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Thompson's latest ploy: game makers are conspiring with the military
cloudeagle
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Registered User regular
I know, I know. Jack Thompson is just a pompous windbag, don't listen to him, etc. But his latest gambit is just too rich.
According to Wired's gaming blog, he's now claiming vidja game makers are working with the military to intentionally make kids more violent and, I dunno, make them want to sign up for the Air Force or something. But a consequence of his made-up conspiracy theory is... wait for it... school shootings. Yep. It's all because of some computer simulations the military is doing with troops.
Wired did some research, and came up with this:
http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/12/jack-thompson-g.html#more
Florida should hurry up and disbar him already.
According to Wired's gaming blog, he's now claiming vidja game makers are working with the military to intentionally make kids more violent and, I dunno, make them want to sign up for the Air Force or something. But a consequence of his made-up conspiracy theory is... wait for it... school shootings. Yep. It's all because of some computer simulations the military is doing with troops.
In a press release sent out yesterday, controversial attorney Jack Thompson claims he has found a correlation between the gaming industry and the US Department of Defense, who, he adds, are using videogames to teach "an entire generation of kids that war is glamorous, cool, desirable, and consequence-free."
The release cites the gaming habits of recent youth-shooting perpetrators (Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc.), as well as "a formal working relationship between the Department of Defense and the game industry at the Institute for Creative Technologies on the campus of the University of Southern California" as evidence for his claims.
Wired did some research, and came up with this:
Jim Blank, the head of the modeling and simulation division of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, says that commercial games don't meet the demand of the military, adding, "first-person shooter games really don't apply in this environment."
http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/12/jack-thompson-g.html#more
Florida should hurry up and disbar him already.
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that game does not portray war as glamorous, fun, or without consequence.
Hell, neither does CoD4.
Yeah. Nothing to do with the fact that the U.S Army's PTSD re-habilitation software, which runs on the Full Spectrum Warrior engine was made by the Institute for Creative Technologies on the campus of the University of Southern California. No, the more logical explaination is that the army is conspiring with game developers to create a generation of fearless killing machines.
:x
Wasnt it found he had doom 2 on his computer.
you know, like every teenager in the western hemisphere.
But this is, as mentioned, for extremely basic concepts.
The Air Force's simulators, while their graphics aren't cutting-edge, are better than anything that any PC could do because they use screens to surround the pilot.
My point is that even if games do make war seem glorious and fun--and most of the time, I find it's the delightfully flavorful fantasy-based strategy games that do that (Heroes of Might and Magic III, Warlords III) that do that--it's never in the type of game that would prepare someone for actual combat. For example, Warlords III used the "hypocrisy rules" method. A "kill counter" kept track of how many units you'd killed, and how many lost. Enemy heroes were "gloriously defeated". Your heroes were "cruelly assassinated" or some such.
that's undeniable proof right there.
I can't wait till some surgeon does some badass surgery and they blame Trauma Center for his worship of SATAN!!
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=197
Closest I got to joining the military was when I took a couple of tests with the marines.
Maybe it is happening kinda like Ender's Game...which I have never read but know the premise of.
I wish a wish that the Coast Guard used awesome CQB simulators for boat searches instead of using 1995 tech how to stear a boat through voxel oceans. If you guys do want to know what the Coast Guard is like don't hesitate to play Cold Fear.
I honestly believe this guy is trying to join together two semi-popular ideals: the anti-war movement and the anti-game movement. He probably believes that if enough people get worked up about the Army supporting violent games or whatever his angle is, that he can appeal to a broader base. I doubt it will work, but it's definitely a ploy I wouldn't put past him.
I don't think there's some vast conspiracy to desensitize people to violence and killing using games. And if there was a broad level of societal comfort with death, I'd point the finger right at Hollywood before I went anywhere else. Even the maligned Manhunt is pretty tame, I think, to seeing some of the shit I've seen the past couple years in stuff like Hostel and Saw and that ilk.
Again, it all goes back to common sense. If you play a game and say, "Yep, war must be exactly like this. I can't wait to join." You've got a lot more problems than being in the Army will fix. Your first all night CQ shift with a floor buffer and some wax will have you second guessing every moment of any game you've ever played about the military. It's not all "Frag out" and "Tango Down." There's plenty of PowerPoint and "Area Beautification" to go around.
As a side not, the Army has some GREAT simulators that we use for training. I really wish people could come check out the EST 2000 centers or any of the numerous sim centers around the nation. They are really cool and done right, for the most part. It's a lot more cost effective and a huge amount safer to do this stuff in a simulator when possible, and it's definitely going to become more prominent in the next couple years or so.
Well that explains it. He was frustrated with having such a crapy computer that could only play a decade old game, and all his friends were calling him on his n00b-ness.
Suddenly JT's comments make sense.
Y'know, of all the people I know (even the slightest of acquiantences) that have been in the military, I've only heard from one of them being in a combat situation in Iraq, and actually took a bullet wound too (my memory is sketchy on where the wound was, but I think it was in the thigh maybe). Most everyone else has done... watch posts. Stand around for most of a day. That or they spend time on a ship. Good times?
Like you said, it swings to common sense. I also think that there are more people telling others of their military experience than there are people getting the wrong impression from video games, whether it be family, friends, or some guy in your game clan or guild. Chances are people that play war based video games have spoken to someone who has been in the military, thanks to the interwebs, and got a sort of reality check.
I like your post Red Leg, can't really pinpoint why.
He's going to connect them to larping, and somehow that has to do with school shootings.
Edit - Oh God, he may just do it too. "These sad individuals act out their fantasies and are shunned for it, so they become disgruntled with their oppressors and school shootings result!"
Hmm, have you ever thought about applying to be Jack's research intern?
Probably because as a member of the armed forces, he knows what he's talking about, which is something we can't ever assume for Jack Thompson.
To play retard's advocate, you can argue that America's Army is a tool used by the US Army to try to increase recruitment, because it is. It's free, you can download it from the Army's website or get a disc copy at any recruitment center. It was developed to boost recuitment numbers, something that the Army readily admits. If I remember right, somewhere around 20% of the Army's new recruits this year said that they had played AA.
But to say that game developers at large are in cahoots with the US Government to desensitise people to violence is still a pretty ridiculous claim.
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Unfortunately, Jack chose to not use AA as an example, which would've gotten him some level of leverage instead of jack shit (so to speak).
Me too really.
Well, he has so few arguments, and they're all bad. If he wants his career to last long, he's gotta use them one at a time.
It is lame and not very useful.
Also you know how much "war fighting" I did in Iraq? Pretty much zero. Unless you count all the hours we put into CoD2 and Halo.
In fact I would say Jackie Boy has it backwards. We used video games to escape from the unglamorous, lame, not very desirable, and anything but consequence-free reality of war and into a glamorous, cool, desirable, and consequence-free environment of a video game.