JT’s Halloween Flyer
If you’ve been reading Game Politics as much as I have, then you’ve already heard about how some PA fan went and distributed fliers to Jack Thompson’s neighbors, which of course resulted in another round of angry faxes to the Western Washington District Attorney, the press, and The Justice League. Of course, he has to describe this person as being a PA “operative”, because it really wouldn’t be a classic JT letter unless it included some blatantly fabricated associations, now would it? Anyway, the flyer is now available on the web. It’s not quite as well written as I might have liked, but it’s decent enough and I appreciate any efforts that are both legal AND aggravating to Jack. Some might say that doesn’t make me the bigger man, but every time he makes one of his half-assed assertions about our pastime it raises my blood pressure, so it seems only fair that we as a community get to return the favor from time to time.
On a less humorous note, Devin Moore, the kid who was convicted of killing two police officers and a police dispatcher in 2003, also wrote a letter to JT this week. Jack’s planning on contending that Devin went on a killing spree as a result of his playing Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City in an upcoming civil suit versus Sony, Take Two, and GameStop. Having read the letter, I have no idea exactly what it is that Devin is trying to get across; he seems to be mostly complaining that he thinks he didn’t get a fair trial, but it’s hard to say if he’s writing to support Jack’s anti-games crusade. At any rate, the whole thing just serves to illustrate how grossly uneducated he is, which many people might think has as much if not more to do with this issue than video games. It’s interesting that out of all the possible combinations of people who might have contributed to these crimes, from the negligent parents to the people responsible for providing him with a weapon, the civil suit chooses to focus on those with the deepest pockets. On second thought, no it’s not.
In pleasantly Jack-free news, I’ve been invited to Nintendo’s Gamer Summit at the end of next week, so expect a bevy of news about their upcoming lineup around that time. No word as to whether or not there will be any Revolution info there, but a man can always dream.
October 27th, 2005 at 8:37 pm
Dang, congratulations on the invite. Hopefully you’ll be allowed to handle the remote and live to tell us the tales. Also, if you see Zelda there find out if it’s actually looking good or if it’s just ze hype.
October 30th, 2005 at 5:20 am
I would be surprised if it turned out to be the hype and not just Zelda. The Zelda franchise is basically the only one that really tries this sort of gameplay, and they do seem to recognise that maybe they won’t be able to plumb it forever.
On the Jack Thompson thing, and more generally on videogame censorship in general: Tony Hawk, of all people, pointed something out to me today. I don’t actually know Tony Hawk, but in an interview he mentioned one of his driving goals was to demonstrate that skateboarding can be a positive influence on a child’s life.
There really isn’t anyone that does that for games, and I’d be surprised if we ever find one. Games aren’t exactly, well, a healthy, positive pasttime for the kiddies. I’d be willing to bet large sums of money that if we found someone suitable that managed to get mainstream press attention, Jack Thompson would move on soon afterwards.