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Hal, Nice of you to take your time to answer some gamers' questions. I have a few questions of my own and some comments. Feel free to respond, or not, as you like.
1. First a comment. Thank you for your kind comments about me a few months ago regarding my "commitment," I think you called it, to stay the course in my efforts, as you called upon those on the other side of this culture war divide to show the same resolve I show. That was very nice of you.
2. As to our Alabama lawsuit, about which no one who reads this site seems to know anything, I wonder if you would care to share your thoughts on the fact that the Alabama Supreme Court has rejected the defendants' First Amendment arguments and we are headed to trial where we will put the entire video game industry under the microscope. Are you looking forward to that?
3. Would you mind giving us your opinion of Take-Two's labeling me a bisexual pedophile at its official site and the fact that that will be part of the proof to the jury that the video game industry seeks to suppress information about its practices by going after whistleblowers.
4. Hal, I wonder if you could explain how a parent is warned by the ratings on a game before the purchase if a 15-year-old shows up at the cash register at Target, for example, and there is no parent around? Relatedly, why is it that the FTC is still finding roughly 40% of the time the cashier will sell it to that kid? If Wal-Mart were selling six packs of beer to minors 40% of the time somebody in the Walton family would be in jail. Now, it seems really simple to most parents out here, Hal, and I'd like you to explain to us why it isn't this simple: If your IEMA members really wanted to stop selling these games to kids they would stop selling them to kids, wouldn't they? There would not be a 40% failure rate, would there, Hal?
5. I am wondering, Hal, why you have never taken me up on my offer to bring together folks on my side of the issue with folks on your side of the issue for a summit about what to do about the marketing and sale of mature games to kids? Long term, this puts your retailers at risk. If they stopped selling adult games to kids, there would be no more lawsuits like the one in Alabama, which contrary to what the pixelantes here think, is going to trial. The Alabama Supreme Court said so. What happens in America these days is that both sides just get with people on their side and rah-rah with one another, and the two sides never get to any understanding. What goes on in that regard at this web site is typical. Why have you not taken me up on that offer? If your answer is what the kids here say, that I am a nobody, etc., then I guess I would point out that you are the one who identified me as leading the effort against the violent games. Why can't we have that summit?
6. Bully. Why in the world are not more people in the industry saying to Rockstar, Are you out of your freaking minds?
7. How is your brother Spence's Moral Kombat movie coming? I really enjoyed meeting him for it. He is a great fellow. When is it going to be released, if you know?
8. Why hasn't your organization isolated Take-Two and identified them to be the scoundrels that they are? I think if you did that, you would convince a lot of people on our side that your organization actually has scruples.
11. Why are your member companies selling M-rated games to kids on the Internet with no age verification effort whatsoever? You know that that flies in the face of what IEMA's stated positions are on selling M games to kids, right? As you know, which people at this site don't want to know, age verification software is available to all your members, and also a credit card cannot legally be used to verify age, as kids have cards.
All the best. Hope to see you and meet you at the summit you said you were considering.
--
[not in citation given]

 

Jack Thompson

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Jack Thompson on Kansas Television This Evening
Pixelantes and Hal Halpin, Who Is Just a Highly Paid Pixelante Lobbyist:
I am on Kansas television tonight and your're not. I'll be explaining to folks in Senator Brownback's homestate that some of the perps involved in the "Kansas Columbine" incited were found to be gamers by virtue of my close work with the law enforcement community there.
On the other side of the ledger, you have Hal Halpin, who spends days and nights doing whatever he can to make sure other parents' kids have access to violent video games that are mature-rated. If Hal Halpin really wanted to stop the sale of mature-rated games to kids he would stop agitating against legislation that requires a parent to make the purchasing choice.
See, Hal Halpin can't have it both ways, and maintain to the public that he is an honest individual. If the industry acknowledges that the mature-rated games are inappropriate for minors, then you can't also be for a scheme, as is Hal Halpin, that allows the sale of a mature-rated game to a kid with no parent in sight.
Either prohibit the sale of these games to kids, or stop pretending to want to stop the sales. The Federal Trade Commission repeatedly states that 35% or more of the kids who got to major retailers are able to buy these mature games. A kid who goes to two retailers has a better than 50% chance of getting the game. Hal opposes doing anything to stop the totally unregulated sale of mature games to kids of any age via the Internet.
Hal Halpin assists, daily, the video game industry's mental molestation of minors for money. Hal, get an honest job, please. Jack Thompson

 

Jack Thompson

 

