MSNBC questions Jack Thompson's accusations |
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Now that evidence shows that Cho Seung Hui didn't own a single video game at the time of the Tragic shooting, a new article over at MSNBC questions Thompson's fervent accusations. This is in light of his recent interview wherein he responded to IGDA criticism.The MSNBC article notes that contrary to Thompson's claims of counterstrike being a "killing simulator" for youths, Cho didn't need much skill to shoot as many people as he did. Eye witness accounts indicate that many of the victims were shot at point blank range.
Moreover the article notes that Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California and author of the book "Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Today's Youth" points out that before this week's Virginia Tech massacre, the most deadly school shooting in history took place at the University of Texas in Austin way back in 1966, before the days of pong.
The article says that nobody realises that since the advent of videogames, violence rates in the US have declined "precipitously." Sternheimer even notes that it is likely that any 23-year-old man living in America has already played a videogame. How many 23-year-old men go out on a killing spree?
The MSNBC article goes on to note this nice gem:
For those who didn't grow up playing video games, the appeal of a game like "Counter-Strike" can be hard to comprehend. It can be difficult to understand that the game promotes communication and team work. It can be hard fathom how players who love to run around gunning down their virtual enemies do not have even the slightest desire to shoot a person in real life.
As a commenter on Digg noted, the truth is that massive multiplayer killing fests are really just slightly more complex and themed versions of cops-and-robbers. An online and engaging visual form of "tag" wherein players "tag" one another in the form of virtual kills, in a world where there are no real consequences. A game of tag in a world where death isn't really malicious or evil, or "desensitising" - death only means waiting for the next play round or respawn.
It is a competitive environment where sportsmanship is still the norm; where it is expected that after all the boasting and chest-thumping is done, the winning party will get up and shake the losing party's hand and say "good game."
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Comments [refresh]
thats gotta hurt =/
its about time
A well thought out and balanced argument. Sadly not likely to change Mr Thomsons idealistic crusade. Perhaps his time would be better served looking at Americas liberal gun laws and the processes which could have identified and treated Cho so this terrible tragedy never happened?
At last an article to back us NORMAL and WELL ADJUSTED game players up...
The quote 'the winning party will get up and shake the losing party's hand and say "good game."' says it all really.
Anyway when I was a kid we did'nt have any video games, and yet I used to run round the school playground playing 'war' with my mates all the time. What's the difference? If anything our playground games were more violent.... Did I turn out to be a raving phycopath? no.... (not yet anyway lol, but F.E.A.R is doing my head in....)
I think it's true that every 23 year old who's played video games, has gone on at least one wild killing spree. Most of them just don't like to talk about it.
It's those burgers from the company who bring you the golden arches. Go on check if I am right, any gun crime regardless of youth or adult all have a single thing in common they have all eaten a burger within a few months of going on a killing spree. Why else would GTA have a fast food outlet in there - they knew. So eat healthy you wont want to kill, eat burgers and the cholesterol flowing through your veins causes a breif overload of violence.
Well it's a more reasoned link than what J.Thompson is trying to argue with.
i brought up this topic at work last night, only for it to be met with large amounts of laughter from fellow employees and customers. counter-strike responsible for the deaths of 32 people? i think not.
jack needs to get his head sorted... seriously
but over here in the uk the radio stations have taken jack thompson's word on this tragic event and are reporting that it IS videogames' fault.
it's refreshing to see someone stick up for videogames, especially as he's clearly not a 23 year old counterstrike player himself (it seems like they won't listen to actual gamers). i've got to say the last time anyone 'shook my hand' at counter strike was eons ago, before the days of hl2, and before the 1.0 thing.... most of the people just talk trash and make rude accusations about people's mothers.
but he's right, and i hope JT is singled out for once, i mean for god's sake if someone were to go on tv and say 'it was being chinese which done it... we should outlaw them' then the country would be outraged. and as BlameM says, if you blamed it on McD's then they'd surely not let it slide... but as videogames are the stupid middleaged born-again self righteous pig headed idiots' whipping boy i guess they'll just forget all about it.
it's not on.
Jack Thompson stated that just because Cho hasn't played counter-strike since highschool that he hasn't gotten rid of the feeling of the game...over 4 years, hell I forget how A Link to the Past feels.
JACKIE YOU GOT SOME SPLAININ TO DO!!
I get even with that poumpus ass by using his face as my
spray tag in Counter-Strike matches with something very
very very slanderous writen on my spray tag about him.
I created it my self.
LOL everybody shoots the spray tag as they should.
Paras spray till their emty.
If I was to get any more slanderous about him in this post
I would only be proving him right which I'm not about to
do but I can keep those visions of him falling to the ground
in my head.
:)
Only sadness about this is that the media will act like a
bunch of crickets in the summers night breeze about this
new enlightenment that Counter-Strike much less any
other video games, had nothing to do with this violent
incident at VT.
