And Jack Thompson has Officially Lost It...

[Warlock]

http://gamepolitics.com/2007/05/08/hey-jack-you-want-fries-with-that/


Not content to sue (so far this year) the Florida Bar, the Florida Supreme Court, GTA publisher Take-Two Interactive and leading gaming blog Kotaku, game-hatin’ barrister Jack Thompson has focused on a new target, burger franchise Wendy’s.

In the latest issuance from his nonstop e-mail machine, Thompson turns his attention to Wendy’s CEO Kerri Anderson. What’s Thompson’s gripe? Obesity? Cholesterol? The Frostys are too thick to suck through a straw?

Nah. It’s Rockstar’s upcoming Manhunt 2. So just what is Wendy’s connection with Manhunt 2? There isn’t one, unless you connect the dots the way Jack Thompson connects the dots.

With essentially no one left to sue, Thompson has latched onto a Wendy’s promotional tie-in with Nintendo Wii toys (pictured at left). The issue seems to be that:


a.) Manhunt 2 is what Thompson calls a “murder simulator”

b.) Manhunt 2 will appear on the Wii (among other systems)

c.) Wendy’s is promoting the Wii, therefore;

d.) Wendy’s is promoting Manhunt 2, which promotes murder

Thompson also claims to have the inside track on what deceased Wendy’ founder Dave Thomas would have wanted in this regard:


A dear friend of mine worked for Wendy’s and with Dave Thomas closely for years. From that I know that Dave Thomas never would have tolerated the use of Wendy’s good name to promote Nintendo’s Wii, not with this game available on the Wii platform.

So, second hand, friend-of-a-friend info on the inner thoughts of a dead guy. Is that what passes for evidence in Thompson’s world these days?

Funny, though. None of the toys depicted on the Wendy’s site seem to be from Manhunt 2. In fact, they all look rather E-rated.

Just to be clear here, Thompson has neither sued nor has he threatened to sue Wendy’s. However, he has been making noises of late about an international movement to block the publication of Manhunt 2, with details coming next week. Sounds to GP as though Thompson and British Parliamentarian Keith Vaz, another Manhunt critic, will be teaming up. Hahaha.. this is so rediculously stupid. What's next? Is he going to sue Wal-mart, Target, Best Buy, etc for selling "Murder machines"?

[Aegix Drakan]

*stares with jaw dropped*

*insert long silence*

w...
...T...
......F...

0_o How the heck is this guy still a lawyer? He oughta be disbarred for plain insanity.

Sueing Wendy's for selling Wii-related pruducts...because of one game coming out for the wii?

...oh for...he's not even funny anymore.

[Warlock]

Someone in the comments on that article said he should next sue Burger King for the Xbox 360 games (Manhunt 2 is on Xbox 360) and promoting Spongebob because Spongebob is on DVD and DVD Players can be used to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre.. lol

[Beldaran]

I've just recieved word that Jack Thompson has sued God because of all the people he murdered in the Old Testament. He is also suing Catholicism, Islam, his penis, Chairman Mao, Eddie Guerrero, his mother, Jesus, Alan Alda, and a homeless person who gave him a mean glare.

In other news, I've just recieved word that Jack Thompson is a moldy cock with no brain.

[Aegix Drakan]

Actually Beldaran...

He wouldn't sue any of those people becasue no matter what they did, they aren't promoting video games.


If there was a guy who watched the Chainsaw Masssacre, and killed a hundred little kids, and on the other hand, one gamer who punched someone, JT would rather jump on the case of the gamer.

why? Because he's not interested in preventing violence. He just wants to ban all video games because he's deluded himself into thinking that THEY are the problem.

but they aren't. the problem is weak minded humans who can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

Seriously, someone needs to commit him, before he takes matters into his own hands and tries to blow up a gaming company.

[mrz84]

JT was once funny. Now, he just comes off as a loser with too much free time. I agree that someone should lock him up or something before he loses what little sanity he still has (if he hasn't already that is) and does something he'll regret, which apparently he hasn't done yet.

[Warlock]

JT was once funny. Now, he just comes off as a loser with too much free time. I agree that someone should lock him up or something before he loses what little sanity he still has (if he hasn't already that is) and does something he'll regret, which apparently he hasn't done yet.

