Slashdot Mirror
Jack Thompson Gearing Up For GTA IV Fight
Next Generation reports on Jack Thompson's next big fight: Grand Theft Auto IV. A mass email was sent to news organizations entitled 'Bill Gates in the Crosshairs'. He vows to 'rally the troops' against the release of the next chapter in Rockstar's sandbox-style crime series. The game is due out sometime this year, on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. From the article: "Thompson said that he would 'undertake various means to prohibit' the sale of GTA IV to minors, and added, 'Please have your lawyers [Microsoft chairman Bill Gates', that is] contact me in order that such sales will be prevented.' He also said that the ICCR report 'makes it abundantly clear that unless such prohibitions are in place, then millions of units of the new Grand Theft Auto game will be sold directly to minors.' He continued, 'I am quite intent upon making sure that that does not happen. I and others will endeavor to stop Microsoft from participating in any fashion, directly or indirectly, in such sales to minors.'"
No, it's not a good point at all because Jack is going after the wrong end of the chain. Why is he contacting MS? First off, MS isn't developing or publishing GTA4. He should be after the retail stores since they are the ones responsible for selling 'M' and 'AO' games to children. He should also be be imploring parents to pay attention to game ratings and to make use of the parental control features that are on all the current consoles. MS has NOTHING to do with mature games getting into the hands od kids.
They are no more adult than R movies. That's what M is equivalent to in terms of movie ratings. The adults rating, or NC-17 equivalent, is AO. However because most retailer refuse to carry games with AO ratings, even in a separate section, few are made. Same deal with movies. That's why there's an "Unrated" American Pie. Basically what happened is in the original cut, the MPAA hung an NC-17 on it which most theatres won't carry. So they made the necessary changes to bring it down to R. When they released the original cut, they simply didn't submit it for rating, and thus sell it as "Unrated".
Either way unless you also think R movies should be off in a separate section then it doesn't make sense to move M games there. Not that it matters much, retailers these days card you. Seriously, I got carded buying FEAR last month (I'm 26) at Target.
He's facing possible disbarment over the Bully incident where the publicly berated the judge in the case. I wonder if he'll still be able to practice law when GTA4 comes out.
Best Buy registers have a prompt asking the cashier if the customer was born before $DATE. I can't remember it word for word, though.
Jack Thompson's basic, idiotic claim is that Bill Gates is responsible for the sale of violent video games to minors because he founded a company which now creates video game consoles. If it weren't for the existence of the XBox and XBox 360 (or, I'm sure he would argue, a "murder-simulator-friendly" operating system like Windows), Take Two and Rockstar wouldn't be able to effectively market or sell their products.
And since, as we all know, even glancing at a GTA retail box will drive even the sanest, most normal of children over the edge and into that special "kill all your friends with automatic weapons" mode, Jack Thompson feels that Bill Gates is therefore responsible for death of any child who ever played a video game or knew somebody who had a friend who might have once played something closely resembling a video game.
I mean, that's just how dangerous this stuff is, man. Haven't you heard?
And big fucks like you are the reason my girlfriend hates her job! Here's a newsflash, asshole: those clerks really are required by law to ID you! In fact, in my state it's required regardless of age -- she even has to ask 80-year-old geezers, because she'd get fired if she didn't.
Tell you what, why don't you post your name and address, so I can come beat the shit out of you for abusing people like my girlfriend, who are only trying to do their jobs! How would you like that, hmm?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz