Posted on 12/09/2005 11:44:09 AM PST by jb6
Jack Thompson will give $10,000 to charity if any videogame company makes and releases a game based on a scenario he created.
Miami, Florida Attorney Jack Thompson, a long-time outspoken critic of violent and sexually explicit videogames, has done something totally unexpected. Thompson today actually proposed a violent videogame, and will pay $10,000 to the favorite charity of Paul Eibeler (the Chairman of Take-Two Interactive) if any videogame company will "create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006" based on a scenario he created.
Thompson's proposal is titled A Modest Video Game Proposal and has been sent to members of the press and apparantly to Douglas Lowenstein, President of the ESA.
Here's Thompson's proposal (italics are his, not ours):
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule
This writer has been saying for seven years that violent video games can be "murder simulators" that incite as well as train some obsessive teen players to be violent.
I've been on 60 Minutes and in Reader's Digest this year explaining how an Alabama teen, with no criminal record, shot two policemen and a dispatcher in their heads and fled in a police car--a scenario he rehearsed for hundreds of hours on Take-Two/Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto video games.
I have sat with boys in jail cells, their lives over because of murder convictions, after they, with no history of violence, have killed innocents while in a dreamlike state. Said one cop who investigated such a murder in Grand Rapids, Michigan: "The killing was like an extension of the game."
The video game industry, through its lawyers, its spokesmen, and its head lobbyist, Doug Lowenstein, the president of the Entertainment Software Association, all say it is utter nonsense to suggest that what is dumped into a kid's head hour after hour, day after day, year after year, could possibly have behavioral consequences. Cigarette ads can persuade kids to smoke, but interactive simulators in which these same kids punch, hack, bludgeon, and maim affect not a wit their attitudes and behaviors, notwithstanding the findings of the American Psychological Association, published in August 2005.
The video game industry says Sticks and stones can break my bones, but games can never hurt me. Fine. I have a modest proposal for the video game industry. I'll write a check for $10,000 to the favorite charity of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc's chairman, Paul Eibeler - a man Bernard Goldberg ranks as #43 in his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America - if any video game company will create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006 like the following:
Osaki Kim is the father of a high school boy beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14-year-old gamer. The killer obsessively played a violent video game in which one of the favored ways of killing is with a bat. The opening scene, before the interactive game play begins, is the Los Angeles courtroom in which the killer is sentenced "only" to life in prison after the judge and the jury have heard experts explain the connection between the game and the murder.
Osaki Kim (O.K.) exits the courtroom swearing revenge upon the video game industry whom he is convinced contributed to his son's murder. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay" he says. And boy, is O.K. not kidding.
O.K. is provided in his virtual reality playpen a panoply of weapons: machetes, Uzis, revolvers, shotguns, sniper rifles, Molotov cocktails, you name it. Even baseball bats. Especially baseball bats.
O.K. first hops a plane from LAX to New York to reach the Long Island home of the CEO of the company (Take This) that made the murder simulator on which his son's killer trained. O.K. gets "justice" by taking out this female CEO, whose name is Paula Eibel, along with her husband and kids. "An eye for an eye," says O.K., as he urinates onto the severed brain stems of the Eibel family victims, just as you do on the decapitated cops in the real video game Postal2.
O.K. then works his way, methodically back to LA by car, but on his way makes a stop at the Philadelphia law firm of Blank, Stare and goes floor by floor to wipe out the lawyers who protect Take This in its wrongful death law suits. "So sue me" O.K. spits, with singer Jackson Brown's 1980's hit Lawyers in Love blaring.
With the FBI now after him, O.K. keeps moving westward, shooting up high-tech video arcades called GameWerks. "Game over," O.K. laughs.
Of course, O.K. makes the obligatory runs to virtual versions of brick and mortar retailers Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Wal-Mart to steal supplies and bludgeon store managers and cash register clerks. "You should have checked kids' IDs!"
O.K. pushes on to Los Angeles. He must get there by May 10, 2006. That is the beginning of "E3" -- the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- the Super Bowl of the video game industry. O.K. must get to E3 to massacre all the video game industry execs with one final, monstrously delicious rampage.
How about it, video game industry? I've got the check and you've got the tech. It's all a fantasy, right? No harm can come from such a game, right? Go ahead, video game moguls. Target yourselves as you target others. I dare you.
Jack Thompson is a Miami lawyer who has for 18 years been involved in efforts to stop the marketing of adult entertainment to minors.
It is unlikely that Thompson's proposal will actually be turned into a game, as most videogame companies do not simply accept proposals from individuals. We'll keep you updated, however, as it is very likely that there will be some sort of response to Thompson's proposal from members of the videogame industry.
Batter up! lol
No software developer is going to create such an awesome game for a measly $10,000.
Uh...it would appear that Mr. Thompson has a few issues of his own...but then we sort of knew that...
LMFAO! True dat!
Like violent TV, the effects of these video games have been studied. From an epidemiological point of view, there's no question both contribute to violence. No other products would be allowed on the market with these effects.
Good ole former freeper Jack. Still up to his antics.
"Jack Thompson will give $10,000 to charity if any videogame company makes and releases a game based on a scenario he created."
No, he won't. Several people have already created games based on Thompson's scenario and he's refused to pay. He claims the speech in #1 was "Merely a satirical piece." As a matter of fact, old Batjack tried to sic the cops on a pair of gamers who donated $10,000 to a charity in Thompson's name.
If I were one of these execs, I think I'd be on the phone with the FBI about now.
Old news, BatJack has already backed out of his promise.
Why did you add that to the title of the article? Who in this story is on "the left"?
This lune is a former freeper?
...until he was banned for threatening to sue anyone who criticized any of his posts.
What? Are you serious? What a frigging lune. Outside of the fact that no one would ever take that case. You've got to be one egotistical SOB to use that threat.
Most of those who wish to ban everything for the "children" tend to be on the left. IE: Tipper Gore. Furthermore, the guy's a lawyer so that's about a 75% of being a lefty.
LOL. He sure was. A complete loon who used to threaten to sue anyone who disagreed with him.
He claimed he would bring the suit himself and subpoena FR to find out the real name of the posters who criticized him. He managed to hang around for a few months (If I recall correctly) before being banned.
i'm still waiting for a somewhat realistic game. you know, citizens have the relative possibility of having CCWs as the real city would, charecter also has bills to pay, has to buy the gas for the cars, there should be levels of difficulty stealing cars, and mostly, REAL WEAPONS. i hate seeing how these games show how easy it is to walk into a store and get weapons they shouldn't be able to find, like in the CA based games, all the ultra high cap handguns and EBGs, and full autos. not to mention a couple of them have options of guns that are practiaclly impossible to get, gta:vc has a psg1! come on, get real.
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