Miami lawyer and games industry critic Jack Thompson has backed down from his recent proposal to the games industry, in which me promised to donate $10,000 to charity if a developer created a violent game to his specification. The move comes after GTA modders created a mod based on this scenario.
In an email to GamePolitics, Thompson explains his position, together with the blanket insults towards gamers that we've come to expect.
I'm not interested and won't be commenting on the mod. The satirical piece entitled 'A Modest Video Game Proposal' was intended to highlight the patent hypocrisy and recklessness exhibited by the video game industry's willingness to target cops, women, homosexuals, and other groups with some of their violent games. To be fair, though, you can't expect a bunch of gamers to understand the satire if they think that Jonathon Swift, the author of 'A Modest Proposal,' is the name of a new Nike running shoe...
...I will say this though, the 'video game community' (what's next, 'the necromancy community'?) surely seems exercised about someone who is a 'joke' and who is accomplishing nothing. You all seem rather bothered and worried about a nonentity. God is in this battle, and I am privileged to be a foot soldier. You all should be concerned, not about me, but about Him.
Following this statement and their recent run-in with Thompson, Gabe and Tycho of popular webcomic Penny Arcade have donated $10,000 in Thompson's stead.
It was only a matter of time until a mod team took Jack Thompson's disgusting revenge fantasy and made it flesh - and, just as I suggested, it was deemed insufficient.
Thompson now claims that his repellent suggestion was "satire," and we must conclude that his financial offer was also satire, some new breed of satire apparently that I'm sure is just hilarious to people in need.
You know what, Jack? We're going to be the men you're not. You said that your insulting, illusory ten thousand dollars would go to the charity of Paul Eibeler's choice. We've got a good guess that he'd direct your nonexistant largesse toward The Entertainment Software Association Foundation, a body that has raised over six point seven million dollars over the last eight years. We've just made the donation you never would, and never meant to. Ten thousand dollars' worth. And we made it in your name.
UPDATE 10:50 EDT: Jack Thompson has responded with threats of legal action against PA, and has even complained to the Seattle Police Department, making no secret of his desire to shut down Penny Arcade and/or have Tycho/Gabe arrested.
Below is an excerpt from the letter faxed to Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske.
A Seattle business by the name of Penny Arcade... employs certain personnel who have decided to commence and orchestrate criminal harassment of me by various means... This company has done this because I dared to go on CBS's 60 Minutes in March and again in July to explain a wrongful death lawsuit I have brought on behalf of two police officers and a police dispatcher in Fayette, Alabama, who were shot in the head and killed by Devin Moore who obsessively trained on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to kill them.
As you may know, this incredibly violent Rockstar Games product is actually a 'cop-killing' murder simulator. There are a bunch of computer geeks out there who think that the video game industry has a constitutional right to paint a bullseye on your back and on your officers' backs... That is what this criminal harassment of me by Penny Arcade is all about. They're even selling an 'I Hate Jack Thompson' t-shirt, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. These idiots have been so careless as to post on their www.pennyarcade.com (sic) web site what they are doing regarding the harassment of me.
I look forward to working with your fine Police Department to shut this little extortion factory down and/or arrest some of its employees.
Thanks to GamePolitics for this latest update and the excerpt above.
