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Jack Thompson Continues To Talk
Lucerin Red writes "It seems the next game on Jack Thompson's censorship list is Killer 7. The article posted by IGN quotes Jack as saying "There is no question in my mind that a videogame containing 'full-blown sex sequences' cannot be rated anything other than 'AO' rather than 'M.'" The 'full-blown sex sequences' are no more then you could see in a rated R movie." Meanwhile, MowAlon writes "Those of you keeping up with all the latest in the Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive/ESRB/EA Games sex scandal may be interested in a radio interview just made available: ChatterBox Video Game Radio just posted an 80-minute audio interview with Jack Thompson, the Miami lawyer out to shut down Rockstar Games. The interview provides a much deeper insight into his views, opinions, and efforts than anything else I've read about him elsewhere on the internet. One highlight includes Jack saying "Will Wright said he wants Electronic Arts to collaborate with the porn industry to allow wholesale modification of their game"."
Didn't know he was against video game violence, I thought he just liked to play folky pop music.
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
This retard's the gaming world's equivalent to hollywood supermarket tabloids. Full of bullshit and lies and blows everything out of proportion.
Someone slap some sense into this guy already!
Audio posted on the web is not "radio". Did any radio stations actually "air" this? Just wondering...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Whats this about sex scenes? Okay, thats it - I'm buying Killer 7.
My hand touched her hand. Her hand touched her boob. By the transitive property, I got some boob! Algebra is awesome!
Current state:
M - For 17+
AO - For 18+
One year doesn't make such a difference. Just combine the two into one 18+ rating. I want to see Walmart not selling any of these considering that a large portion if not most of the games sold today are M.
And no, it won't make the game companies try to make a game into T instead of the new M/AO because that will require a complete change of the game.
^_^
If he wanted to go after GTA and get it an AO rating for the violence, I'd probably be fine with that. Considering the amount of violence in the game, it's not too hard for anyone who's ever played it to say it may be innapropriate for a majority of younger teenagers. Consider, for example, the movie Titanic in which you could see a breast that wasn't a really poor and clunky animation rendered on 5 year old hardware. This movie was rated PG-13. Consider several R rated movies with sex scenes that are more pornographic than the comical and largely unerotic scene in San Andreas.
This is merely the latest Salem witch trial. Eventually the whole thing will blow over. Eventually, Jack Thompson, like Senator McCarthy will go so far over the top that he will lose credibility. I think that this has already happened to an extent when he went after The Sims 2. When he does go, I can honestly say that I won't miss him one bit. Goodbye, moronic fuckwad.
Podcasts are not radio, and ONE station, well, I'm impressed! This must be the real thing, the down-and-dirty truth of all truths!
If he wants to lobby for something, perhaps they should make the ESRB ratings enforcable on game resellers or something. Perhaps levy fines on retailers who sell M or AO games to children under 17 (e.g. require ID to purchase these games). It'd probably be an easier fight than Jack's crusade to destroy the ESRB and Rockstar.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
It seems the only people who print stories about Jack Thompson are gaming sites. How about we just ignore him? He's obviously been terribly ineffective at a mainstream media and lobbying level. It's only when people like Hilary Clinton start shouting that anyone listens.
He feeds on people hating him. I worry that games journalists are feeding off him too. IGN, Gamespot, Slashdot, Kotaku all need to stop running stories on him, then he'll have nothing left.
We don't all need a bad guy, people.
That Will Wright quote is so ridiculous I almost died laughing.
I sometimes wonder if the games industry should just use the same ratings system as the movies, possibly migrating some of the ESRB subcategories useful for describing game content.
Not only are many people apparently under-educated about the meaning of the ESRB ratings - I mean, just look at all the stories about kids playing GTA and parents who let them - but having a separate ratings system makes it impossible to have apples-to-apples comparisons between these two types of media which makes it easy for people to misrepresent the situation. The fact is, these games aren't for kids that's for sure but they aren't any worse than R-rated movies. That they are called "MA" is perhaps the source of the confusion - they may simply not know what that really means. Using the same ratings system seems like it would at least simplify the arguments people seem to want to have about all this.
-Eric Cosky
Just wait till he finds the nude hack for Dead or Alive Extreme Volley ball!
(Anyone getting off on polygon tits is sick anyway...)
Wait.. what did I miss...
. html
a game with 'full-blown sex sequences' on a Nintendo console?
Judging from the screenshots I have my doubts. It's artsy style give it less details than a game from 1995.
Check for yourself: http://media.cube.ign.com/media/495/495539/imgs_1
That would be better but the MPAA has copyrighted (tradmarked?) the movie rating system and has prosecuted people that come too close to copying it.
It is a frank, rational discussion of the situation at hand. You can holler at Jack Thompson all you want, but the bottom line is, he's not going to go away. And noone can deny that rockstar is all about the ultra violent games. State of emergency. Grand theft auto. Manhunt for god's sake. I like Grand theft auto 3 too, but lets not kid ourselves about the nature of the tittilation being peddled.
