not use video games in defense of his life, Thompson would not be able to use them as an excuse to gain money.  Go to the above link and scroll down for more on that.

_________________________________________

Thompson: Alabama Suit will Make O.J. Trial Look Like Quilting Bee

GP has never seen an attorney put out a press release hyping the opening day of a lawsuit before, but we've just received one from Jack Thompson. It is a quite remarkable document in many ways, and reads in part:

"This Thursday, November 3, 2005, at 1 pm the Alabama fireworks ignite in the Fayette County Courthouse. This may make the OJ Simpson trials look like quilting bees."

"Defendants Sony, Take-Two/Rockstar, Wal-Mart, GameStop, and cop killer Devin Moore have all been sued for their respective roles in the June 2003 murder of two police officers and a dispatcher. The corporate defendants are nervous, and here's proof:

"The primary strategy is to get Miami attorney Jack Thompson kicked off the case, alleging in court documents that he is 'paranoid' and cursed with a 'colorful history of disciplinary problems.' Forget that the referred to Bar complaints came 15 years ago from the porn industry and that Thompson has always been a 'lawyer in good standing with The Florida Bar' and 'officially certified sane' by The Bar after the ACLU and the radio pornographers last tried this nonsense."

"That exoneration of Thompson did not stop Sony and Take-Two's law firm, Blank Rome (which has given more campaign contributions to the Republican National Committee than any other lobbyist - they are lead registered lobbyists on The Hill for Take-Two), from plunking down in front of Judge Moore an order stating that Thompson may have a 'mental illness...'

"The video game industry is indeed on trial in Alabama, and the industry is afraid (and it ought to be) that it cannot win on the merits, so it has adopted the classic 'shoot the messenger' strategy. A member of the media Thompson deeply trusts told Thompson that a major player in the video game world assured him this weekend that 'Thompson will be destroyed on Thursday.' Echoes of Goliath's taunts of Israel, before the giant fell to the ground."

"Oh, and certain regional governments in Japan have banned the sale of the Grand Theft Auto games to minors, but Japan's Sony has no problem whatsoever dumping this garbage into American kids' brains. Looks like Pearl Harbor 2 by Sony/Take-Two...[/size]'

EDITOR'S NOTE: Did he just say what GP thinks he said?

"Devin Moore himself has written Thompson explaining the role of the murder simulation games. The video game industry has no rebuttal to the scientific evidence, except to question the mental health of the lawyer who, with the rest of the legal team, filed the affidavits that have this scofflaw industry on the run."

"It may well be that Thompson will be kicked off the case and/or that the case will be dismissed. Thompson is not as presumptuous as other lawyers who claim to know what an honorable judge in Alabama will do. If that happens, there are remedies, but in the meantime this case is a reasonable judicial means to rightly compensate three devastated families targeted by an out-of-control industry. "

"The most reckless video game company in the world, Take-Two, has been fined $9 million by the SEC for accounting fraud and is currently under investigation by the FTC for illegally embedding explicit sexual content in a Grand Theft Auto game sold to children. Thompson is unethical? This is a nuclear bomb calling a cap gun explosive."

"Blank Rome questioning the ethics of Jack Thompson? One of its partners is Barbara Comstock, whom the Washington Post called a 'one-woman wrecking crew' because she was the head of 'opposition research' at the Republican National Committee before coming over to Blank, Rome. Ms. Comstock was on the staff of Indiana Senator Dan Burton back when he had a mistress illegally on his office's federal payroll and was also supporting an illegitimate child, unbeknownst to the supporters of the family values Congressman. Barbara Comstock's fingerprints are all over the false and defamatory character assassination of the lawyer who opposes her corporate clients' mental molestation of minors for money..."

"Stay tuned. You ain't seen nothing yet."

I just read this over at Gamepolitics.  Someone over there put up a link to an Asian-American rights page so everyone could voice thier concerns top them.  |D

How has this guy not been killed yet?  If video games make people violent, unethical and sharp shooters then there must be hundreds of gamers trying to kill him right?

I know Nep heard his radio interview with ChatterBox.

