Cage Match! Thompson vs. Jenkins

[Daydreamer]

Head to Head in a fight to the death!

Granted this is a debate we NEED to have, since I do not want video games going the way of mid-century comics, but this guy seems to see himself as an honest-to-god prophet of an impending video game driven apocalypse.

Fav quote:

We are going to sue videogame manufacturers, platform manufacturers, and retailers like Wal-Mart, Circuit City, and Amazon who continue to sell adult-rated materials to children. We're going to sue the industry for its recklessness, for being so shortsighted. Eventually there is going to be a Columbine to the factor of 10, a slaughter in a school by a crazed gamer. And when that happens, when America figures out these kids were filled up with virtual violence, Congress may ban the games altogether.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone ... is there anything you can't lampoon?

9/11 times 100?  Thats .... 91,100!

[Llava]

I'm in a weird position on this, because I really do think games have gone over the edge of taste and just need to stop and tone it down some.  Having a really deviant game out there every so often is one thing, but when they're the major names in the industry it worries me.  I'm going to take a risky political stand here and say that kids should not be playing games where you can run around a city in S&M gear beating hookers to death with a dildo.  I'm sorry, they just shouldn't.

Of course, most will agree with me on that.  But really, I'd take it further.  NO ONE needs to play a game where you run around a city dressed in S&M gear and beat hookers to death with a dildo.  As much fun as it is, I would venture to say that there are certain places we just don't need to go.  If you're the kind of person that takes great offense to that, I recommend you stop a moment and think about what you're defending.  I'm all for freedom of expression and removing censorship, and it's their right to make this stuff, but what disturbs me is that they even wanted to make it- worse, that we seem to want to buy it.  What the hell does that say about us as a market?  What does it say about them as an industry?

It doesn't even need to be the specific example I used.  You could point to female characters with ginormous tits wearing metal thongs as armor.  Frankly, this shit is embarassing at this point.  It's no wonder people think gamers are little kids or adults with the minds of little kids- look at what we're buying.  Most online communities are so packed with shit that you might even say they're worse for kids than GTA.  Christ, I get disgusted listening to some of the chat that goes on in public channels in Guild Wars, and I am a vulgar and perverted individual.

So while the guy surely is a douchebag, it really would be nice to see a bit more tact and good taste from the game industry and its customer base.  The word "gamer" already leaves the mild taste of overpriced energy drinks and weed in my mouth.

[Velorath]

Strange... being told I shouldn't be able to beat hookers to death with a dildo in a video game just makes me want to do it even more.

[Krakrok]

They'll probably stop making video games like GTA3 around the same time they stop making movies about Hannibal Lecter, movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and music about killing your wife and keeping the body in a car trunk. They wouldn't make shit like that if it didn't sell.

If the lawyer guy wasn't just after a money hat he would be going after other violent forms of media as well.

[Fabricated]

Been there, done that.

I've had at least 4 different debate and speech classes where I chose this subject because it pisses me off so much.

The strongest evidence I found is that toddlers tend to directly imitate a lot of what they see, and watching/playing violent videogames causes some kids to be more aggressive for a very short time after watching/playing. Other than that, there is no fucking evidence that your average kid is made more violent by violent media or games.

I wish I still had my resources sitting around.

Edit: I'd also like to point out that games are a very popular target for the mouthbreathers to attack because in general games aren't considered "art".

[Llava]

They'll probably stop making video games like GTA3 around the same time they stop making movies about Hannibal Lecter, movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and music about killing your wife and keeping the body in a car trunk. They wouldn't make shit like that if it didn't sell.

But notice that it's not the protagonist commiting those atrocities.  There's a difference between a game where you're being stalked by a murderer with a chainsaw and a game where you're a murderer with a chainsaw stalking helpless victims.

[Samwise]

I don't know about you, but I'm almost always rooting for the killer in horror films, because the "protagonist" is usually a whiny douche.

[AOFanboi]

It comes back to the market: He cannot demand the developers make non-violent games until non-violent games start to sell. And basically they do not. Otherwise, Frequency and Amplitude would be at the top of the PS2 sales charts where they belong. (I count The Sims as a violent game because some people use the sandbox to kill off their sims - yes, I am looking at you, all of f13.net.)