I could see video games causing JT to end up shooting someone :P

[mrz84]

I could see video games causing JT to end up shooting someone :P

I actually could see that happening.

[Plissken]

Is he seriously that bored or insane?

[*b*]

Is he seriously that bored or insane?

I think it's some horribly twisted combination of the two

What was that last game he tried to get banned, and it was released anyway? You'd think he'd learn he can't do a damn thing, other than make himself into more of a cunt than he already is, about what games are released. If anything, he's making them more popular by bitching about them

[Warlock]

I think it's some horribly twisted combination of the two

What was that last game he tried to get banned, and it was released anyway? You'd think he'd learn he can't do a damn thing, other than make himself into more of a cunt than he already is, about what games are released. If anything, he's making them more popular by bitching about them

Well someone once compared him to an ambulence chaser. Everytime there is a school shooting or any tragic event, he's always there to blame it on video games. He likes all the media attention it gets him I think. So he will say crazy outlandish crap because the stupid people of the world believe him and put him on TV for it.

[Plissken]

Heh so I guess he just needs some love. XD

[mrz84]

Heh so I guess he just needs some love. XD

If he's after love, then shouldn't he go to his wife and not do what he does with the video game industry? Unless he's impotent. :kitty:

[ShadowTiger]

Someone needs to take the game to him, and do something like criticize his clothes, and claim that in wearing the clothing he's wearing, he's empowering slave labor in Asian countries. Wear him down like that until he's wearing a smock of leaves he's tied together with celery strands. Then unleash the hippies upon him.

... er ...

He's just taking it too far, is all. Needs to see himself from the perspective he's preaching.

Yeah. :sweat:

[Pineconn lolz]

Eventually this stuff will stop. In the meantime, it hasn't hurt much (to my knowlage).

I'm just waiting for this guy to get publicly humilated. No one seems to have the intelligence/position/guts to do it ATM.

[Pineconn]

Eventually this stuff will stop. In the meantime, it hasn't hurt much (to my knowlage).

I'm just waiting for this guy to get publicly humilated. No one seems to have the intelligence/position/guts to do it ATM.

Are you kidding me? He publicly humiliates himself. :mega:

[Pineconn lolz]

He does, yes, but he still doesn't back down. He doesn't apologize. He doesn't admit he's wrong. He keeps on fighting. Someone has to break him.

I want to see him cry :)

[Orion]

I kinda wish Rockstar wouldn't have dropped the charges against him. They were trying to get him disbarred, but I think they agreed to stop pursuing that if he would stop pursuing trying to block the sales of their games.

At least no judge is stupid enough to listen to him.

[KJAZZ]

Jack Thompson has just been really annoying and ridiculous for a long, long time. And as long as people keep talking about him, he'll keep popping up in the news. Everybody just needs to start ignoring him, and eventually he'll go away.

[4matsy]

And Jack Thompson has Officially Lost It...
...Lost it? :laughing:

He can't lose what he obviously never had to begin with. :p

[Pineconn lolz]

...Lost it? :laughing:

He can't lose what he obviously never had to begin with. :p\

Well said, my good man. Well said.

[{DSG}DarkRaven]

I've just recieved word that Jack Thompson has sued God because of all the people he murdered in the Old Testament. He is also suing Catholicism, Islam, his penis, Chairman Mao, Eddie Guerrero, his mother, Jesus, Alan Alda, and a homeless person who gave him a mean glare.

I can honestly, in some bizzare way, understand the others, but why poor old Alan Alda? This only concerns me because I'm afraid it may hurt my chances of picking up old seasons of MASH on DVD in the future.

Seriously, though, somebody should make a freeware Jack Thompson killing game. We can all laugh when it gets IGN's game of the year and Jack sues Al Gore for inventing the internet.

[Aegix Drakan]

Actually...they already did something like that.

JT dared the game making companies to make a game in which the target was video game designers (the story he wanted was that you play a dad whose son died at the hands of a gamer who played too much, and went on a killing spree against th egame making companies). JT also said he would donata a lot of cash to the copmany's favourite charity if they made tha game.

Well, someone did. It was apparently some kind of game with Jack thompson as the psycho attacking th egame makers. Needless to say, he wasn't pleased, and refused to hold up his end of the bet. Penny arcade decided to donate money to a charity instead though.

I DOUBT you could find it anymore...

[{DSG}DarkRaven]

Actually...they already did something like that. Etc.


