Jack Thompson is a Maimi Lawyer who has been waging a public war on violent media over the last 14 years. I intend to compile a page of his appearences in order to act as a resource for the video game industry and gaming media, in order to analyse his tactics, his motives and as a general collection of the conversations between him and “us”.

I do not intend to apply any kind of opinion on this page, I will keep it as objective as possible.

I encourage anyone responding to his immature and imbarassing publicity stunts to stay on the level and avoid the temptation of lowering themselves to his level. Keep it mature and stay on the intellectual side of the argument.

I will amass a list of links and references to build this page with below, and add abstracts for each link as I summon the writing skill to do so;

A Modest Video Game Proposal

Jack Thompson proposed that if someone built and released a game based on his idea, he would donate $10,000 to a charity of the choice of Paul Eibeler, the big man at Take Two (the creators of the Grand Theft Auto Series, which is discussed later in this article). His proposal, as was reported by Joystiq;

Essentially, the game involves Osaki Kim, a father whose son was “beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14-year-old gamer.” The guilty party was “only” sentenced to life, even after finding a connection to video games and the murder, so O.K. (as Thompson abbreviates) goes on a killing spree to avenge his son – he kills the publisher (Take This, a not-so-subtle reference to San Andreas publisher Take Two), followed by all parties involved in the trial, merchants of GameStop-like store and arcades – and, of course, any cops that get in his way.

(The full proposal is available at GameCube Advanced).

A GTA San Andreas Mod was released shortly thereafter which was similar is theme to the proposal offered by Mr Thompson. Again from Joystiq;

A team of GTA modders called the Fighting Hellfish has created a San Andreas mod for the PC that Jack Thompson could have designed—that is, if he included himself as the vengeful father he proposed earlier, on a murderous rampage through the video-game industry. And there you have the story of JT and his Banman alter ego in Defamation of Character: A Jack Thompson Murder Simulator.

Being notified of the creation of the mod by it creators, the Fighting Hellfish, Thompson was quoted as saying (from Game Politics);

Reached for comment, Jack Thompson e-mailed GP, “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…”

A presumptuous statement, assuming members of the video game community are not well read.

Taking this statement of “satire”, Penny arcade decided that a promise of charity should be fulfilled, and decided to submit a donation of $10,000 to the The Entertainment Software Association Foundation, furthermore they made the donation in Thompson’s name;

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.

(More on this donation from Joystiq, Slashdot and Gamespot).

Joystiq also produced a summary of games attempting to fulfill Thompson’s proposal;

The makers of Zork Thompson even did a folow-up call with the imfamous attorney. Jack Thompson again declined to make good on his offer to donate $10K to Paul Eibeler’s (Take-Two CEO) favorite charity. Oh well.

Upon hearing of the donation from Penny-Arcade, Thompson notified the Washington State Police in an attempt to have either Jerry or Mike (aka Tycho and Gabe) arrested. To quote Tycho;

The “campaign of harassment” he is describing is the natural result of a public figure making statements that people disagree with, and letting him know their thoughts on the matter via his publically available contact information.

It is critical to establish that this letter isn’t anything to worry about. We’ve been sent worse by better.

There’s a summary of this round over at Game Politics, and a lot more comments over in this Slashdot thread.

Jackson goes to the feds over the PA thing;
http://www.livejournal.com/users/gamepolitics/112527.html

Incidents yet to be summarised

Jackson calls for truce with VSDA and IEMA, with condition that they proclaim him god;
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000647064454/
Desperate….

The National Institute on Media and the Family saga;
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27019

VG Cats’ interaction with JT;
http://www.vgcats.com/jack.php

Game Girl Advance’s take on the situation;
http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2005/10/17/men_among_smaller_men.html

Thompsons’s stopkill site;
http://www.stopkill.com/

Slashdot article on the 10K fiasco;
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/17/1750203&from=RSS

Not Jack Thompson;
http://notjackthompson.blogspot.com/

And the discussion associated with that icon;
http://gr.bolt.com/articles/jack/jack.htm

CBS Interview:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/tech/gamecore/main676446.shtml

Twisted Moneky’s take:
http://www.twistedmonkey.net/index.php/2005/10/17/of-demagogues-and-men/

Wikipedia Entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_%28attorney%29

CTRL+ALT+DEL’s comics on Jack;
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2005-10-12
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2005-08-08