"ESRB ABOUT TO BE JUNKED
As you delightful pixelante thugs know, I prepped Senatory Hillary Clinton for her July 2005 news conference on "Hot Coffee." Prepped Best Buy's lapdog, Dr. David Walsh, who stood at her side, for it, too.
At that news conference, which I made possible, Senator Clinton stated "the video game ratings system is broken."
She was correct, and here is the latest proof how thoroughly it is broken, coming out of liberal beehive Harvard, no less.
The ESA's and the ESRB's self-policing house of cards has rested upon the demonstrably false assumption that the game ratings are a) accurate, and b) that mature-rated games will not be sold to kids with no parents in sight.
Now we know that both a) and b) are totally false, as the Federal Trade Commission study last week found that roughly 40% of the time retailers of video games will sell mature-rated games to kids under the age of 17. You can't warn a parent as to content when the parent is not there, and now we know, thanks to Harvard, that even if they were there the descriptors on the back are phony. What a freaking surprise! People have been saying this for years, including Leeland Yee.
In fact, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas ought to be AO-rated, not M. Yee has been saying that, and I have been saying that, and now Harvard proves we are right. Vice City was one of the games Harvard studied in coming to this obvious conclusion.
What Dennis McCauley here will not report is an even more damning study that came out of Harvard yesterday! It finds that the Grand Theft Auto games do in fact cause harm to adult males, between the ages of 18 and 21, who play them.
All of you know-nothing obscurantists here whose frontal lobes have been immobilized by obsessive game play (you don't know who you are, obviously, because your powers of self-reflection are gone as well) need to deal with the FACT that yet another peer-reviewed medical journal states, as of yesterday, that these violent games cause HARM.
 :You will continue to bleat like little sheep that the proof is not out there. It is out there, at Harvard no less.
You all can't handle the truth. You can't handle the fact that God is in control of this debate, not bought clowns like Doug Lowenstein who is paid to say whatever the industry wants him to say.
The evidence is in. The Grand Theft Auto games cause harm. This is the core of our case in Alabama. We could not have paid $500,000 and gotten a better medical study showing the harmful effects of GTA on teens. But now Harvard, wholly independent of our case in Alabama, has found as a scientific fact that GTA harms those who play it.
This finding is a gift from God that has fallen into our laps in the Alabama case, one week after the Alabama Supreme Court agrees with me that these games are not First Amendment protected speech for minors.
Hooah indeed! Jack Thompson, Your Video Game Industry's Worst Nightmare

 

Jack Thompson

 

This finding at Harvard by Kimberly Thompson... enhances even more our case in Alabama. This shows the broad deception by the industry in marketing and selling harmful video games to kids. Note also that Vice City, which is the game the killer in Alabama played, is one of the games studied at Harvard. Hooah! Life is good. My future is so bright I've got to wear shades. Jack Thompson PS: I understand the First Amendment, and you don't.

 

Jack Thompson

 

that's why the ESRB exists. so the PARENTS can DO THEIR JOB
NO, THE ESRB EXISTS IN ORDER TO FRAUDULENTLY MAKE PARENTS THINK THAT MATURE-RATED GAMES ARE NOT BEING SOLD TO KIDS IN STORES WITH NO PARENTS IN SIGHT.
Tell the self-regulation spiel to the MPAA. you're getting a bit pompous to assume that you are going to be elected as governor. Children never have been, are not, and most likely never will be "mere prey in a race to the lowest common denominator" as they are the future people. I know that sounded corny and such, but it's true.
SORRY, BUT THE AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY HAS A DOCUMENTED HISTORY OF MARKETING ADULT, HARMFUL PRODUCTS TO KIDS. CHECK THE FTC.GOV SITE, AND PUT "MARKETING VIOLENT ENTERTAINMENT" IN THE SEARCH ENGINE.
it's already being done, oh wait, I forgot how censored an environment the USA is! seriously. there is no big conspiracy. perhaps i parents did their jobs then the kids wouldn't be playing so many videogames!
NO THE FTC STUDY RECENTLY FOUND THAT 42% OF THE TIME MATURE-RATED VIDEO GAMES ARE SOLD TO KIDS UNDER 17. CAN YOU READ?
and for good reason. because at the same time, the world is getting more graphic too. if you want your children to grow up all protected and their naivety remaining untouched, fine. but when they get screwed over, I'm blaming you.
RIGHT, WHICH IS WHY THERE ARE MORE COPYCAT ACTS OF VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS. RECENT STUDIES SHOW TEEN VIOLENCE IS UP, NOT DOWN, AND THE CULTURAL CESSPOOL IN WHICH YOU ARE SWIMMING IS A BIG REASON WHY.
guess what? the enforcement of those laws? not happened. if it's IGNORED, that's the PARENT'S FAULT! and there is currently something that prevents a 14-year-old from getting an AO game, that being that most places don't carry AO games. show me a place that sells AO games and I'll show you a porn shop.
BY "ADULT GAMES" HE MEANS M-RATED GAMES. HE DIDN'T SAY "AO" GAMES. THAT IS YOUR TERM. YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT.
'Safe Games' legislation should also require retailers to post signs explaining the video game rating system to customers. Democrats and Republicans both have bills that would address these problems, but they have gone nowhere. It is time to make this a priority.
okay, the entire thing requiring signs? that's just stupid. the ESRB DOES have a website. if parents want ot see the ratings, they can spend 5 minutes to see them at www.esrb.com
OH, SIGNS ARE STUPID? WHAT DO YOU THINK SIGNS ARE FOR? SO PEOPLE READ THEM AND ACT ON THE INFORMATION ON THEM. I THOUGHT YOU ALL WERE FOR PARENTS GETTING MORE, NOT LESS, INFORMATION, HMMMM?
it's obvious that if spitzer has to say all that vile spew, then I'm glad to not live there, and parents DO have a job to do. it's called PARENTING>
RIGHT, AND PARENTS VOTE, UNLIKE MOST VIDEO GAMERS, ESPECIALLY THE ONES UNDER 18 WHO CAN'T VOTE. WE'RE IN CONTROL HERE, NOT YOU. GET USED TO IT, KIDS.
JACK THOMPSON

 

Jack Thompson