I remember that, but I didn't think that Jack was caricaturized in any way within the game.

[Darth Marsden]

I DOUBT you could find it anymore...
A challenge? I accept, good sir!

...ok, this took me 2 minutes to dig up. Hell, it took me longer to cut and paste it here. For the record, all of this is taken from Wikipedia - the link is right here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Video_Game_Proposal). I recommend you read it, it's pretty interesting and, surprisingly, impartial, merely pointing out the events that occurred.

A Modest Video Game Proposal

A Modest Video Game Proposal is the title of an open letter sent by attorney/activist Jack Thompson to members of the press and to Entertainment Software Association president Doug Lowenstein on October 10, 2005. He proposed that, if someone could "create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006" that allows players to play the scenario he has written, he will donate $10,000 to the charity of Take Two's chairman Paul Eibeler's choosing. The title of the letter alludes to Jonathan Swift's classic 18th century satire: A Modest Proposal.

Thompson was unaware that Running With Scissors, Inc. had already released a commercial first person shooter, Postal², in which the player could massacre the employees of Running With Scissors, including its CEO, Vince Desi, and actor Gary Coleman. Before that, some games had the game company buildings as Easter eggs, sometimes destroyable by the player (for example, MechWarrior 2 features the Activision headquarters in some levels), and Doom II even had the player essentially kill id Software developer John Romero in the final boss battle of the game.

Thompson's letter describes a game whose protagonist is Osaki Kim, the father of a high school boy beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14-year-old gamer who played a game about beating people to death with a bat. The game intro shows the court session where the killer is sentenced to "only" life in prison.

Osaki Kim then swears vengeance, and gets weapons, "even baseball bats. Especially baseball bats." Kim goes to New York to kill Paula Eibel, the CEO of "Take This", the company that made the "murder simulator on which his son's killer trained", along with her husband and kids, then urinates on their severed brain stems (as in Postal²). Kim then kills the lawyers of "Blank, Stare", the law firm that defended Take This, "with singer Jackson Browne's 1980's hit Lawyers in Love blaring." Kim then destroys high-tech video arcades called "GameWerks". Lastly, he goes to E³ on its opening at May 10, 2006, destroying all video game industry execs in "one final, monstrously delicious rampage".

Along the way, Kim steals supplies from Best Buy, Circuit City, Target and Wal-Mart stores, and roughes up store managers and clerks, yelling "'You should have checked kids' IDs!'"

Defamation of Character: A Jack Thompson Murder Simulator

A group of modders known as the Fighting Hellfish (The name is taken from an episode of The Simpsons.) had released exactly one week prior a mod for the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, called Defamation of Character: A Jack Thompson Murder Simulator. The mod features Jack Thompson himself acting out a remarkably similar scenario, at one point even assassinating Doug Lowenstein. Acting under hypnosis, Thompson moonlights as Banman and takes to the streets in his Bannedwagon to destroy the entire shipment of Rockstar's Bully before it reaches distribution. Jack later assassinates Janet Reno after thwarting her coup, which forces him to confront the realization that his time spent researching violent games has turned him into his own "Manchurian Candidate". Although the team never asked him to donate the money, Thompson refused to when he discovered that the game existed. Initially he claimed that the game did not meet his criteria but later claimed that his proposal was satire and said that he would not donate the $10,000.

Thompson argued that the game had to be released in 2006, that Paul Eibeler had yet to pick a charity, and that the game had to be released by a company, not thrown together by "anyone in a garage". Oddly, despite his former claim that his proposal was satire, he claimed the offer was still valid, and that only the description of the scenario was satire, the offer to donate money was real.

I'm O.K. - A Murder Simulator

In response to the 'Modest Proposal', a team "Consisting of 3 alcoholics and a foreign exchange student" formed a company called Thompsonsoft and created I'm O.K - A Murder Simulator in January 2006.

