Tag: Jack Thompson

Bad Press: Disbarred Ex-Lawyer Jack Thompson Returns, Is Still A Pathological Liar


Jack Thompson is much more than the pathological liar on a never ending quest to destroy video games. He’s also a disgraced ex-lawyer disbarred over ten years ago for no less than 31 charges of inappropriate conduct inside and out of the courtroom, for intimidating and harassing opposition, whose rambling court arguments have been described as bizarre and idiotic by the Florida court, and for coining the idea that teenagers can learn how to properly fire weapons by playing Doom, a game so primitive that you can’t look up and down in it.

But like Freddy Krueger’s sleazy uncle who sells used cars, Jack Thompson refuses to duck out of the public scope and just can’t stop lying. Unfortunately Florida’s least competent attorney has conned another newspaper into publishing his latest attempt to twist the death of children for his Quixotic quest, the Tallahasee Democrat, which we have linked in an archived form for your pleasure and their lack of advertising revenue.

Thompson, who was once scorned by a judge for faxing pornography to the court, has his sights still set on the Parkland school massacre that took the lives of seventeen students and staff members. He writes:

“Cruz’s own mother, now deceased, attributed his violence to his video games and withdrew them as temporary punishment. In “Call of Duty” you use smoke canisters to hide from your virtual reality targets — something Cruz did in reality. So video games don’t just increase the appetite to kill; they train teens to kill efficiently.”

Here we see Thompson’s master trick that I’ll refer to as “it makes sense as long as you don’t think about it.” Any child over the age of five could tell you what a smoke canister would do, but for someone of Thompson’s caliber this can only be the work of a trained killer, one trained on evil video games. Thompson likes to pepper in his conclusory statements with lies about video games that he passes off as just common fact, like the idea that games “increase the appetite to kill.”

He continues:

“The majority of video games 19 years after gamers Klebold and Harris authored Columbine, are sold to individuals whose ages are not verified.”

First, I take umbrage with Thompson’s use of the word “authored” in reference to the Columbine shooting, but this is another example of Thompson making unsubstantiated, ridiculously conclusory statements with no evidence to back himself up. The kind of conduct that would get one disbarred from the Florida bar association.

“All that is necessary for this dangerous fraud to stop is for states and the national government to apply deceptive trade practice laws that are already on the books to video game sales. This approach will be simple, constitutional and effective.”

I’ll explain this since, as a disbarred lawyer, Jack Thompson is not familiar with how the law works. We’ve already gone down this road of litigating video game sales to minors, and the fact that you have managed (without evidence) to argue that video game retailers are selling games to kids despite claiming otherwise, is irrelevant to everything. Deceptive trade practice laws have to do with lying about the features/functions of a product in order to con people into buying it, it has nothing to do with claiming that you don’t sell something but selling it anyway.

Here is the Federal Reserve’s definition of a “deceptive trade practice,” as per the Federal Trade Commission:

An act or practice is deceptive where
• a representation, omission, or practice misleads or is likely to mislead the consumer;
• a consumer’s interpretation of the representation, omission, or practice is considered reasonable under the circumstances; and
• the misleading representation, omission, or practice is material.

And as I said, we’ve already gone down this road. Feel free to peruse the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association to read about how our supreme court held that a law barring minors from buying mature rated video games is unconstitutional. States do not have the right to determine which video games are too violent in the same way that they cannot decide which Grimm fairytales are too violent for children.

You also have to appreciate how the Tallahassee Democrat refers to Thompson as a “retired lawyer,” which is a fancy way of saying disbarred on dozens of charges of misconduct and fined $43 grand. The website also references Thompson’s involvement in a case surrounding a school shooting in Paducah, Kentucky. They left out the embarrassing details, like how he convinced the parents of three dead highschool girls to take part in a ridiculous lawsuit against two pornography websites, the film “The Basketball Diaries,” Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, claiming that all of the defendants had a hand in inspiring the 14 year old shooter. The lawsuit was dismissed at trial and then dismissed again by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Perhaps if video games were the impressive trainers that Jack Thompson has claimed they are for the past twenty years, he could have sat down with a copy of Phoenix Wright and learned how to be a proper attorney.

[Column] Fact Check: You Can’t Teach An Old Jack New Tricks


Who would have thought that reality, not unlike Hollywood, would start running out of ideas and reboot failures from the 90’s for the modern day audience?