This is not a gotcha interview, as the interviewer states up front. It is a candid discussion about the situation at hand. Give it a listen.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Couldn't Wil Wright sue Thompson for making up the EA/Porn Industry story and openly slandering him in that interview.
Jack Thompson needs to slow down.
At this rate, I won't have enough money to buy all the games he's going after!
The US AO rating does seem to be completly stupid, no game is ever actually rated it.
In the UK we have a slightly stange situation where most games have advisory ratings from PEGI (who took over a couple of years ago from ELSPA), but under certain critera they can have the legally enforced BBFC ratings, like DVDs and films.
But in the UK, the highest ratings (18+ for PEGI, 18 for BBFC) have been used (although the 18+ PEGI rating is rare, as most of them go into the BBFC ratings). Indeed, both Grand Theft Auto (all of them) and Killer 7 are BBFC 18, and they're commonly availible, I can go into my local ASDA (owned by Wal Mart) and buy them. But in the US, it seems that everyone is allergic to the AO rating, even the ESRB. I'd guess it's some sort of weird market forces, where the shops have all decided that AO really means it's banned. And mysteriously the industry run ESRB avoids it like a plauge as well. If I wasn't pissed, I'm sure I could make a better essay on the US puritan streak etc. (it's half like the Daily Mail ran a country!), but instead I'll end up with a horrid steam of conciousness thing. I mean, it's only some dry humping FFS. How does that change the bloody rating...
I'd also like to note the BBFC said during all this ho-hah over GTA:SA, that even if the "Hot Coffee" had been in the game, it would still be rated the same.
(I should note that for BBFC, there is the Restricted 18 rating as well (can only be sold in licenced sex shops, used for hardcore porn), but no game has ever qualified for it AFAIK).
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
The game industry needs an advocacy group, or maybe have a lobbyist or perhaps buy off a senator :P
Seriously, you don't see gun manufacturers targeted like you might have in the past. Anyone remember that video of those Columbine kids with a small arsenal shooting trees in the woods? Anyone try to trace back where they got those guns and hold them as responsible as Doom??
These grieving families get counciled by layers that tell them to sue the video game companies, and defense lawyers use it as a defense tactic...not much different than what they tried to do to rock, when some kids commited suicide after playing a Judas Priest record backwards...or with rap when this guy shot a state trooper and blamed it on Tupac b/c he was listening to one of his songs in the car.
The game industry has always had its level of releative violence, even before Mortal Kombat. IMO the main problem is that the industry has become more visible and mainstream, and it has no real protection against people like this guy Thompson trying to rage his own little war.
On the other side, Rockstar's recent actions don't help matters...the explicitness (or lack of) the content is not the point. Their dishonsty makes an organization like the ESRB look ineffective. Additionally, it doesn't help when you have fools commiting murder over virtual property. You don't give the enemy anything to hold over you, regardless of whether you think its inconsequential. If they can use it, that's a problem.
"Death and poverty like me so much, they brought friends!" - Vash the Stampede, Trigun
Jack Thompson is naked under his clothes.
Jack Thompson keeps talking about sex.
Jack Thompson has a poorly defined, but detectible penis.
ban Jack Thompson!
I really don't see where the problem is with sexual content in the video games. The only people that would actually get turned on by it are those fourteen-year-old kids with acne that have no real shot at getting some. We shouldn't take this away from them too.
And no, it won't make the game companies try to make a game into T instead of the new M/AO because that will require a complete change of the game.
/me looks up random EA shooter
wait, are you seeing the same games as me?
hey look, the battlefield series of games are all rated teen. Hrm, what does this mean they lack? Blood [read: "intense violence"], and "inapproaite language". These things don't completely change the game, you're still killing people just like you do in all those M rated shooters...
[spelling nazis here they come!]
Well, when this McCarthy went after what should've been his Army, this Army basically just shrugged and called him a hack, and then this hack went on with his baseless accusations.
Why didn't EA sue this guy for libel, or slander, or just for being Jack Thompson? I mean, it'd be a _popular_ decision, for once, by putting this shameful and stupid saga to an end--it's not like they'd have to scrape together the lawyer's fees. Would EA and other developers _want_ the hassle of dealing with a stronger, more buraucratic, government-run software ratings board? IANAL, so can I get one to guess at this?
I had heard that Wil Wright is a Christian. Wouldn't that go against Wil's values if it is that case?
I don't know about that, but gas is certainly being expelled from one of his orifices.
English is easier said than done.
This guy makes all kinds of logical jumps AND using arguments from intimidation. Anyone that says, "Well, if you deny my rock solid evidence then you clearly are ignoring my absolutely irrefutable point of view.", is trying to push something they know is iffy.
