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http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/05/20/jack-thompson-guilty-27-31-misconduct-charges-says-bar-trial-judge-fl-supreme-court-must-

usually I try not to use too many smileys, but there's only one thing I can do now

Uh it says the site is closed down for maintenance. what was your original post about Anung?

I'm guessing the article is on how Jack Thompson was found guilty of 27 of 35 charges of professional misconduct and is facing sentencing from the Florida Supreme Court. The charges are pretty serious, such as: false statements to tribunals, disparaged and humiliated litigants and other lawyers, and improperly practiced law outside the state of Florida.

yes, it was . Thank you Ahtman.

as I was saying

Yes, very good news. 'Bout time someone put that nutcase in his place.

BYE

Let me take the devil's advocate here....does anyone think that he occasionally had a good point that he takes entirely too far in a hateful and insane manner?

If his point had been that parents need to be active in their kids lives I might agree, but his was "That Elvis Presley's music is a bad influence and will make the youth want to do unseemly things and so we must make the government take control of it" and in making his point he acted like a jerk, enough so that the legal community is going to give him the heave ho.

ah good. People receiving their comeuppance or karma is a good thing. The universe at work!

Since we also have a lot of "videogame-violence" debates here in germany, I came to the conclusion that it really should depend more on the parents and not the government. But Thompson was like a vulture, gliding over youth crimes to dive down and say something about Gradn Theft Auto or something.

I don't actually know much about the man, or exactly what his platform is, only to the point that I know I get irritated reading anything by him or about him which is probably why I dont know the details. Lets look at the issue itself for a second.

I think what is most interesting about this whole debate is that the companies and individuals who produce the video games really don't have to make an enormous effort to defend their product, as there is already an enormous, unpaid, grassroots movement to do their work for them. It never ceases to amaze me how emotionally involved people get in this one. I mean, an actual ban of games for possession by adults is just not going to happen, and even if the impossible were to happen, I really don't think they'd send the SWAT team to your door to pull your GTA cd from your cold, dead fingers.

Do we see moviegoers lament that states enforce an age limit on certain movies? ( actually in Tennessee there was a slight row when they made a law that requires you to be 18 years of age to see a R rated movie without a parent or guardian...the description of the rating says 17+). For the majority of the posters in this thread, would it really affect you if there was a law that forbade the sale or even use of a M rated title for minors excepting parental permission? And if you are under 18 and live in the United States, well, I'm sorry, but the fact is that you do not have certain rights that adults have. If you're parents don't want you playing GTA, or whatever, then you're just going to have to suck it up, in my opinion.

Jack Thompson is, from what little I've seen, and d-bag, no question in my mind. But the fact that people like him can garner attention suggests that there is an issue and that perhaps it is time for gamers to come to some sort of compromise over this.

Put yourself in the shoes of a concerned parent. If you don't want your child playing certain games, you're going to feel that you have the right to enforce those rules, and it would be reasonable to expect the laws to help you in doing so. Sure, you take responsibility by monitoring the content of the media your child consumes, but it makes your job a lot harder when some clerk that doesn't give a rat's ass about you sells M titles no questions asked. You can't expect parents to take responsibility when they have no legal tools to do so.

As in most arguments, the debate has resolved into a me vs. them mentality. I really don't think that most of the people pushing for these laws ( jack thompson excepted) are killjoys out to harsh your buzz. I've had several email exchanges with Liz Woolley, for example, and I can assure you that, while I don't agree with all of her stances, she is a good person who ultimately wants to do what is right.

Restrictions on age apropos owning M rated video games is not censorship, it is enabling parents to set boundaries for their children.

Gosh, I hope the government can keep my kid from spending $500 on a games system, $50 on a controller, and $60 on a game. I also think he's not eating as well as he should, can we get the government to do something about that?

Strange idea, how about parents setting boundaries to for their kids, not some jerk off that's never met them and never will.

Do we really want to make M rated games and R rated movies the same as pornography? Is The Godfather(film) the same as All Holes Must be Filled 25? The irony is that kids can get porn easier these days).

Every new medium goes through this at some point. Cinema, TV, Rock'n'Roll, Comics, ect. Heck, in many states when cars were becoming more common states started passing laws because cars + teenage = immorality, and darn it, there should be a law about people being near cars and who can own them.

Also, who is going to fund it? Have to hire a guy to go around and do it, Cops got enough to do. You ready to pony up another .5% of your pay to take care of it?

I think he has been playing too many video games.