This guy is all about stereotyping.
"A bunch of Scottish guys sitting around in kilts drinking their single malt Scotch"

Oh yeah I remember that one.  He is insane.  His favorite things to do though are bring up World War II and the Bible.  He is after all a soldier fighting the Nazis in the trenches.

The Quilting Bee Saga.... Had me rolling. This douche isn't fighting nuthin he's trying to make a quick buck.

This was the best! I can't help but think this whole thing is one massive prank by Thompson and eventually he'll say something that's just so funny he can't help himself from laughing. I don't know how he keeps a straight face as it is!

Insensitive passing remark?  Oh no, he really meant it, boys and girls.  This guy is unbelievable.  He's not only clarified the above remark as "accurate and needed," but he has gone so far to write to the Japanese ambassador to request his help in destroying Sony.  I wish I was making this shit up.

Thompson's clarifications of his statement and his letter to Ambassador Ryoko Kato are below.  If you've not paid much attention to all the Jack Thompson news up until now, please do read this.  Part III of this story is really shaping up to be a doozie.

Source: www.gamepolitics.com
________________________________________________

"Oh, and certain regional governments in Japan have banned the sale of the Grand Theft Auto games to minors, but Japan's Sony has no problem whatsoever dumping this garbage into American kids' brains. Looks like Pearl Harbor 2 by Sony/Take-Two..."

On its face the comment seems insensitive. But did Thompson really mean it the way it sounded? GamePolitics followed up with the self-described "anti-game crusader" via a series of e-mails.

GP: Jack - Some readers are taking offense to the Pearl Harbor comments in your press release, and I have to say that it does read as a somewhat insensitive remark. Would you care to comment on that section or elaborate further on what you were trying to convey?

JT: Insensitive? What the Japanese are doing to our kids is insensitive and racist. The Japanese have for a very long time dumped pornography into this country in a fashion they would not tolerate in their own country. It is another version of Pearl Harbor.

GP: By porn, I take it you mean violent video games? Are you referring to various Japanese-made game platforms? (i.e. PS2, Nintendo, etc.) But Take-Two is an American corp., and Rockstar an English subsidiary. Most of the games I can recall you criticizing over the years have been American-published....
(GTA, 25 to Life, Bully, The Warriors, The Sims, Blitz: The League, Everquest, Doom, etc.)

JT: Sony is a Japanese company.

GP: But Sony only makes the player. I don't recall you criticizing any of their titles in a major way. If you take that approach, wouldn't TV, VCR, and DVD player manufacturers be equally complicit? Since their products play violent movies and even actual porn? And are also needed to play video games?
Toshiba, etc.?

JT: GTA is a Sony/Take-Two game. It was made by Take-Two exclusively for Sony's Playstation 2. Sony has led the planet in the distribution of mainstream porn. I don't have time to document it for you. As for the offensiveness of the Pearl Harbor comment, it's accurate and it's needed. The Japanese have a contempt for our culture which is patent. There (sic) dumping of garbage into our culture is a slow motion version of Pearl Harbor.

______________________________________________

The Honorable Ryoko Kato
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Japan to the United States of America
2520 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. Via Fax to 202-xxx-xxxx

Re: Sony's Ongoing Distribution of Violent and Pornographic Material to Minors in the United States


Dear Mr. Ambassador:

As a United States citizen who has been active and visible in opposing Sony's distribution of hyperviolent and sexually explicit video games to children in this country, I would respectfully request that your nation's government assist me in making this harmful distribution stop.

This request comes in the aftermath of recent news reports that certain local/regional governments in Japan will not allow, for example, the grotesque Sony/Take-Two/Rockstar Grand Theft Auto games to be sold to children in your country but Sony is more than delighted to distribute these games to our children in our country.

This is hypocrisy, and it must be remedied. Japan cannot allow to be done to our children what it will not allow to be done to its own.

Regards, Jack Thompson

Wow.  Just wow.  

Oh, Jack Thompson...you never cease to amaze me.  And by "amaze me", I mean "make me want to blow uppa you face."