As always: People are the problem. He needs to replace the game-buying/movie-watching public that demands violence, and since he obviously would fail at that he decides to try and treat the symptom instead of the disease. Not much good can come from that.

[Llava]

I don't know about you, but I'm almost always rooting for the killer in horror films, because the "protagonist" is usually a whiny douche.

So make the protagonist a decent human being.  I haven't seen that High Tension movie, but that looks to be a good example of what you could do with a game.  Ripley from Aliens is a good example, too (though portraying the Aliens in a game doesn't seem to bad to me, because they're at least inhuman and animal-like rather than truly psychotic sociopaths).

Maybe I'm alone on this, but it's how I feel.  Sure, films and TV do it as well.  They need to knock it off, too.  But I'm talking about the game industry.  Whether it's because I follow games more closely or because it really is as I perceive it- it seems that games have shown a larger proportion of "bad taste" material than exhibited in other media, and they really need to knock it the fuck off, and we as consumers need to encourage them to knock it the fuck off.  Hell, read Transmetropolitan and look at some of the ads for TV shows and such in it- games aren't very far from those.  That should disturb you.

[Rodent]

They'll probably stop making video games like GTA3 around the same time they stop making movies about Hannibal Lecter, movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and music about killing your wife and keeping the body in a car trunk. They wouldn't make shit like that if it didn't sell.

But notice that it's not the protagonist commiting those atrocities.  There's a difference between a game where you're being stalked by a murderer with a chainsaw and a game where you're a murderer with a chainsaw stalking helpless victims.

Gangster rap and Mafia movies excluded?

Personally I hope Mario and GTA can continue to live side by side at stores, because I enjoy both for wildy different reasons.

[Daydreamer]

Also: Unforgiven, A Clockwork Orange.  Oh, and most Heist flicks exemplify and idealize criminal anti-social behavior even if they arn't violent, to which we could apply your logic as well.

[Llava]

Also: Unforgiven, A Clockwork Orange.  Oh, and most Heist flicks exemplify and idealize criminal anti-social behavior even if they arn't violent, to which we could apply your logic as well.

A Clockwork Orange, however, doesn't glorify the "ultraviolence."  It shows that there are real consequences for it, and shows how truly disturbed one can get.

I don't know that Heist flicks are necessarily so bad.  I wouldn't say that the Thief games would be particularly inappropriate for younger kids, and you can kill people there.  But, at the same time, there's a sort of Robin Hood sense to it all- that the authorities in these cases are cruel, or the victim of the theft is the perpetrator of many worse crimes.  I don't know how well the most recent GTA portrays that, if at all.

Mafia movies would be a good point, except that these films almost always end in tragedy.  If you watched all of Scarface, you probably wouldn't think "Man, I want to be like that guy!"  In Godfather, it showed that to be in this business you have to be ready to hear the news that your best friend, your brother, your father, your mother, your wife, your kid was just killed by someone who you screwed over a while back.

I don't know how GTA ends.  If it's something like sitting on a throne of gold with bikini-clad babes gathering around you, I'd call it irresponsible.  If the main character learns something serious about that lifestyle, like I described with the Mafia movies, then I've misjudged it.

[Daydreamer]

Re: Cloclkwork Orange.  I concur, but arriving at that point requires sitting through the violent scenes and thinking about it, which not all viewers will.  There was a huge controversy over it when it came out, along with some localized bans because of the same arguments that you have made.  Yet now look at what we think of the movie - a classic.  Which is just one example of where excessively violent media can still be worth while in a larger sense.

Re: Heist flicks but that was my point exactly - the end has the 'good guys' completing a major act of grand theft and getting away with their stolen gold/art/whatever to some sort of bikini clad island paradise.  So I don't think you can use a Crimes-Without-Consequences brush over Video games without splashing onto movies and other media.

No ruling saying "No crime unless consequence X" would be enforceable, and historically when people try it is either circumvented indirectly (Sex and Homosexuality in old Black and Whites is a good example) or it kills the industry (Such as comics mid-century).  And when crime is falling or stable while violent games are on the rise, such an action seems excessively nanny-statish. For these reasons and more I think we should give people all the tools and information they need to make informed decisions about buying stuff for their kids, but we should also stay as far away as possible from interfering with people making the games and movies and comics and XXX-GAPING-ANAL porn they want to make.