I believe all of us as gamers have been violated by his
accruals and the only way to rectify his actions is an
apology on TV but he is way to errogent to ever do that
and the media will never go on record to set the subject
straight because they could care less, they'll just wait
till a gamer actually does kill people and say "see, we told
you so" but never to clear the record on our behalf.
I will continue to use his face as a punching bag in
Counter-Strike till the day my body is cold and in the dirt.
It's foolish to think that he will ever give a formal apology
but hey wouldn't that be a suprise if he did, better get an
umbrella folks just in case one of these days pigs start
to fly.
P-OWNED
haha serves him right!
its about time someone sees the light and sticks it to jack thompson..thatnk you MSNBC for giving the other side a fighting chance
Check out the "READ" link, appearantly Jack threatend
to sue MSNBC to take down the article that was making
him look bad. The page can not be found. Even when the
truth comes out it gets hushed up, see what did I say.
The media doesn't care that he was wrong and he
continues to threaten to sue everybody iinvolved in
anything he doesn't like. Jack guy needs to listen to
one of Ween's songs, you know, the one about daisys.
burgers don't kill people, the government does!!!
the article is still there.
that video games has nothing to do with crimes in real life. Remember Hitler? No video games existed! Thank you qj. ( i finally got a phrase to protect video games)
does he want to end video games so badly anyways? Oh and Fox news NEVER get their facts straight. Remember when they said that the psp was a bad system because it had NO parental controls? Well it did. Fox news is never open minded. They even had a damn cop investigate and even he didnt find the parental control.
Why would they always blame it on video games? It's the people who play video games and others around them who must be blamed. If he is trying to ban video games, then he is trying to ban the media, the movies and everything. Maybe he never play video games in his entire life.. poor Jack.
He must got his ass whipped to much in pong in his days so thats why he been trying to ban video games poor baster couldn't wipe his own ass even if he try too.
Look, it's a Jack Thompson article we can actually comment on.
This guy needs to shut up and just understand he can't do anything to change the industry. What he should do is just go for tougher laws on prohibiting sale of games to younger kids (which I am all for, I don't want my little brother playing GTA right now), not try to shut down games altogether.
You guys need to watch what you say, too. Jack reads sites like this, I think it feeds his retarded ego. He tattled on the FBI when someone said he should be shot.
Why do they make it where we can't comment on the Jack Thompson articles? Are they afraid to become part of the headline news or something? QJ a word of advice, let the people talk.
Best. Article. Ever. Also Jack Thompson got owned.
maybe he never played video games before. Think of this, if video games were to be banned then what will teach children. There are games for toddlers and up all the way to high school. Take the Leapfrog company for example. If video games were banned then Leapfrog's excellent educational video game system, Leapster, would be banned too! You see, without video games how are you supposed to teach children? With books? I dont think so. Books will prob be the next thing they ban (b/c of some violence related to a book) , then movies, etc.
Catch my drift?
so what is it REALLY made of? I know some ingredients but its extremely gross.
he is an idiot... on fox they called him a "school shooting specialist" i call him a *****ing idiot. he was blaming it on videogames before he even had proof that the shooter played them, and hitler made the biggest extermination in world history, before videogames existed.
Jack Thompson is just the most rediculous lawyer ever. But people, not only is he using tradgedies to get his foot in the door to bash games, but hes also lashing out at the gaming society directly, calling anybody who plays games "knuckleheads", and various other slanderous names. Not everybody disregards jack, some people blindly believe him and take up his "anti-gamer" mentality, because, hes just not out against violent games, hes out against gamers aswell.
What can you expect from a guy who wants to impose his ideas on other people thinking he's always right? Probably most of you don't know much about this guys past. He's a conservative chrisrtian, a republican, sued Miami radio station WIOD for $10,000 for airing the song "Boys Like Sex in the Morning", he hates homosexuals and advised that they don't have job opportunities, he said in a interview that he was the only sane lawyer in all of Florida, he has persecuted rap msic that talks about any kind of obscenity or innapropiate lanuage, and even got to sue a radio sation for 200 million dollars for mentioning his name 40,000 times saying thy had to pay him 5000 dollars every time they said his name.
i didn't know pong came out after 1966
i thought t was way before that
its dookie baby
Now that was funny. Nice response.
JACK THOMPSON IS A F.U.C.K.T.A.R.D.
Yeah, before HE goes on a killing spree.
his mummy still won't buy him that GBC he's always wanted.
Good job both, this made my day soo much better.
Even better is to fight back
http://www.petitiononline.com/podjt/petition.html
An online Petition on Jack Thompson involvment with gamers and the Florida Bar. Sign it just like the other 2000 people.
sueing for 200 million got laughed out of court.
Only celebs get suchpayments due to contracts.
You can't go with no contract and attempt to sue
saying 5000 every time a name gets used oh
and by the way, you said my name 40000 times.
Only way you can use and win is if your a celeb
or other with a contract and not getting paid
royalties, a breech of cotract... thats the only
time. He's neither a celeb nor holder of a char.
contract and has no grounds for suite. Just a pathetic sissy cryer trying to sue anybody and everybody ofor anything he can get and he's made such a stink about him self that everybody has now trained their attention on him to see him start to slip up. He will be see the results of his own doings and become forever known as an idiot.
