Gaming industry asked to victimize themselves for charity

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Frank Wales <frank () limov com>
Date: October 12, 2005 5:08:14 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Gaming industry asked to victimize themselves for charity


Dave, for IP, perhaps.

Lawyer Jack Thomson proposes a videogame industry
bludgeon-fest as a new game scenario, in an apparent
attempt to taunt the videogame business into proving
that videogames don't influence violent behaviour:
  http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5883


Attorney Proposes Violent Game

October 10, 2005

by: Matt Saunderson

Jack Thompson will give $10,000 to charity if any videogame company  
makes
and releases a game based on a scenario he created. Miami, Florida  
Attorney
Jack Thompson, a long-time outspoken critic of violent and sexually  
explicit
videogames, has done something totally unexpected. Thompson today  
actually
proposed a violent videogame, and will pay $10,000 to the favorite  
charity
of Paul Eibeler (the Chairman of Take-Two Interactive) if any videogame
company will "create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game  
in 2006"
based on a scenario he created.

Thompson's proposal is titled A Modest Video Game Proposal and has  
been sent
to members of the press and apparantly to Douglas Lowenstein,  
President of the ESA.

Here's Thompson's proposal (italics are his, not ours):

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule

This writer has been saying for seven years that violent video games
can be "murder simulators" that incite as well as train some  
obsessive teen players to be violent.

I've been on 60 Minutes and in Reader's Digest this year explaining  
how an
Alabama teen, with no criminal record, shot two policemen and a  
dispatcher
in their heads and fled in a police car--a scenario he rehearsed for  
hundreds
of hours on Take-Two/Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto video games.

I have sat with boys in jail cells, their lives over because of murder
convictions, after they, with no history of violence, have killed  
innocents
while in a dreamlike state. Said one cop who investigated such a murder
in Grand Rapids, Michigan: "The killing was like an extension of the  
game."

The video game industry, through its lawyers, its spokesmen, and its  
head
lobbyist, Doug Lowenstein, the president of the Entertainment Software
Association, all say it is utter nonsense to suggest that what is dumped
into a kid's head hour after hour, day after day, year after year, could
possibly have behavioral consequences. Cigarette ads can persuade kids
to smoke, but interactive simulators in which these same kids punch,  
hack,
bludgeon, and maim affect not a wit their attitudes and behaviors,
notwithstanding the findings of the American Psychological Association,
published in August 2005.

The video game industry says Sticks and stones can break my bones,  
but games
can never hurt me. Fine. I have a modest proposal for the video game  
industry.
I'll write a check for $10,000 to the favorite charity of Take-Two  
Interactive
Software, Inc's chairman, Paul Eibeler - a man Bernard Goldberg ranks  
as #43
in his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America - if any video  
game company
will create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006 like
the following:

Osaki Kim is the father of a high school boy beaten to death with a  
baseball
bat by a 14-year-old gamer. The killer obsessively played a violent  
video
game in which one of the favored ways of killing is with a bat. The  
opening
scene, before the interactive game play begins, is the Los Angeles  
courtroom
in which the killer is sentenced "only" to life in prison after the  
judge
and the jury have heard experts explain the connection between the  
game and the murder.

Osaki Kim (O.K.) exits the courtroom swearing revenge upon the video  
game industry
whom he is convinced contributed to his son's murder. "Vengeance is  
mine, I
will repay" he says. And boy, is O.K. not kidding.

O.K. is provided in his virtual reality playpen a panoply of weapons:  
machetes,
Uzis, revolvers, shotguns, sniper rifles, Molotov cocktails, you name  
it.
Even baseball bats. Especially baseball bats.

O.K. first hops a plane from LAX to New York to reach the Long Island  
home of
the CEO of the company (Take This) that made the murder simulator on  
which his
son's killer trained. O.K. gets "justice" by taking out this female  
CEO, whose
name is Paula Eibel, along with her husband and kids. "An eye for an  
eye,"
says O.K., as he urinates onto the severed brain stems of the Eibel  
family
victims, just as you do on the decapitated cops in the real video  
game Postal2.

O.K. then works his way, methodically back to LA by car, but on his  
way makes
a stop at the Philadelphia law firm of Blank, Stare and goes floor by  
floor
to wipe out the lawyers who protect Take This in its wrongful death  
law suits.
"So sue me" O.K. spits, with singer Jackson Brown's 1980's hit  
Lawyers in Love blaring.

With the FBI now after him, O.K. keeps moving westward, shooting up  
high-tech
video arcades called GameWerks. "Game over," O.K. laughs.

Of course, O.K. makes the obligatory runs to virtual versions of  
brick and
mortar retailers Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Wal-Mart to steal
supplies and bludgeon store managers and cash register clerks. "You  
should
have checked kids' IDs!"

O.K. pushes on to Los Angeles. He must get there by May 10, 2006.  
That is
the beginning of "E3" -- the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- the  
Super Bowl
of the video game industry. O.K. must get to E3 to massacre all the  
video game
industry execs with one final, monstrously delicious rampage.

How about it, video game industry? I've got the check and you've got  
the tech.
It's all a fantasy, right? No harm can come from such a game, right?  
Go ahead,
video game moguls. Target yourselves as you target others. I dare you.

Jack Thompson is a Miami lawyer who has for 18 years been involved in  
efforts
to stop the marketing of adult entertainment to minors.

It is unlikely that Thompson's proposal will actually be turned into  
a game,
as most videogame companies do not simply accept proposals from  
individuals.
We'll keep you updated, however, as it is very likely that there will  
be some
sort of response to Thompson's proposal from members of the videogame  
industry.

--
Frank Wales [frank () limov com]


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