- Zac

I refuse to read anything that nutball has to say.  My blood pressure always shoots up even at the mention of his name. I've seen the guy on TV giving an interview once...once was enough for me to draw a conclusion that he is nothing more than a zealot, a media whore, and in desperate need of either a hobby like stamp collecting or getting a good lay.  Maybe sex would calm him down.

It bothered e at first because he was actually making a negative impact on the industry in some ways but since he has been getting "attacked" by gamers and people in the industry i have come to love him because he is getting more and more extreme.

I'm just waiting for the day he snaps and goes on a shooting rampage to cleanse the souls of all those who traded sides on him.

If you think about it, he is probably doing more for game sales than hurting them.  I am actually planning on going out and buying Bully when it comes out just in the hopes that it outsells GTA.

We just need to do a Fight Clubesque thing where we tie him down and tell him to fuck off or we'll cut his balls off. We gamers are everywhere, we guard him while he sleeps, we serve him his food, we pick up his trash, it shouldn't be a problem getting close to him.

He left the trial!  Word from Thompson is that it was "his idea" and that he didn't have any pressure from the judge, but who knows.  More at www.gamepolitics.com for those interested.

Here's an interesting interview with Mr. Thompson from last Feb.  I've bolded some of the more interesting statements.  

CBS: What constitutes violence in video games?

JT: There's no real debate over that. Any M-rated game has violence levels unacceptable and definitionally harmful to anyone under 17. The industry will rue the day it accepted this labeled scheme.

CBS: What percentage of all games made would you say are violent, based upon your previous definition of violence in video games?

JT: This gets to a fundamental lie being propagated by the video game industry.
GTA [Grand Theft Auto series] has sold 30 million units, with San Andreas expected to hit 20 million on its own. It's the #1 seller in the world right now. That fact alone does not square with ISA and ESRB's dodge that "the majority of games are not violent or M-rated." What matters is how many units delivered are violent, and to whom they are being delivered.

CBS: How many hate or violent crimes would you say are linked to or directly related to violence in video games?

JT: I have no earthly idea, and no one can guess at that. I can tell you that some crimes would not occur but for the violent entertainment. For the families of the deceased, that is the only statistic that matters.

CBS: Does age or sex play a factor in violent, aggressive behavior?

JT: Sure, the sex and violence centers of the brain overlay one another, which is why the increasing mix of sex and violence is troubling. Armies have been known to go on rape rampages after battles because the violence stimulates sexual aggression. How lovely that GTA weds sex and violence in the same game. We are training a generation of teens to combine sex with violence, just what America needs.

CBS: Is there a correlation between playing violent video games and acting in a violent manner?

JT: Of course. Every parent who is paying attention knows that it is garbage in, garbage out with kids.

The heads of six major health care organizations testified before Congress that there are "hundreds" of studies that prove the link. All the video game industry has are studies paid for by them, which are geared to find the opposite result. Lawyers call such experts "whores."

CBS: Is gaming escapism?

JT: Yes, just as Ted Bundy escaped into pornography. It is not a release of aggression. It is training for aggression.

CBS:Do you think the interactivity of game violence makes it different than violence on television, which is passive?  

JT: Of course, as you actually grow neural pathways called dendrites that enable you to perform more easily the physical acts of violence. Plus, from a psychological perspective, to act out of virtual violence in a virtual setting is far more damaging than just viewing it. You enter into the violence, you become the protagonist.

CBS: Different mediums, as they've come along, have had their share of controversy. From pulp horror and graphic novels, to movies, music and television; is this part of a cycle?

JT: Yes, it is the last cycle. These are murder simulators. Manhunt has been called the video game equivalent of a snuff film. I am working with an Oakland, CA prosecutor in a murder trial in which the older gang members used GTA 3 to train teens to do carjackings and murders. The Army uses these games to break down the inhibition to kill of new recruits.

Look at the Institute for Creative Technologies created by DOD to create these killing games. Tax dollars paid to the industry to create the games to suppress the inhibition to kill, and then the industry turns around and sells these games to kids. One instance is Pandemic Studio's Full Spectrum Warrior. If it works for soldiers, of course it works for teens. The video game industry has absolutely no rebuttal to that argument. NONE.