[Threash]

I'm in a weird position on this, because I really do think games have gone over the edge of taste and just need to stop and tone it down some.  Having a really deviant game out there every so often is one thing, but when they're the major names in the industry it worries me.  I'm going to take a risky political stand here and say that kids should not be playing games where you can run around a city in S&M gear beating hookers to death with a dildo.  I'm sorry, they just shouldn't.

Of course, most will agree with me on that.  But really, I'd take it further.  NO ONE needs to play a game where you run around a city dressed in S&M gear and beat hookers to death with a dildo.  As much fun as it is, I would venture to say that there are certain places we just don't need to go.  If you're the kind of person that takes great offense to that, I recommend you stop a moment and think about what you're defending.  I'm all for freedom of expression and removing censorship, and it's their right to make this stuff, but what disturbs me is that they even wanted to make it- worse, that we seem to want to buy it.  What the hell does that say about us as a market?  What does it say about them as an industry?

It doesn't even need to be the specific example I used.  You could point to female characters with ginormous tits wearing metal thongs as armor.  Frankly, this shit is embarassing at this point.  It's no wonder people think gamers are little kids or adults with the minds of little kids- look at what we're buying.  Most online communities are so packed with shit that you might even say they're worse for kids than GTA.  Christ, I get disgusted listening to some of the chat that goes on in public channels in Guild Wars, and I am a vulgar and perverted individual.

So while the guy surely is a douchebag, it really would be nice to see a bit more tact and good taste from the game industry and its customer base.  The word "gamer" already leaves the mild taste of overpriced energy drinks and weed in my mouth.

Why the hell should i be denied the pleasure of beating up hookers with a dildo just because parents are too damn lazy to control what their brats play?  All you ever needed to keep those kinds of games away from kids is already there: a MR (mature rating) and a belt.

[Evangolis]

I wasn’t going to respond to this topic, because I was having trouble expressing how I felt, but I had a breakthrough, and I think I’ve found the words I was looking for.

Jack Thompson is one of many people in our society who make their living off the fear they create in their fans.  It’s not like there aren’t similar creatures on all sides of the debate, mine, yours, and theirs, Thompson is just a bit more shamelessly wild-eyed than most.  But he is out there for everyone who doesn’t want Junior playing Mortal Combat after he comes home from football practice, with 50 Cent pumping in the background, surrounded by posters of the latest blow-up pop diva and his childhood collection of He-Man Action Figures, except for the ones he set fire to that one time, with his friend David, but him and David don’t talk about that night, except when they are alone.  Ordinary Americans fear that Junior is doing steroids to pump up his body, and that is bad, because steroids are a gateway drug to the NFL, baby, where the simple conservative social values of Hank Schram and Pete Coors are upheld by The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and the Coors Twins, so we’re pretty damn outraged that the High Holy Rite of the Super Bowl, and it’s Not Just A Game, baby, was profaned by a flash of one of Janet Jackson’s breasts, cause BY GOD we should have seen both of them, in Slow Holy Motion, because she surely must have paid plenty for them, so the winning team should have all got a squeeze on the way to the locker room, because anybody who has a job where surviving ten years earns you the name Durable, you work in a place called the Coliseum and the way the season goes always depends on the injuries, BY GOD, they deserve some kind of a break, because they are real, genetically natural Men, and that’s a dying breed, my friends, as dead as a frozen embryo, as dead as Betsy Ross and the Founding Fathers, every last one of them, dust and gone and so are the times they lived in, as dead as the dinosaurs in the fuel tank of your Giant Honking SUV, that men will die so that you may drive with a cellphone in one hand and a Big Mac in the other, because that is what this country is about, and it’s not going to change as long as people like Jack Thompson can keep people scared enough of bull crap like this to urge their elected representatives to pass silly laws that will get tossed out of court after we’ve wasted a bunch of time and money on that rather than paying for our children’s education, as long as nobody is teaching them facts about biology, because children shouldn’t understand how their bodies work, and if we don’t talk about sex then the children won’t think of it on their own and do like Junior and David did, because our children are what really matter, not the babies dying of AIDs in Africa because we have frozen embryos that need homes so that George Bush can say that there are no spare embryos, only spare people, because what’s a little blasphemy if it’s somebody else’s Bible, and we just need the press to shut up and ignore the details because what really matters is hookers and blowjobs, and a well ordered militia, because guns save lives, BY GOD, and if we all had them, it would get peaceful around here right damn quick, and that is why violence and sex in video games are a threat to all that we hold dear.

