Missing: Jack Thompson's Mind. Please call if you have any information.
#1
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Thread Starter
Missing: Jack Thompson's Mind. Please call if you have any information.
This has been making the rounds lately, but it hasn't been posted here yet. It's an entertaining read if you hadn't seen it, and provides further proof (if you still needed any) that Jack Thompson is totally bonkers.
http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5883
To add further hilarity to an already goofy situation, appear Penny Arcade has been in contact with him. He declined to answer their question "If somebody made your violent videogame, would you have to sue yourself?" but he did yell at them for several minutes and claimed he wasn't cash-filled videogame company like they were.
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. (WTF?! )
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.
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. (WTF?! )
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.
#3
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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=12259
Looks like media family won't be returning any of his calls.
And the link has yet to be taken down.
Looks like media family won't be returning any of his calls.
And the link has yet to be taken down.
#5
DVD Talk Hero
I don't know what's more shocking...that Jack Thompson is even more of an asshole than I first thought or that Penny Arcade actually printed an amusing cartoon?
My world, it is a rockin'.
My world, it is a rockin'.
#6
DVD Talk Godfather
Originally Posted by Draven
I don't know what's more shocking...that Jack Thompson is even more of an asshole than I first thought or that Penny Arcade actually printed an amusing cartoon?
$10,000 to charity for a company to spend ten times that amount to develop and release a game. Sounds like a great business decision. That is some Al "fuzzy math" Gore material right there. I think Mr. Thompson needs to put his ideas in a lock box.
#7
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penny arcade donated 10K to The Entertainment Software Association Foundation on behalf of Jack Thompson. Apparently someone made a mod that followed Jack's requests and Jack replied that his request was satire.
#8
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Yack Thompson
Mon, October 17 2005 - 10:47 AM
by: Gabe
Perhaps you read the letter from the National Institute on Media and the Family in which they distance themselves from Jack Thompson. Well Jack has responded to that letter with two letters of his own. He makes some vague legal threats which I have come to discover are sort of his bread and butter. You also get the impression after reading his letters that he believes he was cut loose simply because he is too 塗ardkore・
I think we can all agree that young kids should not play violent videogames. I think we can also agree that they should not watch violent movies or read pornographic magazines. That痴 a job for parents not Jack Thompson.
You池e all asking me for Jack痴 Email and or phone number and I respect that. The problem is that I can稚 give that info out. The fact is that Jack had time to call me after I sent him a sarcastic email. I have no doubt in my mind that he would try and pull some legal bullshit if I post his phone number.
Did I ever mention how much I like VG cats?
-Gabe out
Mon, October 17 2005 - 10:47 AM
by: Gabe
Perhaps you read the letter from the National Institute on Media and the Family in which they distance themselves from Jack Thompson. Well Jack has responded to that letter with two letters of his own. He makes some vague legal threats which I have come to discover are sort of his bread and butter. You also get the impression after reading his letters that he believes he was cut loose simply because he is too 塗ardkore・
I think we can all agree that young kids should not play violent videogames. I think we can also agree that they should not watch violent movies or read pornographic magazines. That痴 a job for parents not Jack Thompson.
You池e all asking me for Jack痴 Email and or phone number and I respect that. The problem is that I can稚 give that info out. The fact is that Jack had time to call me after I sent him a sarcastic email. I have no doubt in my mind that he would try and pull some legal bullshit if I post his phone number.
Did I ever mention how much I like VG cats?
-Gabe out
You Lose
Mon, October 17 2005 - 12:04 PM
by: Tycho
It was only a matter of time until a mod team took Jack Thompson's disgusting revenge fantasy and made it flesh - and, just as I suggested, it was deemed insufficient.
Thompson now claims that his repellent suggestion was "satire," and we must conclude that his financial offer was also satire, some new breed of satire apparently that I'm sure is just hilarious to people in need.
