[General Discussion] My father goes to town on Jack Thompson

Good god. Thompson strikes again. I don't mind Adam Sessler either, Kurado, but he did act a little unprofessional in that interview. Granted, he was defending what he believes, but he also just took on (especially in that last little bit where he was screaming "Kevin! Kevin!") the physical embodiment of the "lol jak tompsen is g4y. wut a f4git." mentality that will not lead to any victories.

To that though, I'll applaud Mark Friedler for his behavior. He maintained a professional stance and spoke accordingly. I too liked his discussion of parents involvement with their children and he mentioned the behavior of his own kids -- violent without games. Ah well.

Thompson, though, again showed his ignornace. He did have a point though -- Rockstar DID say that they weren't responsible for placing the Hot Coffee mod in GTA:SA. However true or false that may be, someone within the Rockstar development included it, and no one found it before release. They have also had a full year (and with that sort of talent, a full year is plenty of time) to modify any aspect of Bully they wanted to.

I don't know what the final product of Bully will be (whether you are the bully, or the bullies' bully, or whatever), but I'll stick by Friedler and Sessler's opinions, not Thompson's.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Thompson's largest problem is his heavily-conservative influence. Like many who stand in his political ring (i.e. heavy right-wing), their closemindedness prevents them from understanding certain actual, unalienable truths. Furthermore, his Christian values (and no offense to Christians...) add to his inability to see certain truths.

Parents are responsible for their children's actions, among many other factors. Yes, the media does play a role but only to the extent to which their programming schedule allows. This means that if a parent restricts or properly monitors what their children are playing or watching, they can control to a much greater degree the effect of the media on a child's development. Parents have the ability to define and explain what a child sees or plays.

In my opinion, it's perfectly reasonable for a child to play something like God of War. Why? Simple -- I'm capable of explaining to the child that it is a game, and nothing like it exists in the real world. There are not shiny bald dudes with Blades of Chaos walking around slaying harpies and cyclopses. I'm also capable of explaining to a child that the game he or she is playing is created by an adult for the intended purpose of entertaining, not dictating.

Of course I'm taking an extreme standpoint -- I personally wouldn't let my kid (if I had one) play God of War. However, I wouldn't prevent him or her from playing video games. To the point, parents have way more control than they give themselves credit for, I believe. And Thompson is completely incapable of looking at outside influences which affect children's behaviors -- schools, friends, bad/broken homes, neighborhoods, culture, etc.

And Friedler's point was quite valid, Jackyboy. Boys, especially brothers, will play aggressively and get in to fights. This "phenomenon" has been occurring for d-e-c-a-d-e-s longer than the gaming industry has been thriving, or even existing. Unless, of course, you want to argue that the boys were playing Xbox while in the womb. :/

Columbine did not happen because those two boys were playing violent video games. This is the argument that pisses me off the absolute most. Those two boys had been negaged in violent and erractic behavior outside their video games. Death threats, offering hitman services to bullied kids, promises of mass death, etc. have all been uncovered by those retarded Littleton cops. Of course, this all could've been prevented, but not by taking away their game consoles. Hell, even Dylan Klebold's own parents disregard the media's influence.

Taken from a 2004 New York Times article, "They believe that what they call the "toxic culture" of the school - the worship of jocks and the tolerance of bullying - is the primary force that set Dylan off. But they confess that in the main, they have no explanation."

Edit:

Originally Posted by JackyBoy

Videogames are targetted because they are mostly still viewed as childish activity. I mean if it's teenagers who are taking firearms to school and teenagers playing violent videogames... Well...

And that is an oversimplification of the facts. In fact, it's a fallacy against logical reasoning. If video games are violent in nature, and only childish individuals play video games, then childish people must therefore be violent. That's a logical fallacy wherein if A=B and B=C, then A=C but in this case, it does not. Violent video games simply do not make gamers violent. We might throw a controller around, but just because Tetris is beating my ass doesn't mean I'm gonna go shoot someone, nor does playing GTA instill within me the desire to drive around and shoot folks.

Those two Columbine kids were susceptible to this sort of influence due to other outside sources, likely exactly what Klebold's parents mentioned -- the social heirarchy of public schools.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Dan

More importantly, if these people wanted to protect children they would start cooperative efforts with the ESRB. Instead what Mr. Thompson and most people do is scream “let make a law” which quite simply will never happen. The first and Fourteenth amendments prohibit it. At the buttom of this post are two legal cases which explain why.

More to the point, hasn't Mr. Thompson argued against the ESRB in discussions past, calling it something akin to ignorant and dismissive of a game's true content? Here is Mr. Thompson critcizing the ESRB for the same thing he has yet to actually do -- play a video game. Members of the ESRB don't just go up and say "Hey, does your game contain the following material?" to developers. They play the game for a period of time to determine the content rating, and even then the ESRB does miss some stuff (citing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's rating change from Teen to mature).

In short, Thompson is truly the ignorant fool here, as we all know too well. He is only capable of condemning what he hears from people who are in his circle, and those people are just as close-minded as he is, for the most part. Heavily conservative Christians who cannot see beyond the realm of their own beliefs and condemnations are only capable of negatively viewing things like violent video games, and fail to see the larger scope of things.

Um by the way Grawl, no offense. Disclaimer: I don't hate Christians or conservatives -- just close-minded people.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Huh. I was under a different impression then. In any case, I think the most violent thing that video games cause people to do can be seen during the Christmas holidays.

"Gimme that game! My kid wants it!"
"No bitch! *pummel*"

As you can clearly read, it's not the kids, but the PARENTS participating in such random acts of shopping mall violence.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?