Thompson Goes After Sims 2 Nudity

magicbond_007 writes "Miami lawyer Jack Thompson is at it again, this time with something above and beyond absurd. Gamestop is reporting that Thompson has accused The Sims 2 of contain obscene material. From the article: 'In the statement, Thompson says, "Sims 2, the latest version of the Sims video game franchise ... contains, according to video game news sites, full frontal nudity, including nipples, penises, labia, and pubic hair."' At this rate kids won't be able to play Mario because Princess Peach is dressed too slutty."

In the wake of Hot Coffee

[darkmayo (251580)]

Who didnt see this coming.

Re:In the wake of Hot Coffee

[by Anonymous Coward]

I saw it coming.

There's been patches for some time that get rid of the dithering. This really isn't much different than Hot Coffee -- the content is there, just someone going out of their way to get rid of the dithering. Or in the event that certain parts of the anatomy aren't that detailed, who's to say there aren't patches which change the character models, or apply different textures?

Whether or not this gets covered by the media at all will be interesting to see -- the Sims is much, much more tame in

it's for the best...

[ajservo (708572)]

I wouldn't let my sims bathe or potty anyway.

Boycott!

[simcop2387 (703011)]

I am boycotting this author for his obscene usage of the word penis in sexual situations, won't somebody think of the children?! He's exposing them to suggestive language thats even worse than pictures!

Attack on barbies?

[Punboy (737239)]

I have the feeling, based on his barbie and ken comments towards the end, that he is going to attack the entire Barbie line next. No, its not a bloody admission that "ken and barbie features" shouldn't be displayed, its put there for comical value. Its funny to see things blurred out.

Re:Attack on barbies?

[thegrassyknowl (762218)]

This author is a twonk.. first GTA then The Sims2. I mean, really... The GTA Hot Coffee thing was probably in the game, but it was never intended to be accessible. I bet they just plain forgot it was there anyway. If twonkbrain hadn't made such a fuss about it then a good many people would never have known about it.

It can't be the game maker's fault if people hack their software to make it do things they didn't intend.

Now to attack the Sims 2. This guy is sad. Does he not have a girlfriend? What ot

Re:Attack on barbies?

[Punboy (737239)]

I was actually expecting you to say something like: If not for Ken and Barbie dolls, how else will girls learn how to undress their men?

Re:Attack on barbies?

[ArsonSmith (13997)]

Ken just helps men with small penises to not be such a shock when a woman first sees it. After all if they are use to seeing Ken, even a small one should be enough.

Re:Attack on barbies?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Ken just helps men with small penises to not be such a shock when a woman first sees it. After all if they are use to seeing Ken, even a small one should be enough.

Well then, the incredible hulk is certainly no friend of (y)ours:

http://www.toyz.org/mrblog/archives/00000026.html [toyz.org]

Hmmm

[kenp2002 (545495)]

Wow and after how many seasons of NYPD, Nip and Tuck, Sopranos, Hill Street Blues, The Shield, South Park, anything ever made by Aaron Spelling, Buffy, OC, and 90% of network prime time, and the News I nearly forgot about the evil Sims game poisoning the minds of our youth as the grade school cheerleaders are fucking bump-and-grinding in competitions with songs Like BARBIE GIRL and role models like Spears and Aguleria. Jebus Fucking Rice man I almost forgot about stories of incest, pedophelia, suicide, demonic possession, homosexual identity crises, and murder from that sick pervert fuck Shakespeare. Thank God we censored such static works as Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno from tainting our children with such sick visions of people with their head up their asses. THANK YOU GOVERNMENT FROM SHIELDING US FORM OBVIOUS LAZY FUCKING PARENTS THAT ARE SO ILL EQUIPPED TO DISCIPLINE THEIR CHILDREN FEAR THEY'LL GET SUED BY THEM FOR DEPRIVING THEM ACCESS TO SUCH OFFENSIVE CONTENT.

Oh I can solve the problem....

TURN THE FUCKING TV OFF!

Re:Hmmm

[Punboy (737239)]

While I agree with you in the fact that a majority of these parents who are complaining need to take things into their own hands, you should really try approaching the way you say things in a calmer, less... abrasive manner. For example: Its funny how after so many season of high-rated TV shows (NYPD, Nip and Tuck, Sopranos, Hill Street Blues, The Shield, South Park, anything ever made by Aaron Spelling, Buffy, OC, and 90% of network prime time, and the News), they seem to be attacking video games. These are the things that seem to be "poisoning our youth". Things have gotten so bad that cheerleaders in gradeschool are actually being taught to dance suggestively. The parents actually ENCOURAGE this sort of behavior. The parents are also buying their kids video games (like San Anreas) without even paying attention to what it is. It seems to me that parents today want the government to raise their kids, and want no part in their upbringing whatsoever. I personally think that the government needs to lessen restrictions, and put some responsibility on the parents for a change.