CBS: Is the self-imposed rating system for video games enough? Is the ESRB working? What is the relevance of a rating system for video games if the powers that be will black-list certain games because of their graphic content?

JT: No, of course it's not working. Senator Lieberman and Dr. Walsh just had their latest "Video Game Report Card" news conference. Underage kids can buy the most violent games half the time. I just successfully sued Best Buy and compelled them to institute a new nationwide policy. They will now ID anyone appearing to be 21 or younger to make sure no one under 17 buys M-rated games. This is a huge development. You really need to report that. It is an industry first.

CBS:How does free speech factor in?  

JT: There is no right of children to buy adult entertainment. None.

CBS: Are parents paying attention to what their kids play?

JT: Nope.

CBS: Do you think that video games are similar to sports? There are much-touted statistics that link aggression levels to video game playing, but isn't that precisely what happens in any kind of competition?

JT: I'm sorry, but a basketball games goal is to score more points, not maim the other player. That is where sportsmanship comes in. There is no sportsmanship in any GTA game. None.

CBS: According to the Center for Child Death Review, 1,242 kids were murdered with guns and 174 children died from accidental firearm-related injuries in 2000. Aside from stories that get covered in the news [like Columbine], there are few, if any, actual statistics that show how many children's deaths are directly linked to video games. Do the facts speak for themselves? Or is it just that nobody is really keeping tabs?

JT: The federal government found that in the school year 2003, there were 48 school killings. The year before that there were 16, and the year before that 17. Something is going on. I submit that the video game generation is coming of age.

CBS: Where does the accountability lie? Are parents responsible for their children's behavior? Society?

JT: There is plenty of blame to go around. The parents must do a better job, but you know what? When we were on 60 Minutes the Sunday after Columbine (we predicted Columbine on NBC's Today eight days before it happened) with the parents in Paducah, Ed Bradley asked Joe James "Isn't this a parent's responsibility?" Joe said "Ed, I'm trying to figure out what I did wrong. I had my daughter in school and in a pre-school prayer meeting where she was shot and killed. If I hadn't raised her right, she'd be alive today."

You see, the industry is selling these games to kids whose parents are reckless. How is that Joe Jame's fault? We need to punish the industry and the parents who are putting innocent people in harm's way.

You just watch. There is going to be a Columbine-times-10 incident, and everyone will finally get it. Either that, or some video gamer is going to go Columbine at some video game exec's expense or at E3, and then the industry will begin to realize that there is no place to hide, that it has trained a nation of Manchurian Children.

Kids took guns to school for 200 years in this country without turning them on one another. President Clinton understood that if we want to do something about gun violence, we need also to look at the stimuli to use those guns. 3000 gun laws on the books. Not a single law on the books to stop the sale of murder simulators to kids. Idiotic.

Carl Sandberg, Lincoln's great biographer, defined freedom as "moving easy in harness." The selfish, childish video game industry accepts no harness. Their freedom is pure license.

They are about to pay a wicked price, and I aim to make sure they pay it.
__________________________________________

Here's the link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/tech/gamecore/main676446.shtml?CMP=ILC-SearchStories

Ummm i don't think he understood the question. His mind is SOo in the gutter.
Bad JT.

I'm getting really tired of hearing him say the word "none".  A word that absolute should be used in moderation.

"Never say never."

- Zac

Yup, after playing GTA those teens know just how to steal a car. All you have to do is walk up to it  and press triangle. And shooting someone involves nothing more then a tap of R1 followed by O.
If JT's going to attack a game he should go after America's Army. Which is made by the Army for the Army and the most realistic shooter out there. Besides that, the only gaming I can think of as realistic is aiming a pistol in MGS2 and 3, which isn't very realistic. Realistically folks.

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/668/668345p1.html



That's a problem solved.

Ah hahahaha.  I'm not surprised one bit.  Good riddance.

I was quite happy when I read that.

Well, Thompson has since filed to overturn the decision.  Check out the news from gamepolitics.com:

_________________________________________________--

Somebody buy the movie rights quick.