Grab your Nintendo 64 controllers and crack open a Mountain Dew Surge kids, we’re going back to the past to give a platform to one of Florida’s worst attorneys. Jack Thompson, best known for his failed campaign against the games industry ultimately leading up to being disbarred in disgrace for disparaging litigants, making false statements to tribunals, etc, has once again returned to exploit school shooting victims and this week ran an op-ed in The Washington Examiner (archived) to remind us of something we all know: Jack Thompson has no qualms about lying to push his agenda.

So to follow up this piece (and I do recommend reading it for yourself), I decided to roll a point by point fact check for Jack’s major topics.

1. The FBI finds fascination with violent entertainment to be a trait of school shooters

This is true, and Jack even links to the FBI report which, since I read the thing, also recommends not doing exactly what Jack did, create a profile of the typical school shooter calling it “shortsighted, even dangerous.” As it also turns out, people with violent tendencies tend to be infatuated with violent media, however there hasn’t been a conclusive study that would indicate that the latter can cause or enhance the former.

“One response to the pressure for action may be an effort to identify the next shooter by developing a “profile” of the typical school shooter. This may sound like a reasonable preventive measure, but in practice, trying to draw up a catalogue or “checklist” of warning signs to detect a potential school shooter can be shortsighted, even dangerous. Such lists, publicized by the media, can end up unfairly labeling many nonviolent students as potentially dangerous or even lethal.”

2. Jack filed a lawsuit on behalf of the families of students killed by Michael Carneal

This is true, what’s also true is that the lawsuit went horribly for Thompson and crew. The case can be researched as “James v. Meow Media,” and if you want to see Jack’s poor grasp on the law even going back to 1999, just take a look at this case. Thompson and crew sued two porn websites, game companies, and the distributors of the films Natural Born Killers and The Basketball Diaries, whose products were all consumed by the shooter.

The lawsuit made claims on negligence, product liability in regards to producing a “defective” product, and the RICO act. Let’s focus on that last charge to prove my above point, RICO for those outside the loop stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, it is a law specifically built for bringing down criminal organizations allowing prosecutors to take down bosses who order crimes committed despite not actually committing those crimes themselves, and Thompson thought that they could use this against porn websites for allowing a minor to access their content.

The case was dismissed on all counts and then appealed to the 6th circuit who in turn dismissed it. According to both courts, it was beyond a doubt that the plaintiff had no facts to support their claims.

“A complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.”

3. The Columbine Shooters Trained on Doom

This was beyond incorrect in 1999 and it still is wrong despite Thompson’s desire to repeat it as though it were common fact. Anyone with the most basic level of understanding of video games would be able to tell you that Doom, with its technology so basic that it has auto-aim and does not allow the player to do things like look up or down, can not train someone in how to fire a gun, how to maintain a gun, real world tactics, or anything else related to the operation of a gun or battlefield tactics.

The idea that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris “trained on Doom” is pure nonsense.

4. The American Psychiatric Association found that violent video games shift teens toward the aggressive end of the spectrum

Again, more false claims from Jack. An APA review from 2015 found that there is a link between video games and increased aggression, however they also state that there is no conclusive evidence linking violent media to actual criminal acts of violence. The APA even released a statement calling claims like the one Thompson makes a “disservice.”

“Journalists and policy makers do their constituencies a disservice in cases where they link acts of real-world violence with the perpetrators’ exposure to violent video games or other violent media. There’s little scientific evidence to support the connection, and it may distract us from addressing those issues that we know contribute to real-world violence.”

Thompson also notes the “American Pediatric Psychiatric Association,” an organization that we could find no evidence of existing.

5. The World Health Organization has classified video game addiction as a mental disorder

That has no bearing on this conversation.

6. The military uses video games to desensitize soldiers to killing

Purely fictional statement, one created and repeated by fellow anti-video game zealot David Grossman. There is no evidence that the military uses video games to desensitize soldiers and the Army and Marine Corps have vehemently denied claims of such training methods. This claim is nothing but an urban legend created by people with goals similar to Jack Thompson’s, to be thrown out as fact by people like Jack Thompson.

7. An FTC Sting Operation Found That Retailers Are Still Selling Violent Games

Another sentence, another lie. I know this because the FTC publishes its papers and in 2013 found that “video game retailers continue to enforce age-based ratings, while movie theaters have made marked improvement in box office enforcement.” The sting found that only 13 percent of undercover shoppers were able to buy an m-rated game.