Negative Influence?

[J23SE (107309)]

In all fairness... have you seen the hot tub 'whoopee' that the sims have? Now *that* is obscene.

Jesus, if I could bend that way... I'm not gonna type any more or I will corrupt children reading this.

Re:Hmmm

[Thangodin (177516)]

Oh, and there's a really offensive book out there that has all kinds of violence and sex, incest, even the ritual sacrifice of children. It exhorts people to "dash little children against the stones", condones torture, genocide, slavery, mass rape and slaughter, and all kinds of other horrible things.

It's called the Bible. Take a look at it. I can't believe they leave this stuff lying around where anyone can get a hold of it. The first time I read it, I couldn't believe that people would actually want thei

Why attack?

[77Punker (673758)]

I know his claims are probably untrue about The Sims 2, but I'd just like to take this moment to say that I really like nudity and gratuitous violence and I don't even look at the ratings aside from the occasional curiosity.

Once again, guess whose job it really is to keep some of my favorite games away from the kids? It's the job of the parents.
Before I had my driver's license (4 years ago), I was limited in what games I could buy because my parents would always be nearby and strictly limited what I was allowed to get. I didn't like it, but I'd never fault them for it. As soon as I got my driver's license, I could get whatever I wanted.

The idea I'd really like to put across here is that no matter what you do to a game, if you have a car and can go places on your own, you can buy almost whatever you want.
No store policies or lawsuits or censorship will ever (and should never) prevent the market from bringing customers what they want; it's always gonna be up to parents to have an effective hand in what their kids are exposed to.

Re:Why attack?

[ArsonSmith (13997)]

You have to look at the ratings. It's usually the first thing that comes up.

rated Blah blah for

• extreme violence
  
• sexual situations
  
• adult language
  
• nudity
  

All the ingredients for a good movie.

This just in

[Joe the Lesser (533425)]

People have sexual organs.

Re:This just in

[macrom (537566)]

Except the people on Slashdot. Most of them are Unix.

Re:This just in

[by Anonymous Coward]

You make a very good point, actually.

Go back to the GTA:SA thing. The problem was they found out that between psycopathically antisocial mass murdering rampages you can have consensual sex. SEX....the reason we are all here on this earth! It will corrupt the kids....the sex that is, not the senseless violence and mass murder of police and bystander alike.

It's all so freaking absurd.

Re:This just in

[westlake (615356)]

The problem was they found out that between psycopathically antisocial mass murdering rampages you can have consensual sex. SEX

Let's be honest here. Rockstar embedded Hot Coffee in three versions of the game and then lied about it. The company was perfectly willing to sell out the modding community to save its own skin. It isn't sex that brought Rockstar down, it was a pattern of behavior that mimics that of the gameplay in GTA.

Re:Censor parent...

[snuf23 (182335)]

Yeah it's bad enough when they look down their pants and figure it out!

Please, oh please

[bersl2 (689221)]

Won't a baseball bat coincidentally land on his head with such force that he become incapacitated and conveniently forget all about this prude shit (that doubtlessly is poised to make him a pretty penny)?

... But Graphic Violence is just fine.

[Mr.Phil (128836)]

What a great society we Americans have these days. I can watch what is basically Crime Scene Porn on the major networks any night of the week I want, see countless murders happen on TV, and basically dismember characters in pretty much any video game I want to, watch more than simulated sex acts on cable, and listen to some pretty graphic swearing on television.

But God help us if little Bobbie might have seen a blur on some "sim" in the tub. We already know if s/he wants to see anything of the sort, their hitting all the free super link porno sites anyway.

What is behind this outcry is the fact that most kids have these games and parents are finding that "Gee, I must be a lousy parent because I didn't know that my kids could do this and frankly didn't care because the distraction kept my kids quiet. I'll pretend to be horrified at this so that other people don't think I'm a bad parent, while I really couldn't care less."

Let's put it this way. My son saw more graphic sex in the gorilla house on a recent visit to the zoo than is possible in these games. Quick, let's make the zoo "AO" and fine the zookeepers for not having warnings that the critters might get jiggy.

Can't wait for the next "important social issue" to come up. It's going to be the horrors of chunky peanut butter or some such tripe.

