Jack Thompson Decides He's In GTA IV

[wraggster]

Outspoken anti-games lawyer Jack Thompson has decided that a representation of a 2nd amendment lawyer in GTA IV is a mocking version of him. He has declared that if the representation is not removed he will attempt to block the release of the game. Excerpt from GamePolitics: 'The showcasing play of the game to Game Informer revealed that the first killing mission of the hero of the game, Niko, is to kill a certain lawyer. When Niko comes into this lawyer's office, having used subterfuge to do so, Niko pulls a gun on the lawyer who says, that the firm supports the second amendment and that 'Guns don't kill people. Video games do

via /. (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/18/1633248)

[Sterist]

HAHAHA!!

can't wait to see what this leads to

[Mr_Biggs]

i am so sick and tired of this fat ****. he's like the kid in high school that was determined you were a queer and made sure he stated that fact in every sentence to try and convince everyone he was right. but the funny thing is, to shut him up we'd have to kill him. and then he'd be partially right. "guns dont kill idiots who bitch about games. gamers (might) kill idiots who bitch about games."

:D

EDIT: If anything, this GTA IV lawyer may have learned from Thompson(as seen in his quote, thus prompting a need for his death.) Jackie-boy doesn't need to be so flustered because some douchebag spouted the same line he used.

[Boardman2411]

im really looking forward to this mission

he should just keep his nose out of matters that dont concern him. if you dont like the game, fine. just dont play it and stop moaning and trying to deprive fans of this game genre their rights to the game

[stevo11185]

He just wants attention. Thats like a homosexual saying that the gay people in GTA are taking fun out of them, and the game should be banned.

Jack Thompson is getting to be the most annoying person ever. I think someone will eventually kill him if he doesn't shut up.

However if it is a mockery of him, then it shouldn't be allowed

[SSaxdude]

Jack Thompson wouldn't be known as an a-hole if he didn't try to ban everything he doesn't like. He should blame himself for his poor image.

[unpure]

THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU!
Please get this through your head so we can all get on with our lives.

[felonyr301]

I cant wait for that mission!!!! I'll repeat that mission many times just for the hell of it lol...

[Airdevil]

LMAO, why is thompson getting into such a fluster about something imitating him? In the matrix game "the path of neo", thompson is actually in the game and gets taken over by an agent smith after one of his gay speeches.

Then of course u can go ahead and knock that smith shitless lol.


....Well i THINK its jack... lol ive always seen it as him.

[Sonny_Jim]

I think that the worse he could do is try and sue them for libel, but tbh he'd have a very shaky case. For a successful libel case Rockstar would have to slander him in some way and looking at the mission detail it doesn't look like that at all.

Last time I checked it was OK to parody someone.

[cal360]

So what if it mocks you, just one person isn't going to stop the release because he thinks he's being bullied. He's so childish.

[Basil Zero]

well i've been wondering where old jack-o's been lol

its always this time of the year, that this guy comes out of his little burrow lol

i cant wait to play the first mission :)

[pibs]

wth he hates the game yet he is playing it to figure out whats wrong with it.....what a douche bag.
http://www.fuzzyopinions.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/WindowsLiveWriter/JackThompsontofacedisciplinaryhearing_4013/pa_jack%5B5%5D.jpg
i was gona say something but then the shirt beat me to it :)

[idapimp]

i want to buy that shirt.

[pt9087]

Im Alex the kid! :thumbup:

Just like him.. im in a game!

He is so paranoid! f***in gypsy!

[goliath182]

Who cares about this nob jockey anyway, he wont hold back the release of GTA IV, Stupid C#&*

[Xcliber]

WOW
I don't even like the GTA series but I am GOING TO GET THIS GAME when it comes to the PC just so i can play that mission!!!!

edit:
the mere fact that he says he's being mocked by a video game draws more attention to himself than is necessary and just makes him look even more like a jack@ss than before.

[DarthPaul]

Ahahahaha I hope they don't remove it from the game. It would be cool to kill "Jack Thompson" on GTA IV!

Anyway, that guy is so wrong. That's why in games like these, before you start the game, there's a screen saying something like:

"The characters of this game were not intentionally made to look like someone in real life. If they do it's poor coinsidence."

