Jack Thompson: Halo 3 - We Check Facts

Okay, let's take the last missive from Florida-based opinion-former, John Bruce Thompson, and look at the facts. This time Mr T writes to Bill Gates - chairman of Microsoft - regarding Halo 3. Paragraph after paragraph is riddled with misquote and false citation. So, let's get into it.



What the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) actually said is: "Video game retailers substantially improved their enforcement of policies prohibiting children under 17 from purchasing M-rated games without parental permission. Forty-two percent of the children in the Commission's mystery shopper survey were able to purchase M-rated games, a statistically significant improvement from the 69% able to make the purchases in the 2003 survey.

"The ESRB continues to lead all three industries (Music, Games and Movies) in providing clear and prominent disclosures of rating information in television, print, and online advertising. Still, the ESRB should enhance ratings disclosure by placing content descriptors on the front of game packaging." (Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children report: April 2007)

Certainly, 42% is not 0% but this is the fault of retail but there is a marked improvement occurring - in fact the games industry is leading the way.



Okay, we've agreed the figure, now let's look at the quote. What Hillary Clinton actually said in a letter to the FTC is, "Parents who rely on the ratings to make decisions to shield their children from influences that they believe could be harmful should be informed right away if the system is broken." (Source: The New York Times: July 14, 2005)

Attempting to link Clinton's mis-quote from 2005 with the word 'fraud' is ingenuous in the extreme.



And here's another take on the matter from a transcript from a December 8, 2003 CNN broadcast by reporter Jeanne Meserve: "MESERVE: (psychologist, Dr Dewey Cornell) testified that John Muhammad would coach Malvo on sniping techniques with video games like Halo (ph). By the time of the killings, Cornell says, Malvo was suffering from a mental disease and he had been brainwashed into believing right and wrong did not exist.

"MESERVE: Cornell also revealed that salvo was beaten by his mother and attempted suicide when he was 14. Also that he had killed cats and shop lifted CDs and comic books before he met John Muhammad and fell under his influence." (Source: CNN)

So, we have a confused young man, who had lived in homeless accommodation as well as being ferried across the country by his mother and her partner (John Muhammad), a partner who then used various tools to indoctrinate the young man. This use of tragedy, violence and complex issues is a trademark of the Florida-lawyers attempts to keep an agenda boiling at the expense of real action.



What Gates actually said - in the CBS show in 2002 is, "Video games are getting more realistic. But the key is that you have to bring that level of realism to a point where people forget they're playing a game. And the chips got good enough that we said we could come in and take gaming to a new level." (Source CBS)

The word "cool" does not appear. Nor does Gates say that games do transport you to a world that you think is real. He says what anybody creating entertainment says, and that is that you want the audience to suspend disbelief. Even Shakespeare appreciated that ("make imaginary puissance...'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings...turning th'accomplishment of many years into an hourglass...."), Jack.



Right, this is what Capcom told its investors, "Some of our popular software titles have provocative graphics and text, such as violent and grotesque scenes. Accordingly, in the event of violent incidents and other criminal cases involving juveniles, we may be subject to a smear campaign by some sections of the mass media which often point out the correlation between crime and games." (Source: Gamesindustry.biz)

So, Capcom is worried about smear campaigns very much akin to the one that Bruce Thompson is attempting to drum up. A sort of 'false' feedback loop in action.



Yes, the rating will indicate this - that's why it's a rating. The obvious question, however, is when Mr Thompson played the beta in order to make his assertion. So, we've asked him - and as a matter of course, we've also asked him what his gamertag is.



We await Mr Gates response to this. We can only assume that he will be posting guards in every bricks'n'mortar retailer, and in the bedroom of every kid in America.

Of course, the lawyer could take a look at why people do buy into violence in the first place instead of taking cheap shots.