Any questions?

[Jayce]

I don't think there should be laws about it, but I do agree with Llava so far as to say that so long as there are dev houses who act like asshelmets, and plenty of gamers that buy their games, the entire community of gamers will be seen as asshelmets by the world at large.

[Jayce]

I wasn’t going to respond to this topic, because I was having trouble expressing how I felt, but I had a breakthrough, and I think I’ve found the words I was looking for.

[...]

Any questions?

Wow.

No.

[Daydreamer]

I don't think there should be laws about it, but I do agree with Llava so far as to say that so long as there are dev houses who act like asshelmets, and plenty of gamers that buy their games, the entire community of gamers will be seen as asshelmets by the world at large.

Concurred.  The problem is that developing truly mature titles doesn't happen over night.  We've had television since what, the fifties?  Yet can anyone imagine someone making the Sopranos back then, technical limitations non-withstanding?  And it wasn't out of the blue either, since the Sopranos built upon the growing talent in the Cable television industry, as well as on a half century of family sitcoms and dramas.  From Leave it to Beaver to I Love Lucy to All in the Family to Wait Till Your Father Gets Home to Roseanna, each built on the last, and audiences adjusted accordingly.  Video games may be leading the curve in new computing and graphics technologies, but in terms of content we are mostly still in that late-seventies "Grr.  I smoulder with generic rage" stage.  I guess every medium has to go through asshelmet stage of some sort.

[Evangolis]

Yeah, the early days of TV.  The good old days of Christian morals, when lynching was still a weekend hobby in America.  They didn't have sophisticated, high minded stuff like the Sopranos.  Early TV had to get by with Shakespeare and Eugene O'Niell.  Tradgedy and Drama, not like today's sophisticated fare.

I was done with this, and then I came back and saw you lauding the Sopranos and talking about 'asshelmet' developers and players in the same post.  I've seen the Sopranos, I love the show, and I can't see where there is a cunt hair's difference, as Tony might say, between the Sopranos and GTA, at least from the point of view of glorification of Sex and Violence.  I'm not really ready to argue that 'Mob Bosses Are People Too', is all that significant a social statement, although it is a kickass premise for an R-rating TV show.

The point of my earlier rant was that these folks are all about, and I mean all of them, even the ones I agree with, not just Jack Thompson, they are all about the mote in thine eye, and never mind the beam in mine.  This Sex and Violence serves a higher purpose, but that Sex and Violence is Bad.

Meanwhile, the wind blows sand through the streets of an empty village in Darfur.

[schild]

EGM: Do you play games?

JT: I play them to the extent that I need to make DVD copies of the killing scenes for presentations or court. Have I played San Andreas? Yes.

Fucking pirate...of sorts. Really, I don't even know what this means. How many hookers have been beaten to death with a dildo, or a spray can or whatever it was? THey're fucking hookers. GTA doesn't have you rampaging through schools and malls. State of Emergency on the otherhand does. I hate that this guy can't get his shit straight. Ever.

EGM: You once compared Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, to Saddam Hussein.

JT: If I did, I want to apologize to Saddam Hussein. Doug is a propagandist to whom the facts don't matter. He's paid to lie and he does it very well. Doug is paid a handsome salary, probably seven figures, to say there are no studies that indicate [violent games have] an effect on anyone. If this is true, why is the military using them to create killing simulators?

Like I said, he can't get his shit straight. And he's jealous of Doug Lowenstein.

I can't discuss this guy rationally. He's the biggest raging douchebag out there. I'd have no problem if he was found dead one morning with apparent cause of death being spray can.

