Anti-Gaming Lawyer Gets Burned from Both Sides

Sue happy lawyer and digital ambulance chaser, Jack Thompson, is making
enemies from both sides of the video game fence. The Miami based
law-dog is well known to the video game industry as a man who believes
game developers and retailers should be faulted for many of the horific
crimes committed by children, blaming the games themselves for the
inspiration to commit them.

Most gamers and game developers have recognized his insanity over the last few years, but an open letter from the National Institute on Media and the Family is displaying a lack of confidence from those that would seem be on his side.

The letter, written by the group’s founder David Walsh, asks that
Thompson cease any further reference to the Institue without permission
because “Your commentary has included
extreme hyperbole and your tactics have included personally attacking
individuals for whom I have a great deal of respect.”

“Even
though we have no formal relationship your use of my name and your
inclusion of my name in correspondence have created the impression that
we condone these tactics. We do not.“

The message was
sent to Thompson and copied to several gaming industry heads, retailers
and reportedly even Senator Hilary Clinton and Joe Lieberman, two high
profile politicians who helped spark the recent investigation into the
“Hot Coffee” incident. Apprently the NIMF, though fairly outspoken
about sex and violence in video games themselves, are dead serious
about dis-associating themselves with Jack. Hardly coincidental, this
comes just days after the lawyer poses a gruesome challenge to any
video game developer to create a game from his own concept. One in
which a father goes on a bloody rampage, beating and murdering game
company CEOs, retail chain workers and other gamers after news that his
son was killed in an incident resembling a scene from a video game. His
challenges offers up a donation of $10 thousand in the name of the
company who completes the game to their choice of charities.

We don’t expect any takers. In the meantime, so far there’s been no
response. Gamers are more than hoping this’ll knock the wacko down a
peg or forty. At press time, a request contained in the letter to
remove the link to the Institute’s website from Thompson’s home page (http://www.stopkill.com) has not been met.