My whole problem with this is that the ESRB is just supposed to be there for guidence, and thats what the ratings are for. If he's complaining about children getting a hold of the game, then maybe he should start to lobby for better informent to parents of the ESRB codes and what they mean. The labels on the box clearly do state what is in the game, and they're there for a reason. I am all for keeping innapropriate material out of the hands of children, but why should I and others get heat because some people dont know how to police their children, I dont want to start going to adult video stores in order to pick up the next GTA
When we start holding parents at fault? When do we start punishing the legal guardians? If we advocate fining retailers for selling the product to under-age kids, will we bring charges against the parents? I've worked in retail. In most cases, it's an adult that makes the purchase, irrespective of wether or not you make a point of directing them to the age rating. It seems that you can't make parents aware of the problem.
Honestly, I think that he just needs a hug ... ... ...
Or to get laid
Or something
I remember reading something in a psyc book at one point in time which talked about displacement. You see a large portion of this world (ie. everyone) has sexual and violent urges that are against the morals, ethics and standards of our society. It is arguable where these urges come from (that is whether they're socialized into us or come from a biological component) but they have existed since (essentially) the dawn of civilization.
How displacement works is that people have been moralized to think that how they feel about something is wrong and immoral; when they start to get those 'urges' they place the energy the guilt they get causes into the (in their oppinion) opposing cause. Now it is quite common for the strongest supporters of a cause to actually be guilty of high levels of the urges they're fighting against; that is a lot of people who are in PETA are very violent minded people, if you had an opportunity to read many of their letters to the editor you would see what I mean "How can you say that cows were bred by man as food? How would you like it if I came over there, gutted your wife and children, cooked them up and fed them back to you? You BLEEPING BLEEP BLEEPING conservatives make me want to get a BLEEPING BLEEP BLEEPING gun and go to your BLEEPING BLEEP BLEEPING convention and put holes in the BLEEPING BLEEP BLEEPING heads of all of you BLEEPING BLEEP BLEEPING BLEEPERS"
Not to say that there aren't normal people who actually simply support a cause (in general many rational reasonable people would like some sort of tighter restrictions on the selling and renting of 'Mature' games to children) but that the strongest supporters are usually not these rational reasonable people.
Had there been a stronger interviewer conducting this, I bet Thompson would have hung up halfway through.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
In the UK adult games are rated by the BBFC which are the guys that also rate movies, GTA:SA got an 18 certificate which is why these sex scenes don't matter here. To be honest i doubt they would matter if it was rated 12, after all it's just 2 fully clothed cartoon people pretending to have sex, very erotic :/
Lets hope the kids don't learn how to type "boobs" into google or we'll see google getting banned.
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the radio station he was interviewed for has the same name as a GTA radio station, a series he's always been so avidly fighting? (In GTAIII, the talk radio station was called Chatterbox, hosted by Lazlo, for anyone who didn't know) ...Anyone? Didn't think so.
I'm still waitng for the one where you can built the crackhouse next to the elementary school.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
"built" -> "build".
Sigh.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Why does Jack keep going on and on about EA and video game companies losing their copyright by letting others using the name 'Sims'. Isn't copyright guaranteed? Whether or not you chose to enforce it?
Doesn't he mean that they risk losing their trademarks? I.e. if another company uses 'Sims' for their product and EA doesn't do anything about it then its a trademark issue.
And about the whole modding and copyright that he kept rambling about, isn't the enforcement of their copyright up to them? I.e. if they find that someone messing with their copyright skins, textures or map and they don't have a problem with it, then they let it pass?
And like others who have mentioned, anyone who can go through all the trouble to find and install these mods would already have access to all manner of porn and violence on the internet.
They have the right to do as little to protect their copyright as they want. Also, provided it's legal, they have the right to condone anything they damn well please.
The phrase "it ain't right" has nothing to do with civil liberties.
Not bashing you, parent, just adding to the laundry list.
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.
allegedly masturbates to pictures of Joe McCarthy.
Thank you. I was going to say that.
Perhaps a word on how "Seduction of the Innocent" led to the Comics Code Authority would be good here.
If games taught me to do anything, it's to headshot terrorists.
An article about Jack Thompson and his overtly anti-gaming beliefs or if you see an article that shows no or opposite correlation between gaming and youth violence, feel free to drop Jack a line...
His email is:
jackpeace@comcast.net.
OR you can write Jack Thompson, 1172 South Dixie Hwy., Suite 111, Coral Gables, FL 33146.
I think if enough of us write him a real letter everytime he stands before the media and spouts off more lies, he will think differently?
Who knows maybe someday it WILL happen *not holding breath*
If only we spelled hair as "hiar." Then I could think of a much more logical modification to her name.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Found this article.
m ?Story_ID=4246109
http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cf
One of the charts from the bureau of justice should prove interesting.
Even if by attrition, his argument shall fail.
He was e-mailing the artist at VGCATS and was acting like the complete lunatic he is: www.vgcats.com
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...