Jack Thompson...is the Law

I got a response from my Senator about the GTA B.S.:

Dear Mr. X:

Thank you for contacting me to express your concern about Congressional inquiries into the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

S. Res. 212 would express the sense of the Senate that the Federal Trade Commission should investigate the publication of the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" to determine if the publisher deceived the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to avoid an "Adults Only" rating. On July 26, 2005, S. Res. 212 was introduced in the Senate and referred to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, where it awaits further consideration. Although I am not a member of this committee, you may be assured that I will keep your views in mind should S. Res. 212 come before the full Senate for consideration.

Please do not hesistate BLAH BLAH BLAH.

All right, that didn't help much. I tried to save 'em some money about the deception but hey, I'm just a regular citizen:

-------------------------------------------------

And this was the gist of my letter to my Senators:

I felt it was time to send you an email due to the recent developments of the game "Grand Theft Auto:
San Andreas" and the "Hot Coffee" mod. I want to let you in on some details that mainstream
media sources may have missed:

Here are screen shots of the game without the modified "skins" can be found here (SEXUAL CONTENT):

http://home.comcast.net/~duke3dfreak/gtasaclothed1.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~duke3dfreak/gtasaclothed2.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~duke3dfreak/gtasaclothed3.jpg

Scenes like these can be found in PG-13 rated movies, definitely R-rated movies (which is the ESRB's M rating equivalent) and even on television. If the issue is graphic nudity, there is none to be found. The closest the unmodified game comes to this is women wearing thongs. The "Hot Cofee Mod" added what's known as "skins" to the game to make the female characters naked. This has been going on for decades now in the PC community and it's out of game developer's hands. You have to download a patch for the game in order to unlock the code. I challenge you to pick up the game yourself from any local store, play it and find these scenes in it. You can't. For that matter, you can't find the game in most stores now because this issue has been blown completely out of proportion.

On the game box itself, the game already has an R-rating equivalent. And on the back
it states that the game contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language,
Strong Sexual Content, and Use of Drugs. Yes, it says STRONG SEXUAL CONTENT.
I'm sure any parent with morals wouldn't want their child exposed to this, so why all the fuss now over
something so petty? After all, if parents are making a rather larger purchase for their kids and not
researching the product, how can the game makers or ratings board be at fault for what the children
see?

Not only are there warning labels on the game box, but on the cover art gangsters are doing
a drive by shooting and a total of 5 people are holding guns. Rockstar, the games' publisher, was
not misrepresenting itself. This is clearly an adult game and according to a 1999 Nielsen Media
Research study, 74% of game players are over the age of 18.

Please do not cave use this to get cheap votes. Look at this objectively and with common sense. If the
big issue is that the game was rated M and not AO, adults only, we're talking a 1 year difference in
age. It's laughable when you look at the cold hold facts of this mess. Please get this over with
quickly and swiftly so that the fewest tax dollars are wasted on this non-issue as possible. The $90-million study Senator Clinton is calling for can be better spent elsewhere, or better yet used to pay down our nation's debt. Please focus
on more important issues like the war in Iraq, the economy, eminent domain, the Karl Rove leak, corporate
tax evasion and bringing down the nation's debt.

If you, as one of my state's leaders wants real change,
the message needs to be sent that parents need to be more responsible and that government intervention is
not the solution to every problem.A kid who can download the files required for this mod is definitely capable of finding much worse on the Internet. Tell parents to pay closer attention to their children.

A few links to ponder over:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25015

http://gr.bolt.com/articles/violence/violence.htm


Thanks for listening and happy legislating.

Adam Reuter

I was pretty much unaware of this cock end until the whole hot coffee incident and I was watching a documentary the other day on the history of rap, and guess who shows up half way through spouting his holier than thou mouth all over my screen.

I was surprised to learn this ball sacks been at it since the 80's and the advent of gangster rap when he felt he needed to teach us all a much deserved lesson on the morality of modern music.

What a colossal cunt you are Thompson.

Jack Thompson... is The Stapler

The title of this article had me laughing for some reason.

http://robschneiderstapler.ytmnd.com/

Are there actually any games with sexually explicit content outside of Japan? and if not why not!

Seriously, seeing a low poly bare backside in (the hacked version of) GTA:SA or a chick's naked shoulders in Max Payne 2 doesn't seem to qualify as sexually explicit content, even if you were the most unreasonable prude, the kind from the 1800's that were scandalized at the idea of bare ankles. Seriously, those are the most explicit things I can think of from any game I've played in the last 10 years, except maybe the cat eating joke in SHOGO.

I think railing against 'sexually explicit content' in games is the best evidence that these people have never spent more than 5 minutes playing any of them. Any given PG-13 movie is considerable more harcore than anything I've ever seen in a video game. except all those hentai dating games I've played which aren't even available in the US/EU market

Oh, right, God of War had an off screen sex scene and a nipple. OMG won't someone please think of the children!

Can you media guys all agree to refer to him as "Big Douchebag"? Like agree to it as standard practice?

So when you refer to him, you write:

It was revealed that big douchebag Jack Thompson will be drafting up a video game law...

I think it would catch on.

What's the problem with having laws prohibiting the sale of M-rated games to minors?

Wow. First I see Feature Creep and then I see Jack Thompson... ;)

Just because some out there probably don't know, lobbyists draft bills all the time - they do it both with the hope of seeing it actually introduced as written, and also just to show that specific representative what it is they want to see in a law.

Obviously, that's no defense for making stuff up, but I just wanted to point out that it's not too uncommon for lobbyists to be involved at some level of writing a bill.

You have to be a special breed of shiteyed pigfucker for a Bush to call you a liar.

Am I the only one who sees that the real issue here is would be delegating law-writing to random people? Especially lawyers? If lawyers wrote the laws, I can't even imagine what kind of fucked up society we would live in.

Fortunately, it doesn't look like this story is true, so it doesn't matter.

so if nothing is confirmed, what exactly is this news story about?

Isn't there already a federal mandnate that says stores cannot sell M-rated games to minors? What the hell is he trying to prove?

Thanks to Balboa for the tip.
..."Rocky" Balboa?
Damn, he's good.

I still have problems seeing what the big deal is about selling violent video games to young men when people as young as 17 are recruited to fight a war...

Anyway, this seems like a good law.

The Inquirer (and apparently Jeb) are disputing Jack's claims:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26629

Whilst I agree that it should be illegal for M-rated games to be sold to minors, it's clear that Jack continues to live on some happy, reality-ignoring planet. So, situation normal, then.

They should just kill two birds with one stone and just ban obscenity.

I'm the law and you can't beat the law.

I AM THE LAW!!!

Judge Dredd was awesome.