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Thompson Declines PAX Debate, Blames Penny Arcade
GamePolitics is reporting that Jack Thompson, who was invited to debate at this year's Penny Arcade Expo is now blaming the PA gents because he turned down the debate. Essentially, PAX organizers were aiming to keep the debate a secret until the event actually happened. When Thompson declined the invitation, he did so in a public forum, revealing their intentions. He now claims that he turned it down because PAX wanted to use the event as a publicity stunt ... somehow. From Jack's letter to GP: "What GamePolitics or others need to do is get to the bottom of why they really wanted to announce the debate one hour before it occurs. Now THAT would cause a stampede that would not allow them to have passes in the hands of those who want to go. I'm surprised, Dennis, frankly, that you have so naively taking this dodge. I believe what happened is that they thought I would never accept the debate offer, and they planned to use that for p.r. purposes."
I'm sure this will be redundant by the time I actually finish it and get it posted, but Penny Arcade needs to call Jackie on this right now. "Okay, Mister Thomson. We'll allow publicity before the event. We'll do our best to provide adequate security for the debate. See you at PAX."
If there's one set of online comic writers whose fans will listen to them when they call for moderation, it's Tycho and Gabe. Anyone going to PAX is going to be well aware of how much furor any pie-in-the-face attempt is going to create, and none of them will want to provide more fuel for the anti-gaming fire.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
I'm actually slightly grateful to Jack Thompson. Someone competent could easily convince the majority of people that games like GTA are a bad influence on children. Thompson, on the other hand, is a walking PR disaster- he alienates people with even shreds of intelligence. He manages to consistently lose cases that even Darl McBride could win in court. Not to mention all the publicity he gives Rockstar...
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Whoever at PA who thought this up is a pure marketing gennius. For the cost of a long distance call to a lunatic they managed to garner huge amounts of free publicity. No matter what crazy old jack did they would garner publicity. Pure genius.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Is that he'd get proven wrong in an open debate. Security can be handled, and that shouldn't be his concern. Either he's prepared and willing to deal with an open debate where he his opinions have to stand on their merits against the arguments of people (who know what they're talking about), or he's not and he's afraid that he'll get his ass handed to him. I figure that he knew that he'd get destroyed in a debate, but also feared that the PA guys would make the announcement that he bailed. So, rather than let them do something like that, he decided to try to play it up like he had to bail because the whole situation wasn't right. Too bad that he's really not smart or cunning enough to pull off a plan like that.
Regards, Ian
On their terms? "Their terms" basically were, 1) Keep this secret until 1 hour before the debate and 2) let us handling marketing. Not exactly a gag order there.
Flexibility? This is not an 20-year binding contract, its a contract asking Jack Thompson not to blab about the debate beforehand.
The guy has been demonizing video games for almost a DECADE. The guy has been featured on nearly every major U.S. news network from CNN to Fox News. This is not some "fairly anonymous guy". Anyone who watches/reads about the news has at least heard of this guy at least once. You have to be pretty ignorant to have not heard of him by this point, especially if you're posting in the video games section of a news site.