Somebody said he was tquoted as best lawyer in Miami...
If just one mentally handicap law enturn moved
to Miami and took up practice, Jack Thompson
would be dethroned as the best attorney in Miami.
their is a bunch of flamers and lamers here that always post off topic like first post and bash on new devs and anybody else with foul things to say and make no sense about there statements. They just flame to start conflict, these are the same people that would turn a conversation like this into something jack would sue over, even though we don't sue each other for being flamed upon, he is so pathitice that I bet he would try and lose over, oh wait... settle out of court over by droping all charges : )
it that were true in any way, which it's not, he could sue QJ for this thread which will easily being him 1 billion but like I said before is completely full of holes and could never be taken seriously in court due to nn contract or copyrights on said name.
If he keeps up all this ambulance chasing he will soon find him self disbarred. Good work Jack, keep it up, soon nobody will listen to what you have to whine about next. Making a mockery of ones self. Keep up the great self destructive work.
his kids he believes he is protecting from video games when all he's doing is isolating them from their peers because we al know they aren't allowed to play video games, so when kids ask, "Hey, want to come over and play some Halo?", They'll follow it up by saying "Oh, I forgot, your dad is Jackass Thompson." and they'll laugh and walk away. What we could wind up finding out years later is that Jack's kids were emotionally scarred and became the next shooters.
Jack Thompson got pwned. maybe hes mad at counterstrike cuz he always gets pwned and cant take it no more.
Well this definitely won't slow down Jack Thompson's bull ***** crusade against games, but it will at least lower his credibility with people like those at MSNBC. *****y bastard, should've seen this coming.
Thompson has reached a new level of ignorance. He's never played any games, so he doesn't understand what they're really like. I mean, how rewarding is it to kill that pompous jerk in Oblivion? Very! Especially knowing the fact that no-one is really hurt. And you can save right before you whack him. What Thompson fails to realize...is that we aren't idiots. Those of us that aren't unstable to begin with understand the difference between a fictional world without weighable consequence and reality. And that anyone that goes on game-inspired rampages was already unstable to begin with, and very well could've been inspired by a song or movie; Saw, anyone? Or maybe Hostel?
What a douche. He slanders an insults gamers and companies all day long, but the second someone brings up facts about how wrong he is, he flips out and tries to sue them. Usually, to no avail. Sounds like someone can't take a little adversity. If he didn't want to be made a fool out of, he should've made sure his arguments were well-founded. He gives Christians a bad name, assuming he really is one.
Hmm...bigshotthompson ?
I had a chance to see the interview and I almost laughed my head off when Jack brought up Counterstrike as a training tool to kill. I think if Cho was going to use anything it would be a game a little more up to date. Really, with him living so close to the border of West Virginia he could have just taken a walk into woods and used some dirtbag hillbilly for target practice, maybe he did. Who needs the video games?
the winning party will get up and shake the losing party's hand and say "good game."
Are we still talking about CS?
Anyways awesome argument, its what I've been trying to explain to non-gamers for a long time. Sure shooting someone then giving crouch CPR is fun, but so is learning to co-ordinate with a huge team and obliterate the other team.
somebody stop him before he goes POSTAL on someone's ass and blame it on video games he never played.
QJ keep up the funny jack thompson storys!
Wow. Victory for us gamers. Very well put when they explained CS was made for teamwork and strategic play, not a how-to guide on murder and assassination. Thompson got pwned, not just by the gaming community, but by the news and commentary community, the people he serves. ouch.
also, love how he said gaming is mental masturbation. someone doesnt get enough apparently.
also, since when the hell did Microsoft make CS? sheesh, i bet u mr. gates is both insulted and pissed off at such an assumption.
he thinks he's Ken Rosenberg from GTA Vice City which is FALSE by the way cause even though Ken is Bonkers, Ken is way better lawyer than jackass.
Did i hear a HEADSHOT!?
J.T just got uber pwn'd
they must be nds fanboys jealous of our advanced system, psp. (i own both btw, i realized how dumb the nds was)
Fox is def. retarded. They dont care about anything. They basically just lie about everything.
HEADSHOT
FIRE IN THE HOLE!
NEED BACKUP!
Hell yes! We need some big-business support to take Jack Thompson down! Let's hope he just keeps digging his own grave like he is now! Down with Thompson, the world-renowned douche bag!!
What a *****-face! He thinks he can solve everything by throwing a lawsuit at it! And c'mon, Jack Thompson vs. MSNBC on such a stupid case? That's freedom of press, Jackie, deal with it, we've had it for oh...what was it? 230 years now?
....What a dumb ass.
if i play phoenix wright i can be a lawyer and sue people too
even though thats not the point of the game thats as far as JT's logic goes :]
find his car and spraypaint "PWNT NOOB" on it. i think thatll cover it