Well, I haven't posted much of late, but keep seeing one particular story popping up. I feel compelled to throw my $0.02 in, because it involves a particular passion of mine - videogames. A word of warning... this may be my longest post yet.
First off, a little bit about myself (the reason for which shall become clear momentarily): I'm an adult, married and a father of two. I turn 40 next year. I have a bachelor's degree and I'm a professional in the IT field. I don't drink much, I *certainly* don't do drugs. Hell, I don't even smoke cigarettes. The worst vice I have is the occasional donut.
And I play videogames.
I don't claim to be the sharpest tool in the shed -- I'm a country boy from West Virginia, at heart. I may not be eloquent, but I can generally get my point across.
But if you were to listen to one Jack Thompson, Florida attorney, you'd think I was the spawn of Satan -- evil incarnate. Why?
Because I play videogames.
Jack is of the opinion that the cause of violence in today's world is sex and violence in entertainment. For some reason, he has singled out videogames as a root cause. He's referred to Microsoft's Bill Gates as "a guy whose[sic] Halo trained Malvo to kill in D.C." He's accused the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), an industry body who rates videogames to help parents make appropriate choices for their children, of being "in the middle of a criminal conspiracy to distribute sexual material harmful to minors". He's accused the president of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) of being "a Nazi". Of course, this simply isn't a matter of keeping violent games out of the hands of children -- he wants to utterly destroy the entire industry.
Ho-kay. So he has a beef with the videogame industry. Admittedly, there are some pretty violent games out there, GTA San Andreas being just one example. As a father, I don't let my children play these games, because in my opinion they're not age-appropriate. The ESRB ratings help me determine that, but I also investigate the merits of a game on my own. After all, if I'm plunking $50 on a title, I don't want one that sucks.
No, the problem with Jack isn't his beliefs or opinions - he's entitled to those. The problem is his attitude and his methods. He spouts questionable statistics to support his position. He has difficulty carrying on any sort of meaningful discussion and debate without devolving into name-calling. Anyone with even a passing interest in gaming is immediately discredited -- at best an ignorant fool and at worst an antisocial psychopath. He responds to criticism not with debate and discourse, but with obnoxious e-mails, harassing phone calls, and threats of civil and criminal prosecution. Apparently he doesn't feel his ideals and beliefs are strong enough to stand on their own - for some reason he feels the need to squash any dissent through insults, ad hominem attacks and coercion.
I won't go into the specific examples -- a Google of his name or a look at his Wikipedia article is enlightenment enough. Needless to say he's invited the verbal wrath of the gaming community. Notable webcomics such as Penny Arcade, Ctrl-Alt-Del and VG Cats have poked fun at Jack. Yet he continues on unfazed.
Recently, he's lost the support of other organizations who share his goals. David Walsh, founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family, has written an open letter denouncing Jack's tactics, and have asked him to remove the link to their website from his web page. His response? A personal attack against Walsh in an open letter of his own. Nice way to make friends and influence people, Jack.
Within the past week, Jack has offered to donate $10,000 to charity as part of his "Modest Videogame Proposal" if someone were to create a game involving the murder of videogame industry executives and employees. In a wry twist, within days of the proposal, GTA modding group The Fighting Hellfish wrote a mod for GTA San Andreas meeting his criteria, and even making Jack himself the central character. There has even been at least one case where a text-based adventure game (ala Zork) was written to his specs. Jack's response was to withdraw the charity donation offer, claiming the whole proposal was "satire".
Sorry, Jack, but as oblivious as you are to all the fun being poked at you I don't think you'd recognize satire if it jumped out of a paper bag and slapped you in the face.
The story has a happy ending, though. Mike Krahulik (AKA "Gabe") and Jerry Holkins (AKA "Tycho"), of the webcomic Penny Arcade and founders of the charity Child's Play, has this very day donated $10,000 to the charitable arm of the ESA in Jack's name. Bravo, guys.
As for myself, do I play violent videogames? Sure. A good Halo deathmatch now and then with some friends can relieve quite a bit of stress. I'm a bit of an old-school gamer though... to this day I still have fun playing Duke Nukem or the original Doom. Do I go postal and shoot up my workplace, though? No, I don't. I don't even play violent games exclusively... my current obsession is a PS2 roleplaying game called Xenosaga. Some of my favorites are old-school titles like Asteroids, Gyruss, Galaga, and Defender. Heck, I even enjoy a nice game of Tetris now and then. Yet this somehow makes me a cold-blooded killer in Jack's eyes. Go fig.
Apparently, Jack has been known to crawl the Internet looking for people who have the temerity to speak out against him. Well, Jack, if you stumble across my little corner of the 'net, feel free to drop me a line, ok? You can find my e-mail address in my Blogger profile.
In any case, my congratulations go out to you as the latest recipient of virtualoak.net's Asshat of the Week award. Wear it in good health, sir.
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