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Games Entertainment

Jack Thompson Continues To Talk 116

Posted by Zonk from the and-talk-and-talk dept.
Lucerin Red writes "It seems the next game on Jack Thompson's censorship list is Killer 7. The article posted by IGN quotes Jack as saying "There is no question in my mind that a videogame containing 'full-blown sex sequences' cannot be rated anything other than 'AO' rather than 'M.'" The 'full-blown sex sequences' are no more then you could see in a rated R movie." Meanwhile, MowAlon writes "Those of you keeping up with all the latest in the Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive/ESRB/EA Games sex scandal may be interested in a radio interview just made available: ChatterBox Video Game Radio just posted an 80-minute audio interview with Jack Thompson, the Miami lawyer out to shut down Rockstar Games. The interview provides a much deeper insight into his views, opinions, and efforts than anything else I've read about him elsewhere on the internet. One highlight includes Jack saying "Will Wright said he wants Electronic Arts to collaborate with the porn industry to allow wholesale modification of their game"."
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Jack Thompson Continues To Talk More

Jack Thompson Continues To Talk

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  • Didn't know he was against video game violence, I thought he just liked to play folky pop music.
  • This retard's the gaming world's equivalent to hollywood supermarket tabloids. Full of bullshit and lies and blows everything out of proportion.

    Someone slap some sense into this guy already!
  • ...may be interested in a radio interview just made available: ChatterBox Video Game Radio just posted an 80-minute audio interview with Jack Thompson...

    Audio posted on the web is not "radio". Did any radio stations actually "air" this? Just wondering...

    • Actually, they are a real radio show, they also podcast their on air show as well. They aired a clip of the interview on their show but haven't aired the entire thing, since it has to be edited down first because the interview is longer than their show.

    • Re:Internet Audio Not Radio (Score:5, Informative)

      by theWrkncacnter ( 562232 ) * on Saturday August 06, 2005 @02:55PM (#13259498)
      And I'd futher like to point out that if you glanced to the left of the page you would have seen that it says, very clearly: "The ChatterBox Video Game Radio show airs weekly from KFNX 1100AM in Phoenix, Arizona."
    • The interview was prerecorded and posted for everyone to download in complete form because we won't be able to play the whole thing on the air. Portions of it WILL be played on 1100 AM KFNX in Phoenix, AZ tomorrow night.

    • Oh, the irony... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BakaHoushi ( 786009 )
      Does anyone else find it ironic that the radio station he was interviewed for has the same name as a GTA radio station, a series he's always been so avidly fighting? (In GTAIII, the talk radio station was called Chatterbox, hosted by Lazlo, for anyone who didn't know) ...Anyone? Didn't think so.
  • Current state:
    M - For 17+
    AO - For 18+

    One year doesn't make such a difference. Just combine the two into one 18+ rating. I want to see Walmart not selling any of these considering that a large portion if not most of the games sold today are M.

    And no, it won't make the game companies try to make a game into T instead of the new M/AO because that will require a complete change of the game.
    • It helps if you compare the MPAA's ratings to the ESRB's:

      ESRB - MPAA
      M - R
      AO - NC-17

      However, unlike the MPAA, the ESRB tells you exactly why it got the rating with a label on the back of the package. The two are clearly modelled on very similar criteria. I've never seen a movie that was violent enough to get an NC-17 rating, likewise for games and the AO rating. Sexual content, on the other hand, tends to easily pushes either over the line.

    • Hi. I just thought I'd bring this message from the land of reality, where things are really easy to look up. "Most" of the games sold today are actually rated "E for Everybody" and "T for Teen." A glance at the PS2 products listed at EBgames.com (though this admittedly is not scientific since it's the complete listing of all PS2 products and would include their used selection) reveals a total of 610 items rated M, 2,064 rated E, and 1,369 rated T. Even if you assumed that every M was a unique title whil
      • PS- I'm a hypocrite since I didn't even run the right listing - what I ran was the complete EBgames catalog. HERE is the breakdown for PS2 games (with the limitations described above):

        E-rated: 469
        E10-rated: 11
        T-rated: 433
        M-rated: 203

        In other words, my point still stands when I'm smart enough to look for the correct information.

        • The point is that it is still a large portion of the games.

