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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
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.
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.
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
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
It's true. You thought Will was some guy who likes to design fun, open-ended games? Wrong. Porn king.
Please e-mail me (Host and Producer) if you know of another station interested in syndicating the program.
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've known that since you could put in escort service next to hotel rooms in SimTower.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Seriously. The only reason the ratings have any power is because various stores refuse to carry AO games. If the rating system bows to this idiot, the gaming industry needs to respond by only producing AO games. If the top five studios went in together, they coudl do it. If the rating people refuse to 'overrate' games, include hidden content the same way Rockstar did...content you can't possibly get to, but is included in the data files anyway. Scan in hardcode porn and put it in the texture file or whatever.
And then watching retail stores that refuse to carry AO games either give in or get made irrelevant, thus making the entire rating system irrelevant.
Congrats, Jack. It's entirely possible you'll be the death of the entire video game rating system if you piss the industry off bad enough. They'll just make everything AO, and then where will you be?
Which incidentally will result in parents being trained to purchase completely harmless AO games, and thus not batting an eye when 13-year old Jonny wants Hardcore Rape Simulator 2: The Revenge, now with motion feedback.
But when has anyone who cares 'about the children' actually cared when their actions harm children?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
"If the rating system bows to this idiot, the gaming industry needs to respond by only producing AO games. If the top five studios went in together, they coudl do it. If the rating people refuse to 'overrate' games, include hidden content the same way Rockstar did...content you can't possibly get to, but is included in the data files anyway. Scan in hardcode porn and put it in the texture file or whatever.
And then watching retail stores that refuse to carry AO games either give in or get made irrelevant, thus making the entire rating system irrelevant."
That wouldn't work. First of all, there are very few developers that would deliberately stoop to Rockstar's level. Electronic Arts (the top software publisher in America) makes E- and T-rated games almost exclusively; they're not going to all of a sudden start making hardcore porn Harry Potter games because of something this minor. Nintendo (the second biggest software publisher) has published very few M-rated games, and none of them contained the sexual content that would warrant an AO rating. Even the more violence-oriented studios like Bungie, Capcom, and Konami generally shy away from blatantly sexual themes.
Even if Rockstar could somehow muster a band of sex-loving buddies to make AO-only games with them, people would just stop buying their products and buy the more readily available stuff, i.e. Madden, Halo, and Zelda. Over 90% of current games are rated T or lower, and those games aren't going to magically go away if every M game gets bumped up to AO.
Secondly, making those games easily available probably won't "train parents to purchase" them. The rating is still "Adults Only", which is very specific in its restrictions. Parents like to think their kids are "mature", but "adult" is almost always associated with pornographic content, which won't go over well with a lot of parents. If small retailers somehow were forced to carry AO games, they'd probably place them in a separate "adult" section like many rental places do, which would be just as deterring to parents as anything.
Sim Tower wasn't a Will Wright game. It was designed by Yoot Saito and his company OPeNBooK. Maxis published it.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
Unlike now, where at least the hope is they will go 'Why are you telling me? You have an allowance, I'm not your toy store.' and the kid has to admit it's a M or AO game and thus he can't purchase it, thus triggering all sorts of alarms in the parent.
There are all sorts of hoops people get used to leaping through, especially for their kids. Parents often grant more responsiblity to their kid than society does...just ask any parent in a town with a Walmart that does a lot of model making. Walmart cards to make sure you're over 16 if you buy model glue, and those parents just sigh, buy whatever the kid says, and makes sure the kid pays for it.
The fourth time that a parent has to inspect a game carefully because it's rated 'AO' and finds it's The Sims, they're going to stop inspecting them.
First of all, there are very few developers that would deliberately stoop to Rockstar's level. Electronic Arts (the top software publisher in America) makes E- and T-rated games almost exclusively; they're not going to all of a sudden start making hardcore porn.
Didn't you just read the article? Jack first went after the Sims 2 by lying about the fact the nude models have genetalia, and now he's lying about Wil's statements. The Sims, if you missed it, is published by EA.
If he keeps going after the game industry randomly, he's going to make alot of enemies.
And, you know, I take it all back. Game publishers don't even have to make AO games.
All they have to do is refuse to have their games rated. But, to fend off legal attacks, they then say 'This game is not to be sold to people under 18' right on the box.
Just one popular publisher quitting the ratings game would give all the retailers a very hard choice. Rockstar might have pulled it off by itself, GTA is so popular.
If you think this isn't possible, I suggest you study the history of the 'Comics Code', which has a scarily identical history. This is exactly why it went away. A few popular comics 'failed' it, and they published anyway, and stores had to make a hard choice.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
But you can't build motels in any other old Sim game, so the joke wouldn't work.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
in the upcoming Sims2 for Nintendo DS,instead of building a neighborhood, you build a hotel.
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.
It's actually a pretty good show, I listen to the podcast all the time. And I think you meant "One Station!"
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
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.
Well, that's why I said 'old Sims' game. Even in The Sims, you could build a 'hotel' or even a 'motel', if you didn't mind everyone sharing a last name.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
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
The problem with game companies not agreeing to have their games rated is that our government (God Bless the USA) will quite probably say that a "dangerous situation has developed" and that it is "out of control" and that they obviously have to step in and regulate it themselves, which could very well just lead to the same problem all over again, except without the same ways out.
"Quoting yourself is stupid." -Me
They can't do a damn thing if the game industry refuses to sell to people under 18.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I think that conclusively proves the idea that there is nothing that you can say in jest about human nature that is stranger than someone, somewhere, actually behaves.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
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.
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