Hot Coffee was not "out in the open" because if it had been, then GTA: SA would have received an AO rating and no retailers would have sold it. That is proven by the fact the game was pulled when it was found.
Honestly, do you have to certify to a retailer that your IQ has been suppressed 30 points by video game play in order to get these games? Maybe we need an IQ test for mature-rated games rather than age ID?
Jack Thompson
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[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 ThompsonJack Thompson
Doug Lowenstein Is Lying Again
Actually, Doug, a universal rating system does NOT require the "support of many other industries." All it requires is 50% + 1 of the legislators in the New York Assembly and Senate, respectively. Duh.
Further, Doug, and I know it is hard for you to pay attention, with your traveling make-up artist asking you to close your eyes intermittently, but here you go. Maybe she can read this to you as you're being powdered: The laws that have been struck down have not used the proper approach. The courts have identified the problems. Those of us out here crafting better laws can actually read. We haven't had our frontal lobes fried by games, you know. You're about to see the proper approach in Delaware, Louisiana, and North Carolina.
For Bo, short for Boring, please note: We are all very aware of what your lying retailer organizations are doing. You're covering up the fact that the Federal Trade Commission has recently found that 42% of the time, kids of any age can buy Mature-rated games. That means, any underage kid who goes to two stores has a 63% chance of buying a Mature-rated game. Thus, the rating system is utterly flawed and ineffectual.
What we are out to do, with Governor Spitzer's help, is stop the video game industry from marketing and selling Mature-rated games to minors. Pretty simple stuff, really, and the industry is in a total panic realizing that that day is approaching. Glad to help explain it all to you guys.
Oh, and Doug, why don't you go threaten CBS again.
Jack ThompsonJack 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 NightmareJack 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 THOMPSONJack Thompson
"Hal Halpin states that the FTC found that as to his retail members,"only" 35% of the time are kids able to buy mature-rated video games.
What Mr. Halpin didn't tell you is that the figure for all retailers is 42%. Note the following found in the Reuters story reporting the entire truth:
"The FTC said that 42 percent of its undercover shoppers -- who were children between the ages of 13 and 16 -- were able to buy an M-rated game last year." This is at link to Reuters news story.
In addition, and this is what Hal Halpin doesn't want you to know, the Federal Trade Commission has most recently found that only in 50% of the instances did the cashier ask for the age ID of the buyer!
See link to FTC study
I know what! Let's put Hal Halpin in charge of airport security in Boston and let's see if the passengers there are happy with 42% of the fliers not being checked for explosives and other weapons and not asking 50% of the fliers for identification!
How long would Hal Halpin hold that job, hmmm?
You see folks, Hal Halpin is paid by the retail industry to put a happy face on a failed system that allows millions of kids to buy millions of mature-rated games, and Hal Halpin couldn't care less because he's never met, as I have, year after year, families of those slain by video gamers. Hal Halpin has blood on his hands, the hands that hold his filthy lobbyist money. Jack ThompsonJack Thompson
Thompson, Jack
Thompson, John Sparrow
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