Attorney and anti-gaming activist Jack Thompson has been hitting the media circuit with a vengeance recently, due to the tragic events that took place earlier this week on the campus of Virginia Tech. Yesterday, Thompson issued a press release (
http://www.gamealmighty.com/story-individual/story/Jack_Thompson_on_VA_Tech_Shootings_and_Games/ ) predicting that video games would be found to have been a contributing factor in the shootings. The Washington Post stated that the shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, had reportedly been "a fan of violent video games, particularly Counterstrike, a hugely popular online game published by Microsoft, in which players join terrorism or counterterrorism groups and try to shoot each other using all types of guns." Although it seems that the Post has since removed that statement, as well as any references to Counterstrike or any other video game, from its article, it was more than enough to get fuel Thompson's fire.
This afternoon, Game Almighty received an email from Thompson, which included an open letter sent to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. The letter reads as follows:
April 18, 2007
Bill Gates
Microsoft
1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052 Via Fax and e-mail
Dear Mr. Gates:
On Monday, April 16, at 3:10 pm, I was a guest, as I often have been in the past, on the Fox News Channel. News anchor Bill Hemmer asked me to profile the Virginia Tech rampage killer. I did so, noting that until that day the worst school massacre in world history was at the hands of Robert Steinhaeuser, who literally trained on the Microsoft on-line, hyper-violent shooter game, Counterstrike. I mentioned your company’s game by name. I explained that the rehearsal for such a massacre is key to being able to pull it off, as efficiently as Cho, whose name we didn’t even know at the time. Cho and Steinhaeuser were able to do what they did the first time because it was not the first time. This is why the military uses this same virtual reality simulation to train soldiers to want to kill and how to kill calmly, as the witnesses of Cho said he did.
Sure enough, last night I was doing a west coast radio interview when the host said to me, "Mr. Thompson, you are right. The Washington Post is reporting right now the following:
‘Several Korean youths who knew Cho Seung Hui from his high school days said he was a fan of violent video games, particularly Counterstrike, a hugely popular online game published by Microsoft, in which players join terrorism or counterterrorism groups and try to shoot each other using all types of guns.’"
I thus went back on the Fox News Channel, and Bill Hemmer and I explained not only that I was right about your game figuring in the Virginia Tech massacre but also that the Washington Post excised the above excerpt from the story this morning. That is yet another story. The bad news for the Post however is that you can still get the excised excerpt at http://www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2007041700563_3.html?hpid=topnews. Thus, the cat is out of the bag, and his paw prints are still on the bag. Is this a great Internet, or what?
As you know, I similalry [sic] went on NBC’s Today Show with the DC Beltway Sniper still unidentified and at-large a few years ago and told Matt Lauer and the nation that the triggerman would most likely be a teen video gamer trained on a sniper video game. The tarot card was a clue, but there were other clues. I was right, as Malvo trained on your Microsoft game, Halo. NBC reported that three months later, and it was part of the criminal trial of Malvo.
Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill. You knew five years ago that your on-line game, Counterstrike, so clearly figured in the massacre by a student in Erfurt that the event and the game impacted the race for Chancellor in Germany at the time!
Yet, here you are, five years after "Erfurt," still marketing Counterstrike. having done nothing to disable the server(s) for this mass murder simulator, and it looks like "Virginia Tech" is a consequence. There’s more going on in the world than Vista. Just ask the bereaved Virginia Tech families.
Mr. Gates, pull the plug on Counterstrike today, or do we need more dead to convince you? "Virginia Tech" was the 9-11 of school shootings, and it appears Microsoft is in the middle of it, in more ways than one.
Regards, Jack Thompson
Unfortunately, there are at least two glaring issues to be found in Thompson's latest letter. First, as mentioned earlier, The Washington Post article referenced by Thompson has since been edited to remove any references to Counterstrike and any other video game. Second, while Microsoft did publish the Xbox version of Counterstrike, the game was originally developed by Valve Software, with Vivendi Universal handling the publication of the game on the PC.
Game Almighty is still trying to convince Thompson to share his views with our readers. While the offer to speak remains open, there has been no further word from Thompson on if he will accept.