You know what, Jack? We're going to be the men you're not. You said that your insulting, illusory ten thousand dollars would go to the charity of Paul Eibeler's choice. We've got a good guess that he'd direct your nonexistant largesse toward The Entertainment Software Association Foundation, a body that has raised over six point seven million dollars over the last eight years. We've just made the donation you never would, and never meant to. Ten thousand dollars' worth. And we made it in your name.
(CW)TB
AHAhahahaha that's great!
The only thing I can say is the first thing I thought of when I read that:
Jack Thompson just got owned!
#12
DVD Talk Legend
Ok, I've been hearing about him and I still don't understand. He's offering 10k to charity if someone will create his violent game? What exactly is the point of this?
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The whole "Litigation happy" Wacko Jacko vs. Penny Arcade saga is just too funny. The fax he sent to the police department is hysterical! Plus the fact that he is devoting so much energy deflecting attacks from a couple of gaming dorks in Spokane
#14
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Thread Starter
Originally Posted by GatorDeb
Ok, I've been hearing about him and I still don't understand. He's offering 10k to charity if someone will create his violent game? What exactly is the point of this?
#17
Banned
Originally Posted by Outlaw
Uh oh! HE is appearing on anderson cooper 360 tonight at 7:00pm EST to talk about the new NFL Blitz game.
#19
DVD Talk Legend
Originally Posted by slop101
I'm surprised PA has $10K to give to a charity on a whim...
Did anyone on Anderson Cooper take this guy to task for basically being a nutjob? (imho of course)
#21
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Thread Starter
And I suppose he felt that 5 seconds of airtime gave him license to say this:
One of his "truths" was that the NFL refused to have it's name put on the Blitz: The League because of it's content. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that EA owns the NFL name.
"Whom did CNN contact for a comment about Blitz: The League? They didn't contact Doug Lowenstein. They didn't contact the drooling cretins at Penny Arcade. They didn't even contact a single gamer, I guess because they wanted the truth.
They contacted Jack Thompson. Why? Because the "don't confuse me with the facts" gaming community (what's next, the marijuana community?) has nothing rational to say about the marketing of mature games to kids.
The purpose of the law in California is to say this: Parents, it is your job to make the decision on these games. We will not allow retailers to sell adult games to kids behind their parents' backs.
Wise up, gamers. The war was lost by you scofflaws a very long time ago. Even liberal CNN is on my side. Fondly, Jack Thompson
PS: Put down the controller and get a life!"
UPDATE: Jack just added a comment: "Jack Thompson thanks you for watching, and not seeing anyone other than me in the piece. I didn't see Penny Aracade personnel there, nor any drooling gamers. Just little old me. Why? Because CNN knows what I'm talking about. This was my 14th appearance on CNN. Glad to be of service in annoying the pixelante pukes. "
They contacted Jack Thompson. Why? Because the "don't confuse me with the facts" gaming community (what's next, the marijuana community?) has nothing rational to say about the marketing of mature games to kids.
The purpose of the law in California is to say this: Parents, it is your job to make the decision on these games. We will not allow retailers to sell adult games to kids behind their parents' backs.
Wise up, gamers. The war was lost by you scofflaws a very long time ago. Even liberal CNN is on my side. Fondly, Jack Thompson
PS: Put down the controller and get a life!"
UPDATE: Jack just added a comment: "Jack Thompson thanks you for watching, and not seeing anyone other than me in the piece. I didn't see Penny Aracade personnel there, nor any drooling gamers. Just little old me. Why? Because CNN knows what I'm talking about. This was my 14th appearance on CNN. Glad to be of service in annoying the pixelante pukes. "
#23
DVD Talk Platinum Edition
Somebody needs to expose this guy, he's absolutely insane. Maybe a segment on the Daily Show or something will show enough people out there that this guy is total wack job.
#24
Banned
"Put down the controller and get a life!"
"Glad to be of service in annoying the pixelante pukes."
Did he actually say that on the air? What kind of mature professional says stuff like that?
"Glad to be of service in annoying the pixelante pukes."
Did he actually say that on the air? What kind of mature professional says stuff like that?
#25
Moderator
Originally Posted by slop101
I'm surprised PA has $10K to give to a charity on a whim...