[Mister Klownes]

I hope he gets disbarred before he can do anything. Honestly, asking the President for a deposition? Who the hell does he think he is?

[Veskgar]

:rofl:

This guy is such a loser. I feel bad for his kids. This guy needs to grow up. He doesn't even deserve the attention of this thread.

[VexnadFett]

I commend Rockstar for constantly pulling this bothersome rodent out of his hole to reveal himself more and more to be a know-nothing ass...

[Mr_Biggs]

i feel sorry for that one kid of his, he's 15. he got sent into a best buy to buy a copy of bioshock. they sold it to him. Thompson went ape-shit, saying take-two sells games to kids under 17.

[VampDude]

Is there anything this guy hasn't said or done to block the release of a game?

[ish420ism]

this is funny stuff. i want to play that game and do that mission

[bah]

Since when is using a likeness for parody not protected?

Noone is confused that perhaps the guy in the game is REALLY Jack Thompson, and would confuse anything the character in-game does/says with coming from the man himself.

http://iplaw.hllaw.com/2007/06/articles/copyright/family-guy-charwoman-parody-protected/
http://www.chillingeffects.org/protest/faq.cgi

Its just more 'Videogames are destroying the world. I'm Lawyer-man, I'll save you, through litigation!'.

[goliath182]

i feel sorry for that one kid of his, he's 15. he got sent into a best buy to buy a copy of bioshock. they sold it to him. Thompson went ape-shit, saying take-two sells games to kids under 17.
LOL its MA15+ in Australia (The highest possible rating for a game)

[bah]

LOL its MA15+ in Australia (The highest possible rating for a game)

Thats a good thing and a bad thing. The US at least has an adults only rating, it just seems to be a kiss of death to any game as stores wont carry them.

If they could just get their acts together and create an R rating for games and have stores stock them (as they do DVDs), I could have my 'pornstars decapitating people while being ****ed by well hung midgets' game.

Seriously though, it's just stupid to ban games because there is no equivalent of a movie's R18+. I don't even like games like manhunt but I don't think they should be banned.

GTA4 better not have any problems, making them take out being able to screw the hookers in gta3 (or was it vice city) was just odd considering the content of the rest of the game.

[Eyedunno]

I think that the worse he could do is try and sue them for libel, but tbh he'd have a very shaky case. For a successful libel case Rockstar would have to slander him in some way and looking at the mission detail it doesn't look like that at all.

Last time I checked it was OK to parody someone.
Whaa? Okay, first of all, libel and slander are separate forms of defamation, so slander is by no means a part of libel. Libel is in durable media (books, newspapers, or games, thus it would be appropriate here). Slander is when there's no tangible record of the defamation left afterwards, as with spoken words.

Anyway, for either form of defamation, it has to be shown that the actions in question were false, were presented as true, and were done with the intent of damaging the target's reputation. The standards tend to be higher with regard to public figures and parody, and since Thompson is such a media whore, he already faces an uphill battle, but the fact that the character is not Thompson and is clearly an act of simple parody that nobody could possibly confuse with the truth pretty much destroy his chances of winning completely. What a jerk.


GTA4 better not have any problems, making them take out being able to screw the hookers in gta3 (or was it vice city) was just odd considering the content of the rest of the game.
Well, you know, kids aren't bothered by dead soldiers, weeping mothers, and other little kids getting their arms blown off in Iraq. But a poorly animated sex scene seen with an Action Replay will scar them for life!

Edit:
Oh, I just looked up this Emmy Award winner on Wikipedia. Seems he's been in a little trouble recently that may limit his ability to harass game developers.

"]In February 2007, the Florida Bar filed disbarment proceedings against Thompson over allegations of professional misconduct. The action was the result of separate grievances filed by people claiming that Thompson made defamatory, false statements and attempted to humiliate, embarrass, harass or intimidate them. According to the complaint, Thompson accused attorney Cardenas of "distribution of pornography to children," claimed that the Alabama judge presiding over the Devin Moore case "breaks the rules, even the Alabama State Bar Rules, because he thinks that the rules don't apply to him," and sent a letter to Blank Rome's managing partner, saying, "Your law firm has actively and knowingly facilitated by various means the criminal distribution of sexual material to minors." Thompson claims that the complaints violate state religious protections because his advocacy is motivated by his Christian faith.
Oh, isn't that lovely. You can break all the rules and just generally act like a complete hosebeast, as long as your actions are motivated by religion. Seems Thompson likes to twist the First Amendment in whichever direction seems appropriate at the time.