          Anyways, apparantly where I live, they don't use the ESRB system, but rather the PEGI [wikipedia.org] system. I've been to a game store today, and all the games I've seen with an ESRB rating of M were sold here as "18+", including GTA and Doom3.

          My point still stands that it is stupid that games rated M (i.e 17+) are still "for kids" while AO (i.e 18+) are for adults.
      • I think you may be looking at the wrong numbers. It may be true that most of the games available are not MA but if you look at the sales numbers you will see that (atleas for PS2 and XBOX) MA games out sell others. The top selling 3 PS2 games and the top 4 for xbox are all rated MA. I realize it is only a small slice of the sales but I'm pretty sure it's enought to make big sellers think twice.

  • The boy who cried wolf (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @02:51PM (#13259465)
    Jack Thompson is nothing more than the boy who cried wolf. While his tactics are effective at first, eventually people will get sick of him blowing the whistle on anything that seems innapropriate to him. When they do, he will be left flapping is jaws and wondering why no one is listening to him.

    If he wanted to go after GTA and get it an AO rating for the violence, I'd probably be fine with that. Considering the amount of violence in the game, it's not too hard for anyone who's ever played it to say it may be innapropriate for a majority of younger teenagers. Consider, for example, the movie Titanic in which you could see a breast that wasn't a really poor and clunky animation rendered on 5 year old hardware. This movie was rated PG-13. Consider several R rated movies with sex scenes that are more pornographic than the comical and largely unerotic scene in San Andreas.

    This is merely the latest Salem witch trial. Eventually the whole thing will blow over. Eventually, Jack Thompson, like Senator McCarthy will go so far over the top that he will lose credibility. I think that this has already happened to an extent when he went after The Sims 2. When he does go, I can honestly say that I won't miss him one bit. Goodbye, moronic fuckwad.

    • And Jack Thompson, like McCarthy, will cause a whole lotta trouble before someone finally stands up to him in his witch hunt.

      "Mr. Thompson, have you no decency? At long last, have you no decency?"
    • M is for 17+. It's already been rated so that younger teenagers shouldn't be able to play it.
      • Nothing personal, many people have said what you said -- I just decided to reply to yours.

        Most of you guys are missing something with the rating system that I'd like to detail here. Having worked in a Game Shop for an extended period of time I am intimately familiar with the 'recommended selling practices'.

        Breakdown of Ratings
        E - Everybody can purchase.
        T - Recommended for Teenagers, Everybody can purchase.
        M - Recommended for Adults, Everybody can purchase with parent's acceptance
    • Foucault had a number of things to say about how this is "the latest Salem witch trial." The basic gist of it is that deviance is natural and even beneficial for a society. Periodically there will be "crime waves" that get highlighted and sensationalized (this line of theory is also continued by Kai T. Erikson in his book " Wayward Puritans [amazon.com]" which talks specifically about those witch trials).

      So yes, this is just something natural that will pass soon enough. All it's doing is helping define the boundaries o
    • Well, when this McCarthy went after what should've been his Army, this Army basically just shrugged and called him a hack, and then this hack went on with his baseless accusations.

      Why didn't EA sue this guy for libel, or slander, or just for being Jack Thompson? I mean, it'd be a _popular_ decision, for once, by putting this shameful and stupid saga to an end--it's not like they'd have to scrape together the lawyer's fees. Would EA and other developers _want_ the hassle of dealing with a stronger, more
    • So by "younger teenager"...you mean 17?
      • 17+ means 17 and older, so he means teenagers under the age of 17... unless you are being witty, in that case i would have to inform you that the portion of my brain the perceives wit has been removed.
    • Eventually, Jack Thompson, like Senator McCarthy will go so far over the top that he will lose credibility.

      One can only hope that his impact won't be as big as McCarthy's. Thompsonism just doesn't have a ring to it like McCarthyism does.

  • What an idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Trepalium ( 109107 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @03:05PM (#13259547)
    If this idiot wants to do something, how about finding a way to prevent these M rated titles from find their way into the hands of children? The M rating clearly says that it's for ages 17 and up, and these idiots continue to complain that 12 and 13 year old children are playing the game. The M rating is supposed to be equivalent to the MPAA's R rating for movies, and by and large, it is (perhaps it's even more generous with that rating than the MPAA is).

