Jack Thompson trains on acting simulators

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By David Field
Feb 20, 2008

David Field does a little bit of his own research into video game violence.

Jack Thompson, Florida attorney and outspoken critic of video games, has predictably blamed Counterstrike for yet another tragic American school shooting carried out by a gun toting, erratic acting, medication shunning killer.

Thompson is the epitome of how to misunderstand what the gaming community is, and worryingly, one of the first pundits called in to analyse American school shootings (to an audience that doesn’t understand the gaming community) whenever they tragically occur.

Mass media is a funny thing. I was asked to discuss the HD format wars on Perth radio some time ago, and my interview was a miserable failure because I tried to explain the situation and let people make up their own minds.

History’s greatest orators, regardless of their agenda or motives, have always hammered messages home. Simple points. Short sentences. No explanation. Repetition. Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man.

And so it is with Jack Thompson. Every time he appears on network television, he ignores the topic at hand, and delivers his own tangential speech, all of which follow a formula. Listen to a few clips and you’ll hear a spoken traditional essay: statement, elaboration, body, link and conclusion.

Here’s a summary of every interview with Jack Thompson ever conducted:

[statement] Video games cause violence.

[elaboration] The worst shooting occurred in Germany up until Virginia Tech.

[body] The killer played video games. I am an authority on the subject. If the shooter is too old, he/she played video games at some point as a minor. I am an authority on the subject. There is evidence from a university that shows that children use their brains while playing video games. I am an authority on the subject.

[link] I am an authority on the subject.

[conclusion] Buy my book.

Notice how he falls over somewhere after his initial statement. We are all as sick of him as a high school teacher would be sick of marking 30 plagiarised essays that all discuss the same topic by using identical faulty reasoning.

Over the past two days, I’ve had a few discussions with Dr Guy Porter, co-author of a study of violence into Video Games. He’s currently working on a study into video game addiction, and we have an interview with him on Atomic. Jack Thompson’s sources came up in conversation, and in short, Thompson is basing his opinions on papers that Dr Porter considers to have methodological problems.

When Thompson quotes video games research studies, he is usually referring to papers written by Dr Craig Anderson of Iowa State University. Dr Porter pointed out that Anderson’s experimental studies into aggression levels and violent video games had participants play games, then gave the participants the chance to blast each other with white noise -- since there are ethical problems with testing for aggression using the human equivalent of a monkey knife fight. One group played Myst, the other Wolfenstein 3D.

This indirect study of aggression showed that the Wolfenstein players blasted the Myst players with an average extra 0.16 seconds of white noise. This is hardly likely to be significant in terms of real world aggression, especially given that the study involved only 32 people.

Other studies have shown that aggressive individuals are more likely to choose particularly violent games – a case of reverse causality which might make it appear that it is the games causing the aggression.

One of the problems is that unlike studies into violent television consumption, only one study on video game violence has looked at long term effects of violent video games, and it was clouded by exposure to other violent media. Because gaming is a relatively new and developing medium, better longitudinal research that can control and account for factors that cloud short term studies -- such as drug use and psychiatric problems -- are needed before anybody jumps to any conclusions.

Pointing out faulty logic is relatively simple, but explaining Jack Thompson’s actions is another question entirely. Does he do this because he wants notoriety? Relevance? Is he a reputation masochist? Or is it all of these things combined with a craving for a spotlight?

Well, I have a theory. It’s all these things in one, and to help him, Jack Thompson trains on acting simulators. He’s a bad actor giving a poorly rehearsed performance of a great orator.

He’s the news media equivalent of a fame seeking Hollywood freak. Desperate to be known, he extols his greatness, insight and knowledge whenever he can, despite a complete lack of any of these abilities while passing off his opinions as facts. It would explain why he forwards every legal letter he writes to the media.

But let’s not overlook his actions away from the mass media spotlight. In his most recent email, Thompson asked Dennis McCauley of gamepolitics.com if he was retarded. It’s equally as childish as his other inflammatory remarks that have been sprayed into the public’s view, such as “[gamers] couldn't care less about the people killed.”

Jack Thompson, I hope you land a better role soon. Right now listening to you is like listening to a recital of Citizen Kane by Pauly Shore.

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