*sigh*

Re:... But Graphic Violence is just fine.

[chromaphobic (764362)]

Can't wait for the next "important social issue" to come up. It's going to be the horrors of chunky peanut butter or some such tripe.

Frighteningly enough, we've already been there [fortmilltimes.com], done that [washingtonpost.com]. Parents have sued to have anyhting containing peanuts removed from school menus because their children are allergic, even wanting to ban children from bringing in anything with peanuts in it in their lunches. Succeeded too, in some cases.

Re:... But Graphic Violence is just fine.

[daVinci1980 (73174)]

I realize that it's hip to bash on Americans these days--especially if one is an American. Hell, I've done it [slashdot.org]. But in this case, it's not America that has the problem, it's one asshole lawyer from Florida: Jack Thompson [blogspot.com]

Do a google search [google.com] for him [cbsnews.com].

Jack isn't just against nudity, mind you. He's out to convince everyone that video games are a direct product of satan himself. He deplores pretty much every aspect of video games, and isn't afraid to link pretty much anything to them. It won't be long now, and h

Uhhhhh...

[rexstuff (899058)]

From the article:
"'This is no different than what is in San Andreas, although worse.'"

So somehow it's worse without actually being any different? I'm confused...

OMG BAN MODS!!!!

[darkmayo (251580)]

So on one hand we have GTA:SA a previous M rated game that involved various criminal acts and whatnot which had in its code a game where there is "OMG SEX" and badly simulated at that but was disabled and not available for whatever reason until some reasourceful people who where going through the PC version discovered it and using a patch, re-enable it.

(you can wax philosphy all day long about if it was meant to be found yadda yadda)

and then you have the SIMS2 which has various acts of living in your house flirting baby making and alien abductions.. which resourceful people can create various household items such and decorations outfits and skins for which may or may not have giant throbbin cocks or whatever on them.

One had the content and skins already in

The other has the skins and content created by the player..

We know the differences between the two, but who wants to guess which way the media, politicians and other twats like Thompson are going to go.

This could be a good thing

[Fr05t (69968)]

"We know the differences between the two, but who wants to guess which way the media, politicians and other twats like Thompson are going to go."

Yup, and this garbage lawsuit is going to helpfully undo some of the harm to the game industry and expose these idiots as just that.

Here is what will happen: Hype - a week from now there will be a story about this on every blog, paper, tv station, and radio station.

Eventually this thing will either make it to court or not even go that far before it is thrown ou

Ban Ken and Barbie

[LightForce3 (450105)]

If we're to follow Thompson's reasoning, won't the actual Ken and Barbie dolls (and others like them) have to be banned? If a human figure without genitals can't be shown on a computer screen, then why are we allowing our children playing with actual physical representations?

And what about dolls of Barbie's little sister? Also a dirty tool for the pedophile that probably lives next door!

Thompson is a Grade A Moron.

whew!

[np_bernstein (453840)]

for I second I thought that said "Dave Thomas". Thank god it's not; it would be horrible to hear about the founder of a fast food chain being resurected and going after anyone, even if it is EA. Remember kids: zombies are never fun to play with.

How horrible

[AstrumPreliator (708436)]

How dare EA publish this filth. Seeing a blurred out 1 inch virtual person naked could have devastating effects on a teenager. They might join a nudist colony which is very socially unacceptable (aside from the fact that we're born naked). Hell, maybe they will pick up that horrible habbit of showering while nude, or having sexual intercourse in the buff; they might even stop going to the bathroom fully clothed. Heaven forbid they do these completely unnatural things.

This guy is a media whore and I activel

So you want to protect the children, huh?

[by Anonymous Coward]

So you want to protect the children, is that what you're saying? Are you saying that children are protected by being taught that sex and sexual organs are morally wrong?

This kind of skewed view of life just kills me. Ultimately, this will just do more damage to children. They'll feel guilty about their bodies! That is just plain twisted.

Fuck these politicians. Revolt.

Jeez, I'm not sure what you mean...

[Irish_Samurai (224931)]

In the past, he's represented defendants who have been the victims of GTA-inspired crimes, including the triple homicide of three police officers by an 18-year-old boy in Alabama.

What does this mean? He thought the killer was a victim because he played GTA and then killed officers? Or were the officers sued postehumously?

"much to the delight, one can be sure, of pedophiles around the globe who can rehearse, in virtual reality, for their abuse."

