This time it’s not Hillary, and not hot coffee – but close. Same company, similar issue, different game. This litigious asshat is attacking Rockstar over their new game titled Bully.
Quote from the letter he sent to Take-Two:
I and others are today calling upon you to STOP the release of Bully. ‘Columbine’ changed the face of America, but you are about to come out with a game that celebrates, glamorizes, and trains kids to do what Klebold and Harris did. Are you nuts?
No, sir. It appears that it is you who are nuts. Nuts with capital N! Now, I might not be a lawyer but I’m pretty sure that all these games have these small little rating tags on the labels. They are usually quite prominently displayed too. I’m also not a parent, but I’m pretty sure I would not buy an M rated game for a kid under 17 unless I reviewed the content and judged it to be fit for my child.
Last time I checked we had this thing on the books… What was it called… I’m pretty sure you are familiar with it – being an attorney and all… Oh, yeah – it’s the FIRST FREAKIN AMENDMENT! Now again – I’m not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure that this amendment lets me publish whatever the hell I want as long as it’s not infringing anyone’s rights, and as long as I label it correctly.
So, if some retard at wallmart sells an M rated game to a 10 year old – is that Rockstar’s fault? If some parent buys a violent, and bloody game for his kid, is the game developer guilty of “corrupting” that child? These games are made for mature audiences. This means you and me – not Billy and Mandy from third grade! If Wallmart sells these games to minors, sue the store. It’s their fault! They should have trained the Video Game aisle clerk to ask for an ID upon purchase!
Jack Thompson – I hereby nominate you for this years award of Biggest Douche in the Universe.
I think attacking violent video games it stupid. But some of your arguments are too.
1) You said “FIRST FREAKIN AMENDMENT […] lets me publish whatever the hell I want as long as it’s not infringing anyone’s rights” – Of course, if he wins any suit it’s going to be precisely because it’s been deemed that the game somehow “infringes […] rights.” I don’t think anyone’s denying that the law, you’re just applying it out of context.
2) It’s not all “misguided.” The very page you linked talks about him campaigning stores not to sell it to children. Which is exactly the same as your example of an appropriate way to do things.
1) Whose rights does a violent game rated M infringes? That’s what I don’t get.
2) He is still atacking the company and sending them letters crying about Columbine. I think the store boycots are missguided because I think they will be protesting the game itself. They should be protesting the store policy instead.
It’s missguided because:
a) Rockstar/Take-Two will keep produce violent games no matter what – because they sell
b) The store where the protest took place will stop selling Rockstar games to avoid future incidents. It will keep selling other violent games, because no one was protesting them.
c) Everyone will happily go home, but the real problem is still unadressed – next time an ultra violent game (from a different company) hits the shelves it will be sold to minors again.
What really should be done here is some campaign to show parents that they are responsible for rising their children. Ultimately if the parent fails to monitor what kind of games a kid plays, it is his own fault.
But if he tells the parents that they are not doing their job, they will get offended and he will loose clients. So of course he is finding easy targets to be scrapegoats.
And hence he deserves the award :P
-I didn’t say I thought he was right that it was infringing rights, I said that pointing out “FIRST FREAKIN AMENDMENT” is irrelevant.
-Pleading to someone’s moral conscious seems like an appropriate way to work for change (he might be wrong that it’s immoral, but that’s irrelevant to the whether the method is appropriate.)
-I don’t know what they are protesting exactly. If they protest that the game should be illegal to make, I’ll agree it’s inappropriate. If they’re trying to pressure people to not buy the game or the store to act different, it would seem appropriate. Since I don’t know, it’s hard to say.
A) I think being a whiny bitch and protesting is lame. But, even when you know the other side isn’t going to change their mind, I think there’s still some reason to stand up for what you believe.
B) In the protestor’s eyes, I’m sure them selling one less violent games is a step in the right direction.
Anyway, I agree that some of their actions make absolutely no sense. I just think some of their actions do.
I partially agree that parents need to take responsibility, but on the other hand, I think there’s some space where society needs to help out and not put all the weight on the parents to control everything their children are exposed to. It’s simply impossible for parents to really completly control everything. And there’s probably some things children shouldn’t be exposed to.
-Dan Copulsky
But society already does lots of things to help the parents out. We have the ratings on the games, so that they can immediately see that some of them are inappropriate for the kids.
We have laws that prohibit selling alcohol, pornography and other kinds of adult oriented stuff to minors.
We have schools and day care centers which provide safe environment for kids, and have regulations and policies that help shielding children from inappropriate stuff.
Most of the TV’s and/or cable boxes have built in parental locks. There are hundreds of blocking programs that help you monitor your child’s internet browsing.
But what can society do if a lousy parent goes to the store and buys the GTA game for their 12 year old kid? Are we supposed to send police to their house to see if their children are not playing inappropriate games, or browsing porn on their computer that does not have blocking software installed?
Hey, I like violent video games and porn. Why should I give them up because some poor excuse for a parent is to lazy, or self absorbed to read a label on the game he is buying for his child?
I really don’t think that monitoring child’s activities at home is to much to ask from a parent.