Edit: And let me just say, EGM/1up sucks ass at interviews. These people - both sides - need to be attacked. It's their job to dodge such attacks. "Isn't one school shooting too many?" Jesus, you fucking hippie, is that question even necessary?

Gah, I hate this goddamn topic.

[Rodent]

Video games may be leading the curve in new computing and graphics technologies, but in terms of content we are mostly still in that late-seventies "Grr.  I smoulder with generic rage" stage.  I guess every medium has to go through asshelmet stage of some sort.

Would that make Planescape: Tormet the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest of videogames?

[Llava]

I don't think there should be laws about it, but I do agree with Llava so far as to say that so long as there are dev houses who act like asshelmets, and plenty of gamers that buy their games, the entire community of gamers will be seen as asshelmets by the world at large.

Concurred.

Dude, that's exactly what I said.    I will grant, however, that Jayce said it much more concisely (and better) than I did.

Note that I mentioned in my original post that I disagree with censorship.  Perhaps I should have been more specific- I disagree with regulated, legal, enforced, whatever censorship.  But the war to get rid of censorship assumes a certain amount of responsibility on the part of the uncensored individual, and so far the game industry has shown none of that responsibility.  So all I can say is: No friggin' wonder groups on both the right and left wings hate games, we're giving them quite a few reasons to do so.  Sure would be nice if we could collectively say, as game consumers and developers, "We hold ourselves to a higher standard."  But we can't- so far, the industry has catered to the lowest common denominator and, for the most part, we absolutely engorge ourselves on that shit.  Is it any wonder games aren't taken seriously? 

There's a very serious gap in maturity and quality, while at the same time the industry is attempting to present very mature material that shouldn't be taken outside the context of a high quality story.  Comics did the same thing in the 90's, look where they are now.  I'm not saying we'll definitely end up like that, but it sure would suck if we did- given that the average game would probably cost about an asston more money than the average comic to produce, I don't know if the industry could survive going "underground."  But that's a little too 'the sky is falling!" to predict now.

[Daydreamer]

Ah, my bad.  Your initial post wasn't as clear as his was.  In summary I agree, but I think I toterate childish angst violent BS more than most because I think its a necessary phase for a medium to go through.

[Yegolev]

I don't know about you, but I'm almost always rooting for the killer in horror films, because the "protagonist" is usually a whiny douche.

Right.  How many times have you been in a costume shop and seen a Horror Movie Victim #3 versus a Freddie or Jason costume?  No one wants to be the hero of a horror movie.  Everyone wants to be Pinhead.

[HaemishM]

Jack Thompson is a raging douchebag, who appears to be on the paranoid side of batshit insane. I haven't read the other guy's side yet. I love how he correlates advertising (convincing someone to BUY something) with making someone kill by the same means. What a fucking retard.

[Yegolev]

But, at the same time, there's a sort of Robin Hood sense to it all- that the authorities in these cases are cruel, or the victim of the theft is the perpetrator of many worse crimes.  I don't know how well the most recent GTA portrays that, if at all.

Really well, I think.  I don't want to spoil anything, but CJ gets screwed by the man as soon as he sets foot out of the airport.  He's coming back because his mom was killed, and the corrupt cops set him up right away.  From there, CJ is forced to work on behalf of Officer Tenpenny.

There is no evidence that violent games create violent people.  Thompson is a moneygrubbing shitfucker who is trying to be the Johnny Cochran of game-violence lawsuits.  He knows the facts, but of course his training in law helps him overcome that limitation in order to pursue vast sums of cash.  You'd think that there must be at least one bus-stop on which he could affix his  "Have you been injured?" poster and stay the hell out of my hobby.

In the general case, though, I know that there are some things that are not appropriate for young kids, if only because I can remember seeing some things which scared the crap out of me or made me ill.

[HaemishM]

I wasn’t going to respond to this topic, because I was having trouble expressing how I felt, but I had a breakthrough, and I think I’ve found the words I was looking for.

