Jack Thompson’s Crusade

It looks like Jack Thompson might be at the end of his rope with his Bar trial.  Video games seem to have been Thompson’s white whale, his obsession, and it may have ultimately destroyed him.  However if Thompson loses his license I personally don’t think we will hear the last of him.  It would be really easy for him to contract with some other lawyer to air his views in court.  I sympathize with Thompson’s goal of preventing children from accessing video games that they shouldn’t be playing.  But I think that he, and others who have gone down his road, could have done a better job by simply trying to work with retailers, parents, and the ESRB to improve the rating system and the level of understanding of the rating system, instead of attacking the industry as a whole.  A method which so far has not worked.

Violence in Games and Teenage Violence

The concern that politicians and parents have about the effect of violence in media on children is a concern that has been around for a very long time. However it was only in the early nineties that video games became a target for protectionist groups. There seemed to be a lull in this concern when the ESRB was formed but there has been some doubt as to effectiveness of this rating system recently with the unlocking of the “Hot Coffee” mod in 2005.

Since then we have seen a multitude of city and state laws that have attempted to prevent the sale of violent or “Mature” rated games to minors through the use of fines for both the purchaser and the seller. These have all since been thrown down by the courts for various reasons including a lack of a clear correlation between violent media and violent acts and the laws’ infringement on the First Amendment. However when there is a comprehensive study, spanning at least five years, there could be a reversal of this trend. My fear is that there will be a study that is politically motivated and funded that will “prove” that there is a correlation between violent media and real life violence. I think that as long as the ESRB and ESA and other such organizations and users resist this, then we will not see State or Federal censorship on any media.

On the Road to Graduation

There are about five weeks left until graduation here at Champlain College. Between now and then I’ve been concentrating on getting my portfolio website up and running. I’ve been attempting to get a flash website up so that I can dynamically load images and other content through the use of an external .xml file so I can easily edit the website as I further develop my portfolio. Imperium Solaris, a space RTS that I designed, is in its second semester and coming along. Its a team project that six other people, including myself, are working on. I’m also working on a mod for The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion with another student and its also coming along. