Posted on 10/18/2005 10:52:06 AM PDT by Starter
First VGCats, now Penny Arcade: Penny Arcade's rather expensive jab at Jack Thompson has caused the Florida attorney to go off the deep end. He has enlisted the Seattle Police Department in a desperate bid to get even with the creators of the webcomic. Yes, you read that right, folks, Jack Thompson is calling the cops on Gabe and Tycho for donating $10,000 to charity. Part of a letter Jack Thompson faxed to the Seattle chief of police Gil Kerlikowske reads as follows:
"A Seattle business by the name of Penny Arcade... employs certain personnel who have decided to commence and orchestrate criminal harassment of me by various means... This company has done this because I dared to go on CBS's 60 Minutes in March and again in July to explain a wrongful death lawsuit I have brought on behalf of two police officers and a police dispatcher in Fayette, Alabama, who were shot in the head and killed by Devin Moore who obsessively trained on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to kill them.
As you may know, this incredibly violent Rockstar Games product is actually a 'cop-killing' murder simulator. There are a bunch of computer geeks out there who think that the video game industry has a constitutional right to paint a bullseye on your back and on your officers' backs... That is what this criminal harassment of me by Penny Arcade is all about. They're even selling an 'I Hate Jack Thompson' t-shirt, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. These idiots have been so careless as to post on their www.pennyarcade.com web site what they are doing regarding the harassment of me.
I look forward to working with your fine Police Department to shut this little extortion factory down and/or arrest some of its employees."
Given the fact that Jack Thompson submitted an erroneous URL to the chief of police, it might take some time before detectives will be able put the crackdown on this so-called "crime." That is, if they ever stop laughing at Jack Thompson's ridiculous proposal. Which I doubt they will.
More news on this as it develops.
For those of you not familiar with the story, about a week ago, anti-game lawyer/activist Jack Thompson made a "modest proposal" for a video game, offering to donate 10 grand to charity if a game manufacturer would make a game based on an idea from Thompson. This idea involved a father whose son was killed by game players going bezerk and massacring game store employees, developers, designers, etc.
Well, some gamers took Thompson up on his offer and have created several text-based games based on the idea. Then another set of gamers made a modification to the Grand Theft Auto games (one of Thompson's favorite targets) that allowed the player to recreate Thompson's scenario. Thompson responded that his challenge was merely a "satirical piece".
Now, this response didn't sit well with the creators of the Penny Arcade website, who have been sparring with Thompson over the past week over this issue. So, they wrote a check for $10,000 and donated it to a charity in Thompson's name, while publicly announcing that they were doing so. And so Thompson has tried to sic the cops on them...
For those interested, a redacted copy of Thompson's most recent letter and the check itself can been seen at www.penny-arcade.com
What do you mean, go off the deep end? That's like saying that something caused Clinton to "start" lying and cheating.
Oh, come on. I'm sure that Mr. Thompson has had no history of flying off the handle before and threatening people with lawsuits for trivial matters. It must have been the work of those evil catoonists.
Yeah, this time it's really not clear that he is sane.
And he is presenting himself to the Press as a standard bearer for conservatism and decency.
" Indeed, a true conservative. Who allies himself with Hillary Clinton."
You know, Tipper Gore did the same kind of thing as Hillary, trying to music censored... I'm sure it hurt Gore with his base but Hillary is making a determined run to what she thinks is the center.
It would be nice if someone made a Jack Thompson model for UT2k4 so you could populate a map with them and commence to depopulating it with rockets and flak grenades.
Is "Jackpeace" going to come back here and opus again?
WHAT??? You can't say that! I'll sue you! Police! Police!
This guy's a real piece of work, isn't he? He talks about games on CNN as an "expert", not knowing what he's talking about, he calls Vice City a "murder simulator", and he's too much of a pansy ass to write the $10,000 check he promised to give to charity.
One wonders why the National Institue on Media and the Family didn't even want anything to do with him...
Also, anyone interested should check out his book on Amazon.com, and take a look at the "Customers who viewed this also viewed..."
Where the hell did this moron get a law degree? A Cracker Jack[tm] box?
Where the hell did this moron get a law degree? A Cracker Jack[tm] box?
I feel like I've been out of the loop. I didn't realize Jack was on the prowl again. Sigh. Those were the days at FR!
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