It looks like long time anti-video game violence crusader Jack Thompson is on yet another legal rampage. This time, he has circulated a proposal for, believe it or not, a violent video game to various members of the video game press (and most likely the mainstream press). He has also sent it to Doug Lowenstein of the [i]Entertainment Software Association[/i]. Thompson has offered to donate $10,000 to the favorite charity of Paul Eibeler, Chairman of the publisher Take-Two Interactive, if any video game company will ?create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006? based on a scenario he has provided.
The violent scenario proposed by Thompson is one in which a father of a teenage boy swears revenge upon the video game industry after his son is beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14 year old gamer. The father in this scenario, Osaki Kim (O.K.), would get his revenge by going on a murderous rampage that would take him through the New York offices of ?Take This? (the proposal?s analog for Take-Two), the law firm of Take This? lawyers, arcades, game retailers, and finally attacking E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, ?to massacre all the video game industry execs with one final, monstrously delicious rampage.?
?I’ve got the check and you’ve got the tech,? taunts Jack Thompson at the end of his proposal. ?It’s all a fantasy, right? No harm can come from such a game, right? Go ahead, video game moguls. Target yourselves as you target others. I dare you.?
Although at the time of this article no official response has been made from any of the major video game publishers, an official one is obviously very likely, given the air time and space usually awarded to the controversy Jack Thompson stirs up with proclamations such as these. In today?s (12/10/05) update of the web comic [i]Penny Arcade[/i] (http://www.penny-arcade.com), co-creator Gabe Krahulik has posted a response of his own, and Thompson?s reply. The full text of Thompson?s proposal can be found at http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5883.