[bah]

Hahaha, that is seriously pathetic.

As if it makes any difference whatsoever what religion his is, surely no judge, no matter how religious, would allow themselves to accept that argument.

Jebus hates the videogames, I must stop them, I will o' lord.

[Spotfist]

This guy is an idiot, irronically he alone is an excellent example of why games should be rated correctly and enforced what kind of person gets upset at the fact that some1 uses the same words as they do in a game?

I would like to sue all games containing english cuz they clearly poke fun at me personaly! Every1 is out to get me cuz Im so great!

douche!

[Eyedunno]

As if it makes any difference whatsoever what religion his is, surely no judge, no matter how religious, would allow themselves to accept that argument.
This is the U.S. though, so you might be surprised. There are all kinds of things that religious people can get away with that others would go to jail for. Deny a blood transfusion to your child, and that's child endangerment, at least... unless you're a Jehovah's Witness, then you're okay, even if the kid dies. Get busted with peyote, and face drug possession charges... unless you're a member of certain native religions, then everything's peachy keen (though personally, I think the drug laws are also stupid, but my only point is to show that there's a double standard).

Granted, this isn't a criminal case, but in today's political climate in the U.S., I wouldn't be terribly shocked if it went either way. I give it a 60% chance he loses, 30% he wins, and 10% some kind of settlement is reached with the bar. I imagine that even if he loses, there are far nuttier states than Florida that he could still possibly get a law license in.

And I don't think the judge being religious has a thing to do with it. Heck, I'd expect the left to cut a wider berth than the right. A conservative Christian judge might impose his own cookie-cutter version of Christianity on this, thinking that making defamatory remarks is definitely not very Christian, whereas a far-left judge might actually buy Thompson's arguments on some sort of relativistic grounds.

[bah]

Thats just crazy hey.
I can understand the native indian drug thing somewhat if they had been doing it long before white settlement, but what does harassing people to stop a video game have to do with Christian heritage? It doesn't have exclusive rights to opposing violence, nor a history clear of inflicting it more so than most other groups.

Surely the majority of people of any religion (or atheists) wouldn't approve of the actions of almost any violent game/movie if conducted in the real world.
I guess when you set up your side as 'good' and the other 'evil' (whether that is true or not) it does make it a lot more accepted in both games and real life. The uproar these days seems to be much larger over games set in a populated city vs a warzone with only soldiers.
But saying I want to go out an kill a hooker after playing GTA because its a 'murder simulator' is as crazy as saying I'll try to take on the Chinese army after playing BF2.

Does Christianity give him a unique ignorance as to the difference between real and make believe, or just a right to be more offended then others and to push that offense on the entire population?
I wouldn't have thought a religious person themselves would make the former argument. :)

Religion should have no bearing on law and politics (I'm well aware removing its influence entirely is a exercise in futility), but terrorists that justify their wrongs by religion aren't let off and termed 'persons of strong religious conviction leading to well-intentioned mass suffering/death'.

At what point level of severity do they no longer get their own legislated double standard?

[Hawq]

Does Christianity give him a unique ignorance as to the difference between real and make believeOf course it doesn't, a lot of his fellow true believers share it as well

[grudge1981]

Jack Thompson just needs to get hit by a bus..... from him saying take two sells mature games to fifteen year olds, ummm wasnt that best buy??? and now this HA i honestly wish theyd make that douche in the game more like the real douche, but sadly that would just throw fuel into his fire

[zanco]

Ahaha I just want to play GTA IV to complete that mission.

[BrooksyX]

I think someone should start a paypal donation fund to build a rocket to shoot Jack Thomson into space. Seriously this world would be a better place without him.

F U Jack Thompson!