I have to admit, the timeliness of Wikipedia is just astounding in this case.
It could be done.
There are two keys to the game.
-
Make it short and easy to finish.
-
You know the Japanese RPG cliché this-boss-is-not-the-real-boss ending?
…see where I’m going with this?
:twisted:
Add in Greg Broussard and Derek Smart. Hell, make Smart a boss monster.
We could add in a John Carmack monster whose weapon is that he will bore you to tears geeking out with technical details of his 3D engine and/or rocket; the trick to defeating him is to use the Wife Intervention Ray.
American McGee falling into a lava pit.
You could have a horde of easily-defeated foes called “Gamer Webcomic Creators,” whose main weapon is bad art/writing and occasionally toss a Rabid Fan at you.
How about a game involving opportunistic trial lawyers scrambling for a class-action lawsuit involving a natural disaster, out-of-work minorities and an inept city government? They get to act indignant and offended while collecting fifty cents on the dollar from the said minorities’ settlement.
Game Politics posts another hilarious episode in the Jack Thompson soap opera (no permalinks, look for news on Friday, October 14th, 2005).
The National Institute on Media & Family disavowed Jack Thompson. NIMF’s David Walsh complained to Thompson about his “extreme hyperbole and […] personally attacking individuals for whom I have a great deal of respect.”
Consequently, I ask that you cease using the Institute’s or my name in any way that would give the impression that we support your efforts. I also ask that you remove the link to our website that appears on your site.
Thompson promptly replied, foaming at the mouth even more wildly than usual (bolding mine):
I am wondering just who, David, these people are whom I have criticized “who have worked to improve the lives of children.” Do you have in mind the folks at Best Buy, one of whom you copied with your letter? I know you get money from people connected with these folks, David, but you do know that Best Buy is presently pre-selling, to adults and to children, the Columbine simulator game, Bully? You do know that, right, David? Of course you do. I told you Best Buy was doing that. So is the Target Corporation, whose Chairman Bob Ulrich you copy with your letter. I am wondering, David, what these men have to do to get on your bad side? Do they actually have to do the physical bullying of kids, as selling a bullying rehearsal trainer to kids is okay?
Evil people sometimes have to be stopped, or at least their evil has to be stopped. You can cite all the studies and all the findings and keep giving your video game report card to Congress, and it will not matter unless somebody gets into the trenches and stops these people. While you have been giving report cards on a bunch of sociopaths, the violent games have been getting more violent.
Liberals, like you, love to label things and then think that the labeling has accomplished something. If that had been the case, then Churchill’s calling Hitler a Nazi would have ended the war. But no, people like me had to get into the trenches and stop the Nazis. And there were always those tut-tutting back home about what a nasty business it is to stop the bad people, and can’t we all just “get along.”
Dave, it is laughable, it is absurd, that you have copied your email to Bill Gates, of all people. This is a guy whose Halo trained Malvo to kill in D.C. This is a guy who now has put all the Grand Theft Auto games on his XBox. This is a man who is going to release Bully when the coast is clear in the spring.
You liked your collaboration with me when I got you on 60 Minutes, but not when it inconvenienced your cozy relationship with Best Buy and the rest of the video game industry.
Quality entertainment!
That is awesome. I love it when people start gibbering about Nazis and Hitler, because that means they’ve completely lost it and don’t need to be take seriously any more (as if there was any doubt, though).
Liberals, like you, love to label things and then think that the labeling has accomplished something. If that had been the case, then Churchill’s calling Hitler a Nazi would have ended the war. But no, people like me had to get into the trenches and stop the Nazis. And there were always those tut-tutting back home about what a nasty business it is to stop the bad people, and can’t we all just “get along.”
Uh, wow. I suppose the fact that Hitler was a nazi, and the fact that when the nazis first showed up, they were just a typical political party should have no bearing at all!
This weak excuse for a human being would be comedy gold if he wasnt taken seriously by the mainstream media who love to wheel him out every time a tradegy happens. What I would like to know is:
1/ How can he call himself a ‘video game expert’? What are his qualifications?
2/ He calls Bully a ‘Columbine simulator’. Now I am not the biggest fan of this title, but even a myopic parasite like Thompson should be able to realise that spouting crap like this makes him seem dafter than he already is.
3/ Halo - Sniper trainer? Awww c’mon Jackie boy, at least stay consistent. He was on the Today show in April 2002 and called Black Hawk Down, MOH and Doom the ‘sniper training games that trained Malvo’
4/ When is he going to debate someone who is really an expert and can destroy his arguments in a live forum? Would love to see him on CNN up against any one of Andy MacNamara, Dan Morris, Rob Smith, Jeff Green or any one of the EIC’s who have been working in the industry for more than 5 mins.
He probably has some poorly paid interns who search sites like this for mentions of him to boost his ego, so come on Jack, going to actually qualify your claims and arguments with some cold hard facts? Even better, offer to debate someone who knows what they are talking about in a live forum. Then we will see how much of an expert you really are.
One more thought: Seeing as Jack is trying to destroy the industry I work for with asanine law suits, can I (and other games industry types) sue him for trying to put me out of a job?
Just wondering at what point can the gaming industry come together and get him committed somewhere. Just read on gamespot his response to that group and somehow he linked religion into it.
