Jack Thompson Responds to IGDA Criticism
His claims right there are shot down by the evidence that Cho wasn’t playing video games, all he has to base it on now is his own claim that he may or may not have played Counterstrike in High school.
Look at how angry he gets at the end and tries to make himself look like the hero, a man who reacts this way by calling someone else an idiot..is an idiot.
- X
First of all my thoughts are with friends and family of the ones that died..A terrible event that shouldn’t have happened but they do and it seems we are powerless in keeping them from happening.
I’ve been checking out sites like gamepolitics.com and kotaku.com after I heard about the event and as no surprise to me it had already been blamed on violent video games by Jack Thompson. He was even let on Fox as an “School Shooting Expert” just few hours after the even before any information had been released and had already started blaming the massacre on Video games and that “The Killer” had been training with on them. His arguments of course caused an uproar in the gaming community which is pretty understanding considering that Jack Thompson’s arguments are usually flawed and often consist of misleading information, statements where he leaves out facts and only leaves the ones that support his claims and even sometimes he has lied on TV and made up his own facts without any proof or support from anywhere.
Since he is allowed this publicity on National TV he can get to the people that aren’t that familiar with Video games and uses it to get support. This time however he made a mistake because his claims were based on the fact that Cho played video games and trained on them to be able to be calm enough under those circumstance to kill all those people and coming up with some whacked up bullshit about seeing his heart rate using a security camera. Cho was mentally disturbed and obviously had some serious issues. This time however there is proof that Cho didn’t even have any violent video games and his roommate claimed that he never saw him play any, he had spend most of his times watching game shows and writing stories and poetry. Jack Thompson’s claims that some high school friends of Cho said he had played Counterstrike and thus Jack is saying that he was able to stay calm under that condition because he played CS like 4-5 years prior to the event. He also said in one of the many videos now all around the web that this roommate of Cho’s didn’t know what he was talking about. How the hell would he know? It seems that the guy doesn’t listen to arguments, such a one track mind he’s got. Many of today’s bigger media outlets are discrediting Jack on this one because his claims are far fetched and he is basing his arguments on other cases he’s worked on.
He also mentioned the shooting that took place in Germany where 16 students where killed, he claims that the killer trained on Counterstrike that time. I have looked up and sure he did play Counterstrike but he also had a lot of violent comics, books,movies and a few other violent games. Jack Thompson also leaves out a vital fact in that case where the killer was also a member of the German “NRA” and had been a member for over a year so why would he need a game to train how to shoot if he has access to a gun range.
He conceals facts that matter, matter even more then some killer playing video games because even though maybe video games cause some violent urges it doesn’t mean that it makes you an effective killer. Also those studies on video games might be true that violent video games can raise aggression in kids/adults however is that really that much different from sports? People that watch/play sport can get violent, it raises their aggression. Playing dodge ball can raise your aggression because of it’s competitive nature so that video games do it as well isn’t all that surprising.
Jack Thompson has reacted badly to the criticism and as can be seen in the embedded video i’ll post later and separate thoughts on it.
Bottom line is that Jack Thompson lies/misinforms on national TV in order to further his career no one should be allowed to do that especially someone who likes to think of himself as an messenger/savior that’s only doing this to benefit everyone else, using the 9/11 tragedy by superimposing it over this shooting as the “9/11 of school shootings” to gain support. …Yeah he connected the dots..like that conspiracy between T2, Penny arcade and many others were pulling against him.
- X