Jack Thompson is one of many people in our society who make their living off the fear they create in their fans.  It’s not like there aren’t similar creatures on all sides of the debate, mine, yours, and theirs, Thompson is just a bit more shamelessly wild-eyed than most.  But he is out there for everyone who doesn’t want Junior playing Mortal Combat after he comes home from football practice, with 50 Cent pumping in the background, surrounded by posters of the latest blow-up pop diva and his childhood collection of He-Man Action Figures, except for the ones he set fire to that one time, with his friend David, but him and David don’t talk about that night, except when they are alone.  Ordinary Americans fear that Junior is doing steroids to pump up his body, and that is bad, because steroids are a gateway drug to the NFL, baby, where the simple conservative social values of Hank Schram and Pete Coors are upheld by The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and the Coors Twins, so we’re pretty damn outraged that the High Holy Rite of the Super Bowl, and it’s Not Just A Game, baby, was profaned by a flash of one of Janet Jackson’s breasts, cause BY GOD we should have seen both of them, in Slow Holy Motion, because she surely must have paid plenty for them, so the winning team should have all got a squeeze on the way to the locker room, because anybody who has a job where surviving ten years earns you the name Durable, you work in a place called the Coliseum and the way the season goes always depends on the injuries, BY GOD, they deserve some kind of a break, because they are real, genetically natural Men, and that’s a dying breed, my friends, as dead as a frozen embryo, as dead as Betsy Ross and the Founding Fathers, every last one of them, dust and gone and so are the times they lived in, as dead as the dinosaurs in the fuel tank of your Giant Honking SUV, that men will die so that you may drive with a cellphone in one hand and a Big Mac in the other, because that is what this country is about, and it’s not going to change as long as people like Jack Thompson can keep people scared enough of bull crap like this to urge their elected representatives to pass silly laws that will get tossed out of court after we’ve wasted a bunch of time and money on that rather than paying for our children’s education, as long as nobody is teaching them facts about biology, because children shouldn’t understand how their bodies work, and if we don’t talk about sex then the children won’t think of it on their own and do like Junior and David did, because our children are what really matter, not the babies dying of AIDs in Africa because we have frozen embryos that need homes so that George Bush can say that there are no spare embryos, only spare people, because what’s a little blasphemy if it’s somebody else’s Bible, and we just need the press to shut up and ignore the details because what really matters is hookers and blowjobs, and a well ordered militia, because guns save lives, BY GOD, and if we all had them, it would get peaceful around here right damn quick, and that is why violence and sex in video games are a threat to all that we hold dear.

Any questions?

You magnificient, psychotic bastard, you.

/tear in my eye

Games are not considered "art" on the same level as movies or television by the popular culture, so like the comic books of the '50's, they are an easy target for politically-motivated cocktards like Dr. Wertham or this Thompson fuck. Games as popular art will become more accepted, though, as more kids who grew up with games become adults who may or may not game. The responsibility of an artist, or a committee of artists such as the creators of games, is to be honest with their material. Social responsibility does not need to be concentrated on the creation of the work, such as ensuring that negative actions by the protagonists generate negative consequences; that means the work is not going to be true to itself, but will instead be a didactic polemic, which generally makes for bad art. See After School Specials and Lifetime movies for examples. No, an artist needs to enforce social responsibility on his work at the level of distribution, at the level of exhibition. Just like a pr0n director needs to make sure his product is not displayed to children, the creators of games needs to ensure that their content is appropriate for their audience. If their audience is E for everyone, meaning children, they should make sure their content fits. If they intend to do mature content, such as GTA, they need to make sure their distributors KNOW that and act accordingly.

See, the problem isn't that game developers are making GTA3, it's that the retailers are not being responsible in how it's sold. The only way the game developers have any control over that is if a company sells the game to unsuitable audiences, the game developer can withhold selling their next game through that retailer. Yes, that will work wonders, killing the game development company's business. So what has to happen is retailers and developers and publishers all need to agree on this system and ENFORCE it. A self-policing procedure does no good if all parties do not police themselves.

Don't blame the makers of the guns used in Columbine for the slaughter, blame the jacktards who pulled the trigger and the idiot who supplied them with guns in the first place.

[Yegolev]

See, the problem isn't that game developers are making GTA3, it's that the retailers are not being responsible in how it's sold.

I don't understand why the general public does not get this.  I'm with schild, I hate this topic.