Can someone explain why he is going after target and best buy over Bully even though they have no involvement with the development of the game at all?
In as far as anything associated with the DC Sniper shootings can be funny, it’s this accusaion in light of the fact that one of the snipers had extensive military training with sniper rifles. The other, in turn, received training from him. The military was LITERALLY the sniper trainer here, beyond any doubt (this isn’t to say, though, that it’s responsible for the shootings). Yet Thompson seems to overlook these facts.
They’re high profile and attacking them is likely to get him more attention.
They’re high profile and attacking them is likely to get him more attention.[/quote]
Though of course we’re eliminating the assumption (given his ignorance) that he doesn’t actually know whether Target is the developer or the retailer. Imagine the kind of mess he could create in such a circumstance.
Because they sell the game, which means they distribute the Columbine simulator to the children, and are hence part of the problem.
I would play the Columbine simulator. I suggest a paper doll element where you can dress your disgruntled D&D player with all manner of cool matrixy trenchcoats and sunglasses.
And yes, Thompson is a loonie, and the media doesn’t seem to notice. Perhaps this will kick them in the ass.
How sure are we that Thompson is actually getting any attention outside of gaming sites? IS the mainstream press taking him seriously? I spent some time with Google, Google News, Wikipedia, and even Thompson’s own website looking for examples of mainstream, high circulation/reach press who take him seriously. I didn’t do an exhaustive search, but I spent maybe 20 minutes looking and found very little.
There was an interview with Thompson on the CBS News website, but that was for a column called “GameSpeak” that’s supposed to be of interest only to gamers, not the overall readership. There’s an article on CNN/Money about the “The Sims pedophile trainer” allegations. He does seem to be taken seriously there.
Even the “Press” section of Thompson’s own website doesn’t list any articles since 2002, and they’re all kind of suspicious since none of them is from a large media outlet and all the articles are entirely reprinted on Thompson’s site instead of linked to the original sources.
Everything else I found was on a gaming website like GameSpot or IGN or it was on just a blog like Joystiq or Kotaku. And of course almost all those reviled him at worst or were objective at best (or vice versa, depending on your view). The CNN/Money article was the only example I could find where he was take seriously by a mainstream press outlet.
So unless anyone else has additional links (and if you do, please share!) I’m going to have to conclude that Thompson isn’t really being paid much attention.
Target and Best Buy are (apparently) selling pre-orders for Bully.
Also, the National Institute on Media & Family’s David Walsh just asked, via e-mail, not be associated with Thompson in his rants. That e-mail was CC-ed to the CEOs of Best Buy and Target so his blood-lust for them has just multiplied many-fold.
More info at news
http://www.technical-difficulties.com/osaki/
3/ Halo - Sniper trainer? Awww c’mon Jackie boy, at least stay consistent. He was on the Today show in April 2002 and called Black Hawk Down, MOH and Doom the ‘sniper training games that trained Malvo’
Not only is Halo a sniper trainer, but it’s a dirty spawn campin’ sniper trainer.
How sure are we that Thompson is actually getting any attention outside of gaming sites? IS the mainstream press taking him seriously?
He was called in nearly every time MSNBC did a piece on game/media violence up until a month or two ago. I haven’t been wathing much TV lately so he may still be their go-to guy. Additionally, several morning shows had him spouting his nonsense when some of the more recent teen shootings (say, in the past two years). I remever he got on NBC at the time of the beltway sniper which is when he used his stock scare tactic for the first time saying that Counter-Strike was a murder simulator. He also threw in some crap about “God mode” sayng “these kids are brainwashed into thinking they are invincible in real life once they’ve spent enough time in this god mode”. I’m paraphrasing but you get the general idea. Beleive me, the press ate it up.
I think its been mentioned a lot of times in a humorous manner that he is “crazy” or a “lunatic” etc but I truly beleive he is on his way to some sort of emotional/behavioral meltdown. Theres some sort of mental illness going on here besides the obvious narcissistic tendencies.
Yeah, sadly enough. He was in a piece that 60 minutes ran earlier this year about the policemen that were killed by a kid who was (according to Jack) trained by GTA to kill cops.
Yeah, sadly enough. He was in a piece that 60 minutes ran earlier this year about the policemen that were killed by a kid who was (according to Jack) trained by GTA to kill cops.[/quote]
Aye, according to that Wikipedia article pretty much every Video Game ‘Top Story’ was a cause championed and/or heavily favored by this bastard. Kinda scary when you think about it.
(PS, I think I remember Howard Stern talking about this guy, although he didn’t mention him by name. But he said some crazy lawyer in Florida was ALWAYS on his case, basically sending FCC complaints 24/7 about him. I’m suspecting this jackhole was the guy)
Dont know tompson myself, here in germany there isn´t that much hype about "killer training as in the us it seems. (could be that the reasons for this is that we dont have that many frenzy killers )
But let me state this, i´m from marketing and politics myself. If you try to confront this guy on televison, dont choose an adversary because he is a long time in the industry. I have seen many professionels of gaming Industry on TV and most of them seemed, well unprofessionel. Of course its not their job to go out to the media and get a good look of themselves, after all they are working in the development or in the marketing placement segment.
I would suggest that you search for an old political campaigner who also is playing games. Mostly of the times the other side (like guys like thompson) look foolish and will never be heard from again.