WTF? You don't seem to be fighting this. [yale.edu] You are an ambulance

Oh, ye puritans

[J23SE (107309)]

A guy of his caliber probably restricts his own access to his nipples, penises, labia, and pubic hair.

Otherwise, how else would he be such a shining beacon of moral righteousness and overall upstanding citizenry? We must all repent; We're not worthy.

I'm rooting Thompson

[Anm (18575)]

...to make an ass out of himself. I'm hoping an attack like this gets some public attention and >>hopefully the public is smart enough to realize the claim is baseless and he looses credibility and support for all future claims.

I can hope, can't I?

Anm

Another reason.......

[Xac (841406)]

Why Japan is better.

In Japan, violence is shunned and sexuality is popuarlized.
Some may see the men of Japan as perverted, but at least the sexual rape percentage in tokyo is lower than the death rate by guns in Washington D.C

make love, not war.

I would not be surprised if Thopmson goes after WOW next, because of the Female Night Elf dance.

Re:Another reason.......

[Senjutsu (614542)]

"Sexual rape"? As opposed to what?

Tentacle Rape.

I think I speak for everyone...

[Soul-Burn666 (574119)]

when I say:
FOR FUCK'S SAKE, WHAT'S YOUR DAMN PROBLEM?!

Yes i'm yelling. What's wrong with people?! How the fuck will banning the sims "protect the children"?!

In Europe nudity is not considered "bad", in Japan it's not considered "bad".
Hell, I saw some European commercials showing full nudity, in not too late hours.
In Japan the whole genre of adult games is a huge business and they sell for PC and consoles.

Only in the US and Muslim countries nudity is considered a really bad thing.
And what do we get? The population explodes, full of STDs, unwanted pregnancy and so on.

So. GET A FUCKING GRIP ON YOURSELF! SEX IS NOT BAD. NUDITY IS NOT BAD. IT'S ONLY THE NATURAL THING.

Go with what works

[Dark Paladin (116525)]

Well, it worked to get GTA III off the shelves, so maybe he thinks that going after Sims 2 the same way will work.

First they came for GTA...

[PhoenixOne (674466)]

Okay, who will be the first to quote Niemoller's Poem in this thread?

Google Images + Radio Button = Nudity | THE KIDS!!

[flowerHercules (897821)]

Television commercial's and programs alike have been blurring out (or black boxing) explicit nudity for ages without getting much attention in the sake of children, but nobody is throwing around lawsuits to stop them.

You put those blocks in to keep the content from being seen, if someone created a modification that allowed your TV to remove those blocks and blurs and fill in what was really there, would it be the fault of companies like Ventura for having that content in originally?

Instead of attacking the programmers or producers for, rightfully, removing or blurring the explicit content, why aren't Rockstar and Electronic Arts suing the people that made the patches? Why aren't people like Jack Thompson filing suit against them? After all, the material wasn't meant to be seen by the consumer.

Neither Rockstar nor EA deserve to get sued for filtering the content in question and not sufficiently protecting against malicious (not to mention perverted) modders from exposing the code for what it was . As far as I'm concerned, both the Sims and GTA were hacked, slandering the name of legitimate, trustworthy companies. GTA wasn't trying to sneak anything past ESRB against 'moms' will. EA wasn't trying to expose children to explicit nudity...as far as the allegations go: the labia was not visible.

Ban pencils

[inerte (452992)]

You can take any Harry Potter book and replace this sentence: Harry looks to Hermione with Harry fucks Hermione.

Its Thompson

[dasunt (249686)]

I believe that Jack Thompson is the same person that was ordered by the Florida Supreme Court to undergo a pschiatric evaluation (he passed).

He would also be the same guy who has gone after 2 Live Crew, Ice T, the Basketball Diaries, Doom, Halo, Rockstar, Howard Stern, etc.

His site 'stopkill.com' has a nice introduction:

This site's purpose is to give you the means to contact Miami attorney Jack Thompson if you know of someone harmed as a result of violent entertainment, including violent video g

Screenshots of nude cheat

[Nelson Minar (7732)]

I just made some screenshots of enabling the nude cheat in Sims 2. Here, see for yourself [monkey.org]. The only thing there is some disturbingly asexual smooth models.

Soccer mom!

[dacarr (562277)]

I just realized it. he's the first man I can think of that can have the moniker "soccer mom" attached to him. Somebody needs to smack this fruitcake.