    If he wants to lobby for something, perhaps they should make the ESRB ratings enforcable on game resellers or something. Perhaps levy fines on retailers who sell M or AO games to children under 17 (e.g. require ID to purchase these games). It'd probably be an easier fight than Jack's crusade to destroy the ESRB and Rockstar.

    • Game resellers typically aren't the problem. Parents are. They take thier children down to the stores and say go get that game you wanted. Then they check out without looking at the title. The blame belongs on the parents, end of story. If you don't want your kids to have games with M ratings don't fucking buy them.

      • Re:What an idiot. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Trepalium ( 109107 )
        Typically, yes, this is true, but it would give these crusaders one less thing to complain about. I've heard people like them use children's summer jobs, etc as excuses for why they don't know what their children are playing, so closing off that excuse would probably be a good thing.
        • Fair enough. Even though really that should still be a parents responsibility. Talk to your kids, ask them what they are doing. They may not always be honest but at least you are making a best effort. I know a lot of parents that don't even bother to do that.
      • I think that a lot of parents are appalled by the idea of their kids playing any kind of video games. They don't even bother to check the contents because, in part, they "know" they won't like it. I know a mom who couldn't discern between Animal Crossing and Resident Evil. To her, it was all just mindless, gory brain rot.

        (When we assured her that Animal Crossing was completely nonviolent, she told us no one would play it because there wasn't any shooting.)
    • but then the next step is making it a crime to sell to a person under the age specified by the rating... like it is currently illegal to sell an X-rated movie to a minor right?

  • How about we just ignore him? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lewisham ( 239493 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @03:11PM (#13259580)
    It seems the only people who print stories about Jack Thompson are gaming sites. How about we just ignore him? He's obviously been terribly ineffective at a mainstream media and lobbying level. It's only when people like Hilary Clinton start shouting that anyone listens.

    He feeds on people hating him. I worry that games journalists are feeding off him too. IGN, Gamespot, Slashdot, Kotaku all need to stop running stories on him, then he'll have nothing left.

    We don't all need a bad guy, people.
  • I sometimes wonder if the games industry should just use the same ratings system as the movies, possibly migrating some of the ESRB subcategories useful for describing game content.

    Not only are many people apparently under-educated about the meaning of the ESRB ratings - I mean, just look at all the stories about kids playing GTA and parents who let them - but having a separate ratings system makes it impossible to have apples-to-apples comparisons between these two types of media which makes it easy for pe
  • Wait.. what did I miss...

    a game with 'full-blown sex sequences' on a Nintendo console?

    Judging from the screenshots I have my doubts. It's artsy style give it less details than a game from 1995.

    Check for yourself: http://media.cube.ign.com/media/495/495539/imgs_1. html [ign.com]

    • Re:A GCN game!? (Score:2, Informative)

      by glavenoid ( 636808 )
      the "full blown sex" in Killer 7 is fully clothed... Basically a woman grinding on a man sitting in a wheelchair. The player can only see her from about mid-torso on up. The sounds of her pleasure are certainly audible, as is the "pretend" masturbation in another scene, but there is NO nudity anywhere in this game. Anyone ever play "Fear Effect" for the ps1? Full anime nudity in that game, but no one whined about it back then (1999??) There are much worse things on network tv here in the states.
    • Reminds me of the game "13", looks like the "cell shading" type of graphics which IMO look crappy and cartoonish, way to lose immersion there buddy, heh.
  • It is a frank, rational discussion of the situation at hand. You can holler at Jack Thompson all you want, but the bottom line is, he's not going to go away. And noone can deny that rockstar is all about the ultra violent games. State of emergency. Grand theft auto. Manhunt for god's sake. I like Grand theft auto 3 too, but lets not kid ourselves about the nature of the tittilation being peddled.

    This is not a gotcha interview, as the interviewer states up front. It is a candid discussion about the si
    • Well, it's partly rational. I really think Thompson is truly stretching the point and makign all kinds of specious arguments. Especially when it comes to his discussion of the class action suit.
    • "but lets not kid ourselves about the nature of the tittilation being peddled."

      I think everyone here understands what these games are about, we read the reviews, we see the screenshots, we play the games... but what Jack Thompson is saying (and his agenda) is that these games are dangerous and are corrupting our youth and turning them into violent killers... the problem with this is it's just not true.

