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To many dedicated gamers, Jack Thompson is a wicked man. T shirts that read I hate Jack Thompson are available on the Internet, and he's received hundreds of death threats. Thompson, a Florida-based lawyer, has become the poster boy for the anti-videogame crowd. He's campaigned to bump up the ratings of The Sims and Bully--a game in which players control a schoolboy who defends the weak and battles authority--from "teen" to "mature," and he's sued major retailers including Best Buy and Wal-Mart to get Bully off the shelves. Thompson says his goal is to outlaw the sale of mature-rated videogames to minors.
Thompson doesn't have a big following, but he's kicking up a ruckus. In September, he and New Mexico-based lawyer Steven Sanders named the makers of Grand Theft Auto in a civil lawsuit. They allege that the videogame inspired Codey Posey, 16, to murder three family members in July 2004. (Posey reportedly played the game obsessively.) The videogame industry worries about such suits, even if they're unsuccessful, because they might lead to calls for government regulation.
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That's what Thompson wants. One of his big beefs is that the games industry doesn't do a good job of enforcing its own ratings system. There's some evidence that he's right. In a recent U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation, 42 percent of underage kids were able to buy mature-rated games. Thompson thinks governments should step in with laws that restrict sales to minors. The industry fears that strict regulations like those in Australia and Germany would cut into its markets. Game developers worry about their artistic freedom.
What makes Thompson so bothersome is that he's articulating the fear of many parents that the violence and sex in the videogames their kids play may be harmful. (He's called mature-rated games "mental molestation" of children and "murder simulators.") So far he's had no success in getting U.S. laws passed. Last month U.S. District Judge James Brady in Louisiana struck down a law, written by Thompson and Rep. Roy Burrell, that would restrict the sale of mature videogames to minors. Despite numerous studies, science hasn't found any proof that videogame violence harms children. In the absence of proof, Brady argued, games should be regulated like movies, books and music. That's something to put on a T shirt.
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