Better late than never

November 30th, 2005 | Filed under Rant

I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks but I keep forgetting. So sorry it is untimely but…Jack Thompson is right. Bully is a bad idea. All they are going to do is piss off people way crazier than Jack Thompson, including the United States Congress and HIlary Clinton (who is going to ride this issue straight into the 2008 campaign), and give them a reason to to go after video games.

Harper linked to this interview but after listening to it, while I might not agree with everything Thompson says (and applaud PA for making him put his money where his mouth is), I actually agree with him. Listen to the interview yourself here. The long and short of it is, Thompson wants to stop Rockstar Games (the people who brought you the Grand Theft Auto games) from releasing a new game entitled “Bully.” In Bully the player assumes a child in school and beats the crap out of the other kids in school. Why am I missing the days of Pong already? Anyway, Thompson has publicly come out against the game as a stupid idea for Rockstar (and their parent company Take2 ) because they are just fueling the fire against violent video games.

Video game enthusiasts are so used to their favorite past time being assaulted by the mainstream media that they forget the reason why Take2 and Rockstar games screwed up. It is the same reason why Libby is in trouble. They lied about the Hot-Coffee mod. Period. End of story. Had they fessed up this wouldn’t be a big deal, they probably could have release Bully and a large part of the media would have ignored it and the status quo for the video game industry would have been preserved. Stupid.

Now, I’m going to go back to play Brothers in Arms. Why? Doesn’t that seems bit hypocritical Matt? No, because Brothers in Arms makes me think, I enjoy the history lessons and it gives me some kind of glimpse into the chaos that was WWII. Its sole purpose isn’t mindless violence in schools. Like there isn’t enough of that in real life.

Also, the guys who interviewed Thompson, especially the second one, sounds ridiculous. They tried to call Thompson on something that he had already apologized for and retracted. They were groping for something and not finding it at all. Jack schooled them.

Update: Ugh. Some kid in Texas just got charged with threats against Thompson’s life. Genius kid. That’s a great way to change the perceived stereotypes of gamers. Via digg.