The game is based on the description of the 'Modest Proposal', and features several weapons. The story follows a disgruntled father of a killing victim who takes his revenge upon the games industry, which he blames for 'training' the man who killed his son. The father begins a spree of murders in retaliation, attacking the offices of "Take This," who made the game, and killing the chairman "Paula Eibel" and her family. The father then begins a road trip across the states, back to Los Angeles, then assaulting the law firm "Blank, Stare" who represent "Take This" and various gaming arcades and games stores before arriving at E3 and completing a "monstrously delicious rampage" on the participants. Thompson argued that the game industry would never make such a game, in which the targets are virtual representations of themselves, for fear of turning players into their own killers. Jack Thompson later claimed that the game didn't come close to his Proposal, although other than the fact that Take Two CEO Paul Eibeler hasn't officially picked a charity, he hasn't gone into detail as to what parts of his Proposal are yet to be satisfied. He also announced that "the attorneys for these idiots will be contacted." Thompsonsoft has since moved to a more stable web server, imokgame.com, and reports that their lawyers have not been contacted. Thompsonsoft claimed their original web host dropped them after having been threatened with legal action.

Penny Arcade

On October 17, 2005, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade donated the promised $10,000 to charity on Jack Thompson's behalf. Krahulik and Holkins donated the money, under Thompson's name, to the ESA Foundation, the charitable arm of the Entertainment Software Association. Thompson e-mailed both Penny Arcade and Joystiq, who ran a story about the donation, demanding that the articles be taken down "or else." The check was presented to the ESA Foundation at an ESAF fundraising dinner in San Francisco; in its memo line was written: "For Jack Thompson Because Jack Thompson Won't".

In retaliation, Jack Thompson faxed a letter to Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, requesting assistance in halting the activities of Krahulik and Holkins. In his letter, he described how personnel within Penny Arcade were harassing him: the sale of an "I Hate Jack Thompson" shirt and frequent postings on their website where they allegedly admitted to harassment.

According to GameSpot, as of 9:55AM PDT October 18, 2005, the Seattle Police Department had not received Thompson's fax, which at that point had been sent to GameSpot, Penny Arcade, and other sites. Thompson emailed GameSpot, claiming that he had fixed the URL for Penny Arcade (which was incorrect in the original fax) and faxed the letter, commenting, "They have it now." Thompson also told GameSpot that he was not a "pixelated piñata in a game." He ended by saying that the "moral midgets" at Penny Arcade had chosen "the wrong target" and "I've been at this longer than he has." These vague threats have been deemed "nothing to worry about" by Penny Arcade. The Seattle Police Department confirmed to GameSpot on October 21 that they had received a complaint from Thompson.

On October 21, 2005, Thompson claimed to have sent a letter to John McKay, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, in an attempt to get the FBI involved. Thompson reiterated his claims of "extortion" and accuses Penny Arcade of using "their Internet site and various other means to encourage and solicit criminal harassment". Penny Arcade denies the charge of "extortion", noting that they paid the $10,000 to charity, and are asking nothing in return.

Thompson also contacted the office of Washington State Legislature Representative Mary Lou Dickerson, and her office confirms they asked John McKay to look into the matter. Thompson has not clarified how he is being "extorted," but accuses Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik of soliciting Florida Bar complaints against him through Mike posting the Florida Bar's link on Penny Arcade's website. The link, however, is in a post asking fans to stop sending letters to the Bar because the Bar is fully aware of the current situation.

On October 27, 2005, the Seattle PD acknowledged receipt of Thompson's complaint, although after the initial reading of the letter they noted that the complaint appeared to be a civil, rather than criminal matter. They passed the letter on to the chief of their criminal investigations bureau for review.

Joystiq

On April 4, 2006, Thompson commented on the online gaming blog Joystiq, suggesting a game in which the editors and writers for the blog were murdered. Thompson claimed that being targeted would let the writers know what it felt like to be a police officer or woman after the release of Grand Theft Auto.

Joystiq challenged its readers to develop such a game over the course of several weeks, and offered a prize of merchandise. Photos of each staff member were provided. Nothing as of yet has come of this challenge.

The Games

Defamation of Character: A Jack Thompson Murder Simulator (http://files.moddb.com/663/download-defamation-of-character-patch/) (The official website doesn't seem to be working properly)

I'm O.K. - A Murder Simulator (http://www.derekyu.com/games.html)


...I think I win this one.

[mrz84]

Funny. JT is such an idiot. :kitty:

[Aegix Drakan]

...I think I win this one.

*does Phoenix Wright's wince and sweating animation*

I think I've just been owned...XD

[Cloral]

Let's end this thread. JT doesn't deserve any attention at all, whether it be good or bad. He doesn't have that much value as a person.