Public Ridicule

How low will Jack Thompson stoop? According to the Wired Blog Network, pretty damn low. Jack addressed a letter to the mother of the Chairman of Take-Two Interactive Software, Strauss Zelnick. Take-Two is the company behind the Grand Theft Auto IV game. You can read the letter in it’s entirety at the Wired link above, but here are a few choice quotes from Jack’s letter:

Dear Mrs. Zelnick:

Your son, as you may know (or maybe you don’t know), is Chairman of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., whose most popular video games are the Grand Theft Auto murder simulator games banned in some countries but sold to children here.

Right out of the gate, “murder simulator” and “sold to children”. Jack loves his emotionally charged buzzwords. As if murders didn’t occur before the era of video games. Come on, Jack. You can’t be this dense - this is all about publicity for you.

Your son last week was reported to have said the following about Grand Theft Auto IV, due to be released Tuesday, April 29:

“We’ve already received numerous [GTA IV] reviews, and to a one, they are perfect scores. My mom couldn’t write better reviews…”

Taking your son’s thought, I would encourage you either to play this game or have an adroit video gamer play it for you. Some of the latter gamers are on death row, so try to find one out in the civilian population who hasn’t killed someone yet.

Laughable.

Mrs. Zelnick, did you train up your son, Strauss, to make millions of dollars by pushing Mature-rated video games to children? Any kid can go right to little Strauss’ corporate web site and buy GTA IV with no age verification. Strauss is even marketing the new Grand Theft Auto IV on World Wrestling Entertainment tv shows seen by millions of kids. If you trained up Strauss to do this, then shame on you.

It seems like Jack’s mother trained him up to be media whore. Shame on her. She raised her boy to open his hole up for anyone with a recording device.

Your son, this very moment, is doing everything he possibly can to sell as many copies of GTA IV to teen boys in the United States, a country in which your son claims you raised him to be “a Boy Scout.” More like the Hitler Youth, I would say.

For someone who claims to despise everything about GTA, Jack sure knows how to throw verbal Molotov cocktails. It’s as if he’s been “trained” to do so.

I’ve got an idea for a game I think Jack will like. It’s about the ruler of a gang and how this ruler maintains order over his territory. You will be one of his many underlings. In the game, the ruler:

Orders his followers to commit genocide not just once, but many, many times.

Sends wild beasts to kill his enemies children.

Threatens to force people to eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and fathers and friends.

Condones and orders human sacrifice.

Creates a plague that kills thousands of people - men, women, and children.

Has 32,000 virgins taken as spoils of war. Thirty-two are set aside as a tribute for him.

Orders horses to be hamstrung.

Commands his underlings to “utterly destroy” and shown “no mercy” to those he defeats.

Has an underling sacrifice his daughter, his only child, according to a vow he has made.

Kills seventy men for looking at his possessions and at him.

Has an underling rip open all the women who are pregnant.

My game is called GTA (God, the Asshole), because all of the things I just listed (and many more equally horrible things) happen in the Bible at God’s request.

And the game gets worse because the Ruler can also torture the dead beyond the grave. Millions upon millions will be sent to a place where they will burn alive for eternity. What do you think, Jack? Is this acceptable? It’s your rule book we’re gong by. You should be thrilled.

Jack, think long and hard about what you want this world to be like. Douche.