Ahtman wrote:Gosh, I hope the government can keep my kid from spending $500 on a games system, $50 on a controller, and $60 on a game. I also think he's not eating as well as he should, can we get the government to do something about that?

Strange idea, how about parents setting boundaries to for their kids, not some jerk off that's never met them and never will.

Do we really want to make M rated games and R rated movies the same as pornography? Is The Godfather(film) the same as All Holes Must be Filled 25? The irony is that kids can get porn easier these days).

Every new medium goes through this at some point. Cinema, TV, Rock'n'Roll, Comics, ect. Heck, in many states when cars were becoming more common states started passing laws because cars + teenage = immorality, and darn it, there should be a law about people being near cars and who can own them.

Also, who is going to fund it? Have to hire a guy to go around and do it, Cops got enough to do. You ready to pony up another .5% of your pay to take care of it?

Wow, I never took you to be on the libertarian side of the spectrum. Two or three years ago I would have said the very same thing.

It is a nice ideal for parents to set boundaries but A. Each parent's boundary might not be the same thing, and B. unfortunately many parents give children large allowances and put little restrictions on their behavior, not to mention that many minors have resources of their own that their parents may not be aware of.

You can't necessarily draw an analogy between other media or for that matter the cars thing. Incidentally we still have some of those laws, such as curfew. Furthermore, with STD's and teen pregnancy, would we not be better off curtailing opportunities for "immorality" for that matter?

As far as the tax dollars, I'm not entirely sure it would be ruinously expensive to implement. How expensive is it to keep children out of R rated movies? In my state, the theaters pretty much, from my observation, enforce the restrictions, and I've never seen a government employee or police officer keeping their "big brother eye" on them.

Incidentally, working in public health, I can assure you that the government is using resources to encourage a healthy diet and plenty of exercise ( Incidentally, the exercise thing is another strike for video games). In other words, yes, they are trying to make sure he eats like he should.

I THINK HE HAS BEEN PLAYING TOO MANY VIDEO GAMES.

that was funny.



that, and I am glad this guy turned out to be full of it. It somehow justifies my faith in the human race.

Tacobake wrote:I THINK HE HAS BEEN PLAYING TOO MANY VIDEO GAMES.

that was funny.

Who, me, I don't get it.

no, Jack Thompson. Bad influence. etc.

whatever.

No, I'm not getting it. Who's playing too many video games, Jack Thompson? Is that the humor?

yes. It is an example of irony. At least it would be, if I hadn't made it up.

Ah, I see.

Grignard wrote:...does anyone think that he occasionally had a good point that he takes entirely too far in a hateful and insane manner?

No.

Anyone who ignores and/or distorts a parent's responsibility to their children and just cites 'The game made him do it' isn't deserving of time, let alone respect.

Anyone who lies and/or makes distorted claims or conclusions about games that they have no played (and admitted to not playing) deserves nothing but scorn.

Anyone who makes a claim about a certain item, has a judge view that item, then cites that the judge was wrong when the judge does not agree with his pre-conceived conclusion, deserves to be ignored.

Jack Tompson is all of these three.

BYE

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Grignard wrote:...does anyone think that he occasionally had a good point that he takes entirely too far in a hateful and insane manner?

No.

Anyone who ignores and/or distorts a parent's responsibility to their children and just cites 'The game made him do it' isn't deserving of time, let alone respect.

Anyone who lies and/or makes distorted claims or conclusions about games that they have no played (and admitted to not playing) deserves nothing but scorn.

Anyone who makes a claim about a certain item, has a judge view that item, then cites that the judge was wrong when the judge does not agree with his pre-conceived conclusion, deserves to be ignored.

Jack Tompson is all of these three.

BYE

While I more or less agree with you here, I'm not sure I buy the "if you havent done it, you can't judge it" argument. I think someone is perfectly capable of forming opinions if they have been shown the content of, say, a video game, even though they may not have used that medium themselves. For instance, you can play Pac Man and I can watch you play Pac Man, and I believe, though I cannot prove, that both of us would agree that Pac Man involves a player using the controls to move a yellow disc with a mouth through a maze in order to collect dots, all the while avoiding ghosts.

Anyone who lies and/or makes distorted claims or conclusions about games that they have no played (and admitted to not playing) deserves nothing but scorn.

Surely you don't mean this. I can't count the number of times I've talked about how much my favorite American football teams outright SUCKED even though I've never played pro football.

