Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Column: Politics, Hypocrites and Twits @ Mmorpg.Com

Dave Bonnewell digs into the vicious video game politics that plays itself out in the mass media of America. "Behind the Online" is a weekly column Bonnewell writes for MMORPG.com.

Last month also marked the one year anniversary of one of Jack Thompson's most duplicitous and malicious measures. On October 10, 2005, Jack Thompson sent an open letter titled "A Modest Video Game Proposal" to members of the press and to Entertainment Software Association president Doug Lowenstein. Mr. Lowenstein, by the way, was the focus of personal attacks by Thompson in a CBS interview in which Thompson compared Mr. Lowenstein to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, knowing full well that Mr. Lowenstein happens to be Jewish. Anyway, back to the letter. In this letter he proposed that if someone could "create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006" that allows players to play the scenario he has written, he would write a check for ten grand to the charity of Take-Two's chairman Paul Eibeler's choosing. Now, here's where things really get interesting. The premise is a Grand Theft Auto-style game in which the focus of brutality is not on police officers and civilians, but rather on the industry leaders responsible for marketing violent video games, such as Take-Two CEO Eibeler and his family.

The whole editorial is here.

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