      Video games have enough stigma attached to them already.. do we really need another ass-hat running around
  • Jack Thompson needs to slow down.

    At this rate, I won't have enough money to buy all the games he's going after!

  • I half think he has a point... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Fred Or Alive ( 738779 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @05:06PM (#13260190)
    The US AO rating does seem to be completly stupid, no game is ever actually rated it.

    In the UK we have a slightly stange situation where most games have advisory ratings from PEGI [pegi.info] (who took over a couple of years ago from ELSPA [elspa.co.uk]), but under certain critera they can have the legally enforced BBFC [bbfc.co.uk] ratings, like DVDs and films.

    But in the UK, the highest ratings (18+ for PEGI, 18 for BBFC) have been used (although the 18+ PEGI rating is rare, as most of them go into the BBFC ratings). Indeed, both Grand Theft Auto (all of them) and Killer 7 are BBFC 18, and they're commonly availible, I can go into my local ASDA (owned by Wal Mart) and buy them. But in the US, it seems that everyone is allergic to the AO rating, even the ESRB. I'd guess it's some sort of weird market forces, where the shops have all decided that AO really means it's banned. And mysteriously the industry run ESRB avoids it like a plauge as well. If I wasn't pissed, I'm sure I could make a better essay on the US puritan streak etc. (it's half like the Daily Mail ran a country!), but instead I'll end up with a horrid steam of conciousness thing. I mean, it's only some dry humping FFS. How does that change the bloody rating...

    I'd also like to note the BBFC said during all this ho-hah over GTA:SA, that even if the "Hot Coffee" had been in the game, it would still be rated the same.

    (I should note that for BBFC, there is the Restricted 18 rating as well (can only be sold in licenced sex shops, used for hardcore porn), but no game has ever qualified for it AFAIK).
  • The game industry needs an advocacy group, or maybe have a lobbyist or perhaps buy off a senator :P Seriously, you don't see gun manufacturers targeted like you might have in the past. Anyone remember that video of those Columbine kids with a small arsenal shooting trees in the woods? Anyone try to trace back where they got those guns and hold them as responsible as Doom?? These grieving families get counciled by layers that tell them to sue the video game companies, and defense lawyers use it as a defe
    • Oh but the video game industry DOES have a lobbyist and advocacy group! A few in fact! Here are some of the people who fight against Jack Thompson and WIN!

      First we have the ESA, the Entertainment Software Association!

      http://www.theesa.com/ [theesa.com]

      Headed by Doug Lowenstein, a person Jack Thompson REALLY hates, the ESA is video game's no. 1 lobby group and is also the organization that developed the ESRB. While the ESA and ESRB are connected, the ESRB, headed by Patricia Vance, is a separate entity from the rest o

  • You don't know Jack (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kaenneth ( 82978 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @06:19PM (#13260573) Journal
    Jack Thompson is naked under his clothes.
    Jack Thompson keeps talking about sex.
    Jack Thompson has a poorly defined, but detectible penis.

    ban Jack Thompson!
  • I really don't see where the problem is with sexual content in the video games. The only people that would actually get turned on by it are those fourteen-year-old kids with acne that have no real shot at getting some. We shouldn't take this away from them too.
  • I had heard that Wil Wright is a Christian. Wouldn't that go against Wil's values if it is that case?
    • > I had heard that Wil Wright is
      > a Christian. Wouldn't that go
      > against Wil's values if it is
      > that case?

      Why, are all christians opposed to pr0n? I don't think so! Yet, I heard the absence of violence and sex in the Myst series is because of the Miller bros' religion or something...
  • I don't know about that, but gas is certainly being expelled from one of his orifices.
  • This guy makes all kinds of logical jumps AND using arguments from intimidation. Anyone that says, "Well, if you deny my rock solid evidence then you clearly are ignoring my absolutely irrefutable point of view.", is trying to push something they know is iffy.
  • My whole problem with this is that the ESRB is just supposed to be there for guidence, and thats what the ratings are for. If he's complaining about children getting a hold of the game, then maybe he should start to lobby for better informent to parents of the ESRB codes and what they mean. The labels on the box clearly do state what is in the game, and they're there for a reason. I am all for keeping innapropriate material out of the hands of children, but why should I and others get heat because some peo

  • Arrrghh! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ho_hocognitive ( 895869 )
    When we start holding parents at fault? When do we start punishing the legal guardians? If we advocate fining retailers for selling the product to under-age kids, will we bring charges against the parents? I've worked in retail. In most cases, it's an adult that makes the purchase, irrespective of wether or not you make a point of directing them to the age rating. It seems that you can't make parents aware of the problem.