But did you lie when you said they sucked? More importantly, did you watch the game and then said they sucked? If I said that Manchester United sucked but I've never watched them play (I haven't) then that would be foolish.

He didn't say you shouldn't lie about games you've never made, he said you shouldn't lie about games you have never played.

Grignard wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Grignard wrote:...does anyone think that he occasionally had a good point that he takes entirely too far in a hateful and insane manner?

No.

Anyone who ignores and/or distorts a parent's responsibility to their children and just cites 'The game made him do it' isn't deserving of time, let alone respect.

Anyone who lies and/or makes distorted claims or conclusions about games that they have no played (and admitted to not playing) deserves nothing but scorn.

Anyone who makes a claim about a certain item, has a judge view that item, then cites that the judge was wrong when the judge does not agree with his pre-conceived conclusion, deserves to be ignored.

Jack Tompson is all of these three.

BYE

While I more or less agree with you here, I'm not sure I buy the "if you havent done it, you can't judge it" argument. I think someone is perfectly capable of forming opinions if they have been shown the content of, say, a video game, even though they may not have used that medium themselves. For instance, you can play Pac Man and I can watch you play Pac Man, and I believe, though I cannot prove, that both of us would agree that Pac Man involves a player using the controls to move a yellow disc with a mouth through a maze in order to collect dots, all the while avoiding ghosts.

The content at is not what is being judged in these situations though, it is the feelings or thought processes that the interactions provoke. When playing Pac Man does one get hungry? The person observing could say no of course not, but the person playing and physically moving the character to eat the fruits for extra points might be feeling an urge to eat some fruit. That is why I also feel that the 'Don't knock it before you try it' ("If you haven't done it, you can't judge it") argument does indeed hold water. It's like being called a dirty filthy pot-head by someone who has never taken drugs. They have no idea what it offers, good or bad. There are some more extreme examples down that avenue though. Crack can obviously destroy someones life, but someone who has never done crack can't possibly understand what that high feels like, the pain of withdrawal, or the pull of extreme addiction.

And through that logic if you've never actually played a video game and are only shown some very extreme images from it it will evoke different feelings and thought processes from the same individuals. I'd say CJ from GTA San Andreas is a stereotypical drug dealer if I was just seeing him fist fighting druggies. But if you actually play the game CJ is trying to liberate his community from the presence of drugs and is fighting the dealers supplying the drugs and using the drugs. It is now not "this fellow is fighting these other fellows who are high because he can" it is a question of "does this end justify the means?". By actually playing some of these violent video games you will find that the violence is usually never without a story behind it. Just like American wars, without a story behind it, it would look very very bad.

Edit: The game I'm leaving out here when I say usually is that one where your like an escaped convict or something just killing tons of people for no real reason. That game is pure drivel anyway. I don't think anyone who owns it played it past the first few levels. Violence without a story is pretty boring.

Grignard wrote:Do we see moviegoers lament that states enforce an age limit on certain movies? ( actually in Tennessee there was a slight row when they made a law that requires you to be 18 years of age to see a R rated movie without a parent or guardian...the description of the rating says 17+). For the majority of the posters in this thread, would it really affect you if there was a law that forbade the sale or even use of a M rated title for minors excepting parental permission? And if you are under 18 and live in the United States, well, I'm sorry, but the fact is that you do not have certain rights that adults have. If you're parents don't want you playing GTA, or whatever, then you're just going to have to suck it up, in my opinion.

Put yourself in the shoes of a concerned parent. If you don't want your child playing certain games, you're going to feel that you have the right to enforce those rules, and it would be reasonable to expect the laws to help you in doing so. Sure, you take responsibility by monitoring the content of the media your child consumes, but it makes your job a lot harder when some clerk that doesn't give a rat's ass about you sells M titles no questions asked. You can't expect parents to take responsibility when they have no legal tools to do so.

Restrictions on age apropos owning M rated video games is not censorship, it is enabling parents to set boundaries for their children.