Groundless Bullshit

[Rie Beam (632299)]

Please, The Sims is a tame as milk. I can almost agree with him on the GTA thing (although I enjoy the series), simply because it's obviously designed and left in the game, even though I find it hypocritical that he wouldn't seek a lawsuit before the mini-game was common knowledge (as if the violence and the hooker-in-a-car from the original weren't enough). But The Sims / The Sims 2 (the "blur" occurs on both version, if you remember)? Has this man ever seen a Barbie or Ken doll naked? That's about the extent of it. I especially love this line:

"Sims 2, the latest version of the Sims video game franchise...

contains, according to video game news sites, full frontal nudity, including nipples, penises, labia, and pubic hair."

No, no it doesn't, and "video game news sites" are not a source to base a lawsuit on, especially if you can't name the site or sites in question. The only thing that might make for evidence in anything whatsoever is the following site I ran into on the way to look for "proper" screenshots:

http://www.adultgamereviews.com/nudesims.shtml [adultgamereviews.com]

Now, this is not what he is accusing EA of - this is a skin patch, which should tell you right there what the deal is - if you want to see nude Sims with details, you're going to need a patch, because they're little more than mannequins under the blur. This would not exist if they had full-frontal nudity, penii, etc.

Groundless lawsuit by an ignorant man. Sick of this shit.

What's in a rating?

[Jim Hall (2985)]

"Miami lawyer Jack Thompson is at it again, this time with something above and beyond absurd. Gamestop is reporting that Thompson has accused The Sims 2 of contain obscene material."

I suddenly asked myself this morning: what's in a rating?

The MPAA [mpaa.org] says theirs is a "Voluntary Movie Rating System", and they are assigned solely at the MPAA's discretion. G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 ... it's all a voluntary ratings system. AFAIK, it's not really enforced by law. That is, I don't know that federal law has anything that prohibits a 16-year-old from seeing an R-rated movie. Certainly, if the theater chooses not to let you to see it, you can pick it up 6 months later as a rental.

The TV ratings [tvguidelines.org] are TV-Y, TV-Y7, TV-Y7-FV ("fantasy violence"), TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14, TV-MA. These are all assigned by the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board, and the ratings were (originally?) intended to be used together with the V-Chip to keep children from seeing inappropriate content.

The ESRB [esrb.org] (as we are all aware by now) assigns game ratings based on responses to questionaires by those evaluating the games (usually, adults in & around New York.) Games can be rated EC, E, E10+, T, M, AO.

Why am I listing all this? Because I started to ask myself when the madness will stop about game ratings, and how it's all about protecting the children and making it easier for parents to pick content appropriate for their kids.

Why has no one argued to apply the same standard of ratings to books? Some argue that video games should be treated differently than, say, books because video games are more interactive while books are passive entertainment. But television and movies are passive entertainment.

If the argument is that game ratings help make sure kids "aren't exposed to indecent depictions" then why not use book ratings to ensure the same thing? Just like games, books can be rated EC (Little Golden Books), E ('Peter Rabbit'), E10+ ('Harry Potter' 1-4), T ('Harry Potter' 5-6), M (Stephenson, Gibson), AO (pr0n). Why wouldn't a book ratings system like this work?

Because it feels too much like censorship, that's why. It's not censorship, but too many people would think it crosses the line.

Just a thought..

Re:Wait a sec..

[Soul-Burn666 (574119)]

Yes.
intprop censorgridsize 0 Takes off censoring

Re:Wait a sec..

[sgant (178166)]

But you don't see anything like pubic hair or nipples or anything with this cheat, you have to go out of your way to download a skin that has all these things...much like a nude skin for UT2004 or Quake or whatever.

This isn't a secret cheat or anything that was left in the code like San Andreas.

Re:Wait a sec..

[sgant (178166)]

But the difference is THAT was in GTA:SA no matter what the developers said. This is different as Sims2 has been out for quite a while now and everyone knows that this isn't something that you can just unlock and automatically get nipple rings and pubic hair.

I mean, there was a mod in the original Sims too that does this exact same thing.

Should we also put warning labels on Poser too? I mean, those are totally NAKED people with genitals and everything on that! And you can...gasp...use them to draw dirty p

Re:Wait a sec..

[by Anonymous Coward]

And the original Hot Coffee code had two fully clothed people dryhumping until the nudity was hacked in. The Sims has barbie dolls dryhumping until someone used the skin editor that comes with the game to draw nip's and pub's. What's the difference, really? Other than GTA being everyone's favorite scapegoat.

If one follows this "but it was already there" logic to conclusion, why not automatically rate a pg13 film with brief nudity XXX once it hits DVD. I mean, a kid could always pause a nudie scene so it