You Don't Know, Jack

It’s a good thing anti-gaming attorney Jack Thompson doesn’t give a damn.

In 2005, when the “Hot Coffee” scandal broke regarding sexual content (inaccessible to players) left on the extra disc space in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, he was among the first voices of outrage, yelling to all who would listen that the downfall of civilization was nigh, and that we could subvert the catastrophe if we’d just forget about the First Amendment and get on board with governmental legislation of the gaming industry.

After the Columbine shooting in 1999 he was at the forefront of the media blitz, yelling to all who would listen that the troubled youths who’d committed the horrible act had been avid players of the popular first-person shooter Doom, and that we could prevent “another Columbine” if we’d just ignore the lack of causality of a multi-million-selling game being somehow responsible for the actions of two of its legion of fans, and get on board with banning violent video games.

He was in front of a camera within hours of the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, yelling to all who would listen that the shooter had honed his skills on violent video games before his attack.  It didn’t matter that everyone who knew the shooter came forth in the days following to directly contradict that assertion, adding that they’d never seen the shooter play ANY video game, violent or not.

It didn’t matter, because it gave a purveyor of hot air a conduit with which to blow.

It’s a good thing he doesn’t give a damn.

Jack is a lawyer by trade and a charlatan by reputation, though the distinction some would find arguable.  His raison d’etre is to play the role of Alarmist Talking Head on news shows whose producers don’t know better, and to spew poorly researched and often confrontationally incorrect and inflammatory opinion posited as fact, regarding the games industry.  His stated aim is clear: legislation of violent or sexual video games, and banning any titles which violate his patrician’s view of suitable content for a game.

His antics are well-known within the industry.  He’s locked horns at length with Take Two Interactive, the producer of the Grand Theft Auto series, and clearly views himself as a David versus their Goliath.  He attacks their product without knowing the first thing about it; when their charming boarding-school fantasy Bully was nearing release in 2006, Jack needed only the game’s title and publisher in order to go on a public tirade about some nonexistent game in which players are rewarded for bullying their fellow students, and given bonuses for especially egregious violence.  None of this was in Bully, of course, but what did it matter?

He’s made enough noise to be considered an authority on a topic about which he clearly knows perilously little; politicians have taken counsel with him in forming pro-regulatory views of the gaming industry, such is his perceived influence and ability to capitalize on mainstream media’s ignorance of the nature of gaming.  Any research of their trusted “industry insider” would show that he’s seen as a shrill demagogue at risk of being disbarred for his repeated disdain for legal process, as he’s gone out of his way to draw up unwarranted litigation against his opponents time and again, to no avail, at cost to taxpayers.

Intellectuals in the gaming community have repeatedly attempted to make simple, ground-level points to the man regarding the average age of gamers today (it’s thirty-two, by the way, and not the single-digit number Jack evidently would have us believe) and the burgeoning mature markets that gaming must utilize in order to be on par with film and music and literature as tastemakers for adults.  It doesn’t matter.  He’s not interested in facts.

It’s a good thing he doesn’t give a damn.

Not about children, anyway.  Not about gamers, nor violence, nor sexual content, nor accuracy and integrity in one’s convictions, nor whether video games are regulated by the government or protected expressions of free speech.

Jack cares about none of that. Jack cares about yelling to all who will listen, to advance his own opinions and beliefs on the legislature and make his own views manifest in the eyes of the law, no matter how lacking in foundation.

Jack is a brand name, now. It’s about being on TV, and having “expert” attached to your name in an on-screen graphic written by someone who doesn’t know better. It’s about instilling fear in soccer moms and clueless seniors, who see kids gaming and will react with an audible knee-jerk to any perceived danger therein, no matter how manufactured.

I don’t buy Jack. My mind can’t handle the toxicity in its ingredients.

But I still have to hear his crowing any time there is a disaster by which he can get in front of a camera and peddle the Jack brand of fear-mongering and misinformation.  I have to watch him pick his battles based on what’s most likely to get him on television, as he makes targets out of innocuous titles like Bully while ignoring games like Persona 3, in which the teenaged protagonist characters unleash their “inner demons” by miming shooting themselves in the heads with devices strongly resembling guns.

Where’s the outrage over THAT title, Jack?  Oh, right.  That’s not a heavily marketed title, and not likely to get him on a poorly researched cable news segment pretending to debate “whether games have gone too far.”  It’s not worth his time.  Not like going on TV following the release of Grand Theft Auto IV and, bafflingly, comparing the game to the polio virus.  Or writing letters to the mother of a Take-Two executive imploring her to feel shame for her son’s business decisions.

It’s a good thing he doesn’t actually give a damn.

Can you imagine how terrible it would be if he did?