The thing is that laws are not necessary and, in general, are just not really that helpful in controlling the content of what kids see. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for parents keeping an eye on their kids and making sure that they are not exposed to things they “shouldn’t” be exposed to. But the thing is that laws are not really the answer. Let’s take a bit of a look at some attempts at this sort of thing. How about the 17 (18) and up age for rated R movies? For the most part, I’ve never seen that enforced. In my young years I was only ever turned away from 2 rated R movies. One was when I tried to rent “Death Stalker 2” when I was 10 and another was trying to see something or another at a movie theater when I was in Jr. High. Other than that, it was clear sailing no matter what the movie was rated. Even in the cases where it is enforced, it is fairly easy to get around by just buying a ticket for a different movie and just going into the “wrong” theater. Really, I think that the law may possibly do more harm than good. Parents drop their kids off at the theater “knowing” they can’t get into a rated R movie rather than going with them to make sure they see what they are supposed to (and making sure they don’t act up in the theater and actually spend some quality time with the kids). This more or less lets them see anything they want. *shrug*

Let’s look at something else…porn. Now in the US, you can’t buy porn till your 18, the age may vary in other countries but most seem to have an age requirement of some sort. Now, raise your hand if you were 18 (or your locally dictated age) or older before you saw any porn. Anyone? No? Didn’t think so. Do you think you are the only one who got a hold of it before you were “of age”? It happens all the time. As a matter of fact, I expect it. Any 13 year old boy worth his salt has got some pictures (often digital these days) of naked chicks stashed away somewhere. And if by some chance he doesn’t, you can bet he has a friend that does. So what has the law accomplished? Has it protected our fragile teen age boys from seeing female genitalia before their governmentally dictated coming of age? No, it hasn’t. All it has really done is make the whole thing more of a rite of passage and a lesson in subversiveness (although the current ease of internet access is making it much easier than the old school acquisition of a nudie mag). Perhaps those are valuable lessons and something everyone should learn, but it seems like this is a silly way to do it. Still, the fact of the matter is that if, as a parent, you want to control what your children are exposed to, you need to do it. You can not rely on the false sense of security that laws and regulations provide because they simply don’t work. The only thing that does work is actually overseeing your children and being involved in what they do.

Another important point that someone else brought up is that not all parents set the same limits for their kids. You might have strict control over your child’s audio-video exposure, but their friends’ parents might have loser/different limits. So while you may not allow your child to own an M rated game or an R rated movie, other parents might not have the same restrictions and your child’s friends might have said forbidden items. Now, if you’ve taken the “You’re not 18 so you can’t have M/R rated stuff, end of story.” stance, you’re screwed. The kid will have access to the contraband and it’s completely up to them to decide what to do about it at that point. Or let’s say you miraculously manage to keep away all the nasty bad M/R rated things till the child turns 18. Then what? All of a sudden all of that taboo material is OK now because the law says they are old enough to buy it now. Is that the message you really want these young people to have? Now you are welcome to argue the point since it certainly a matter of opinion, but it would seem that it would be much better to allow them to be exposed to these things under situations you can control as a parent and to discuss them with your children. Make sure they understand violence is wrong, sex requires responsibility, and all the other assorted important lessons that need to be learned about the various subjects that make these things objectionable material for children in the first place. It puts things in context and you can make sure that they draw the proper conclusions.

Phoenix wrote:...but it would seem that it would be much better to allow them to be exposed to these things under situations you can control as a parent and to discuss them with your children. Make sure they understand violence is wrong, sex requires responsibility, and all the other assorted important lessons that need to be learned about the various subjects that make these things objectionable material for children in the first place. It puts things in context and you can make sure that they draw the proper conclusions.

AMEN. How about parents take responsibility and actually take an interest (or at least notice) what their kids are into, and then do some parenting, rather than letting the government raise your children for you.

WORD!
you hit the proverbial nail in the head there, Phoenix, I couldn't have said it better.

Well, it gets better folks.

Hopefully this will come to pass.

BYE

Grignard wrote:While I more or less agree with you here, I'm not sure I buy the "if you havent done it, you can't judge it" argument.

Not quite what this is about, it's more a case of:

Jack Tompson: This game contains XYZ and should not allowed to be sold [insert random crap about being a Christian and protecting 'the childrens']
Judge: Fine then, I'll view the game.
*views the game*
Judge: Ok, I have viewed the game, and I could not see XYZ in it. I, personally, wouldn't want my children playing this, but I can see no reason why it should not go on sale.
Jack Tompson: You're wrong and I'm suing you. The blood of 'the childrens' is on your hands.

Grignard wrote:I think someone is perfectly capable of forming opinions if they have been shown the content of, say, a video game, even though they may not have used that medium themselves.

But that's just the thing. He hasn't viewed it. He hasn't played it. He got a judge to play it so the judge would see his point... and the judge disagreed with him.

BYE

One thing I don't like about video games these days are all the proganda pro-American millitary stuff!!! I would love to play a game where i am a resistance fighter combating the Americans!