8. The Fraudulent and Deceptive Trade Practices Act Could Be Used Against Retailers

No, it couldn’t. I’m going to explain this in clear terms because Jack doesn’t seem to understand the difference between video games and cigarettes or alcohol. Cigarettes are age-restricted by federal laws created by the Food and Drug Administration. You need a license to sell cigarettes, alcohol, actually any legally age-restricted merchandise and that license comes with agreements to follow laws and regulations on what you can sell, who you can sell it to, and how much you can sell and when.

It is illegal to sell alcohol or tobacco to minors, in fact it’s illegal in a lot of places to be a minor in possession of alcohol (but not cigarettes, incidentally). There is not a law in the United States that makes it illegal to sell violent video games to minors. Jack Thompson should know this, he spearheaded legislation in Louisiana that was shot down and referred to as a waste of taxpayer money.

9. Conclusion

When the Florida Bar disbarred Jack Thompson, they note that he had showed a total lack of remorse or even slight acknowledgment of his inappropriate conduct, concluding that there was no evidence that Thompson would be open to rehabilitation or even appreciate the basis for why such rehabilitation would be needed, and removed his privilege to practice law permanently and without the opportunity for reinstatement.

Over a very extended period of time involving a number of totally unrelated cases and individuals, the Respondent has demonstrated a pattern of conduct to strike out harshly, extensively, repeatedly and willfully to simply try to bring as much difficulty, distraction and anguish to those he considers in opposition to his causes. He does not proceed within the guidelines of appropriate professional behavior, but rather uses other means available to intimidate, harass, or bring public disrepute to those whom he perceives oppose him.

Nearly ten years later, it looks like the Bar’s opinion was correct. Jack Thompson hasn’t changed his tactics. He still doesn’t understand the law, apart from the pieces he’s willing to twist far outside of their legal definitions to fit his claims, and he still doesn’t understand the basics of video games. He is willing to lie, throw out hyperbolic opinions as established fact, and has seemingly no ability for self-awareness.

I’m not going to call on the Washington Examiner to censor Thompson, but running an op-ed by a man who torpedoed his professional career by lying to the courts, especially without noting the man’s long history of absolute falsehoods in regards to the topic that his editorial is covering, is giving undeserved credibility to the simply incredible.

Chaturday: The Jack Thompson Reboot


This Chaturday I want to talk about Jack Thompson, because as we all know Hollywood and that means endless reboots and sequels of franchises, the kind we wish would have gone away after the last sequel flubbed in theaters.

The Jack Thompson reboot comes nearly ten years after the film franchise ended what was an otherwise spectacular and gripping series finale. Thompson, perennial anti-gaming lawyer of the series, played an opportunistic attorney and from 1997 to 2007 made himself into the anti-hero of sorts, chasing digital ambulances and wasting no time in taking advantage of murders to forward his zealous campaign against the evils of violent games. We got to see Thompson’s trademark “bad cop, incompetent cop” routine as he took all roads necessary to get results, from harassing defendants to intimidating witnesses, quoting non-existent studies and generally making false statements. We enjoyed Thompson’s antics because, much like Wacky Racer’s Dick Dastardly, at the end of the day he was destined for failure. The modern day Al Bundy.

And in 2007 we learned that the Jack Thompson series would come to a close with a gripping series finale in which Thompson was brought before the Florida Bar and disbarred for his various activities over the series, from making false statements to disparaging lawyers, and even that short mid-season spinoff where Thompson was practicing law outside of Florida. We were left with Thompson sitting on his motorcycle, driving off into the sunset with one parting message. “I’ll be back.”

Granted I could be mistaking the Jack Thompson show with something that happened in real life.

The season premiere has been covered by Rolling Stone, Jack Thompson has officially returned to prime-time television and this season is starting off with Thompson returning to offer his assistance in a school shooting in Marshall County, Kentucky in which a fifteen year old shot and killed two students, injuring 21 others. The shooter, it’s discovered, may have been a violence-addled video game addict and only one man is up for the job.