    • Re:Arrrghh! (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      When do we start holding parents at fault? When do we start punishing the legal guardians?

      We don't. It's the government's job to raise children, didn't you know? The only thing that we can fault parents for is not lobbying enough.

  • I would have liked to seen a better interviewer step up to the plate, someone who can argue themselves without backing down but not come off as arrogant. Some of Jack's points were valid and held weight, but I noticed when the interviewer turned on the offensive, Jack's best defense was trying to talk over him so he could get his word in. The interviewer then backed down repeatedly, which made the control of this interview very lopsided in Jack's favour.

    Had there been a stronger interviewer conducting th

    • Re:Decent interview (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MowAlon ( 870807 )
      I, the interviewer, agree with you completely. Although I'm extremely pleased with the content of the interview, and the fact that it does something for the community that hasn't been done yet (get out Jack's unslanted/unedited views), I was very unhappy with my interview style. My only defense is that he's a lawyer who's been doing this for a long time and who's put a lot more thought and research into this subject than I ever could. I was prepared, believe it or not, but just stood there and let him talk
      • Don't get me wrong -- it was an excellent job on your part. The content was interesting, well-conducted and it was informing. Even though you backed down on some points (and understandably so, since you don't want him to leave the interview halfway through...), I sided with you on everything you presented.

        Had this been an open discussion not bound by the terms of a public interview, I can bet you would have let the reigns loose and not relent on your points. Despite being less-informed about the research

        • You know, some of Jack's points were really interesting. But you could have countered better? C'mon how many times did you bring up the Ken/Barbie doll defense? You could have easily just told him to switch on the TV at any time of the day and you'll see things which are 100x more serious than videogames. You also let him talk too long when replying to an answer and often times he sidetracked you into another argument. (WTH was he doing talking about McCarthiasm.. I mean c'mon) I wish you had done some more
  • allegedly masturbates to pictures of Joe McCarthy.
  • If games taught me to do anything, it's to headshot terrorists.
  • An article about Jack Thompson and his overtly anti-gaming beliefs or if you see an article that shows no or opposite correlation between gaming and youth violence, feel free to drop Jack a line...

    His email is:
    jackpeace@comcast.net.

    OR you can write Jack Thompson, 1172 South Dixie Hwy., Suite 111, Coral Gables, FL 33146.

    I think if enough of us write him a real letter everytime he stands before the media and spouts off more lies, he will think differently?

    Who knows maybe someday it WILL happen *not holding br
    • Thompson is obviously not anti-gaming. I, a gamer, wrote him a letter explaining that I was a gamer and liked what he was doing. He wrote me a positive reply. Thompson is anti-violent games in the hands of minors.
      • Then why is he going after the producers of these games instead of the parents who buy them for children or the stores that sell them to children? Why isn't he going after Florence Cohen, the 85-year old woman who bought GTA:SA for her 14-year old grandson, instead of supporting her lawsuit against Rockstar?
        • I think you may be right in a way. I think he should go after the retailers who sell these games to minors. Let's do a thinking exercise... If minors got a hold of a porn magazine, who is at fault? Playboy? Maybe not. Most likely the retailer. Then again, if kids get a hold of ciggerettes, who's at fault? Could very well be the tobacco industry as well as the retailers since tobacco is targeted to teenagers. So if games are targeted towards the teenagers, but given an M rating, I think both the ret
      • "wrote him a letter explaining that I was a gamer and liked what he was doing."

        And he wrote you a positive reply? Amazing...

        Try an experiment, write him as a gamer and tell him you don't like what he is doing.. see what kind of response you get...

        "Thompson is anti-violent games in the hands of minors."

        If there is no correlation between youths who commit acts of violence and Violent video games then why is this good?

        If there is actually a correlaton between reduced violence in minors who play violent video g

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