Thompson (the character, not the actor) is still trying to get back on his feet after we saw him ride off ten years ago. Without his license and with his credibility still in shambles, Thompson took the classic TV approach and offered his work pro-bono, mailing just about anyone involved with an authority and functioning mail box. And who can forget that heart-wrenching climax when he turned to the camera and said:

“What happens in the case of heavy users of video games is that when they have the virtual reality taken from them, they will set out to make it real reality,” Thompson told the newspaper. “They do this without being fully appreciative of what they are about to do.”

An AV Club review of the episode notes this statement as forced scripting, noting that an educated adult, even one with Thompson’s established history of false statements, would posit that the murder was the result of the shooter getting his video games taken away. Perhaps a decade of absence has made us forget the absurdity of the original source material.

With The Walking Dead not returning to AMC until the end of this month and Brooklyn Nine-Nine likely on hiatus until April, it looks like Primetime television may have put up just the show it needs to keep viewers attention until something more interesting comes on.

[Column] Jack Thompson’s Prodigies Will Meet The Same Fate


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It’s been seven years since Jack Thompson was pulled from the spotlight in disgrace, and his absence has created something of a power struggle among his unofficial prodigies, those who wish to continue his crusade against the evils of video games and gamers everywhere. But anyone stepping up to the plate to bat for Jack should be well aware of a very serious reality: You’ll probably end up just as he did.

If you’re already familiar with Thompson, feel free to skip this paragraph. For everyone else, a brief history: Jack Thompson is an ex-lawyer most famous for his crusade against video games, linking violent games to killing sprees and demanding that the industry (both developers and retailers) be held responsible for breeding murderers.

Jack Thompson was disbarred in 2008 over a set of very serious allegations, including making false statements to the court, sending hundreds of harassing pages to people involved in his lawsuits and targeting individuals not involved in the case including a state representative, and making accusations of corruption toward a sitting judge. Like his prodigies, when Thompson failed to gain any ground on the gaming industry, his tactics transitioned over time to harassment, bullying, and threats, ending his career and what credibility he had maintained in the process.

For Michael Samyn of Tale of Tales, the story is a little different, but the outcome is just the same. In a blog on Gamasutra titled Violence Begets Violence, Samyn continues his recent attack on gamers as “belligerent hooligans.” If you are unfamiliar with Samyn or Tale of Tales, odds are you’re wondering what spurred his contempt for the industry.

“We don’t need theories about the correlation between violent games and violent behavior.”
-Michael Samyn

Samyn is right, we don’t need theories. Multiple long term studies have been conducted over the years and have come to the same conclusion: There is no correlation between violent games and violent behavior. There are no facts presented in the blog to support Samyn’s case, but that is par for the course in a post that could easily be confused for Jack Thompson’s writing: Unsupported vitriol, black and white accusations, against gamers and game developers. Samyn even concludes by blaming the industry for shootings and harassment.

A game developer who claims to be a peaceful tolerant person while producing murder simulators is a hypocrite. I will not accuse them of being directly responsible for mass shootings and online harassment. But they are beyond a doubt guilty of neglecting to prevent such things.

So why the contempt? Tale of Tales recently dropped out of the gaming industry after their most recent venture Sunset failed commercially, selling a total of four thousand copies. Rather than quietly fading from the view of the community that had soundly shown its lack of interest in their products, ToT went on the offensive with a series of vitriolic, vulgar tweets, against gamers and the gaming industry.

And it isn’t hard to see why they would be angry: Tale of Tales wanted to be paid to make games that, as evidenced by their sales, nobody wanted to play. With gamers roundly rejecting the titles as viable products, Tale of Tales had been relying on grants from the Belgian government for most of its existence to keep them afloat. With government grants drying up due to financial troubles in Europe, ToT turned back to the gaming industry who once again responded with a flat rejection.

Naturally, ToT has gone on the Twitter record to decry the evils of capitalism, the system that refused to just hand them money to sit around making games for an industry whose intelligence and culture they’ve professed to not have much faith in. Michael Samyn is willing to talk about how much he hates the gaming industry, but only if you’re willing to pay him. As of this publishing, only 74 people have taken his offer. One would hope that with $405 per article funding his ventures, that Samyn could afford to do some fact checking.

I’ll end this column with a note: This is the last time MMO Fallout space will be used to discuss Tale of Tales, its products, Michael Samyn, or Auriea Harvey. Like Thompson’s post-law diatribe, covering Samyn’s bitterness toward the industry that rejected him would only serve to offer more attention to someone desperately trying to remain relevant.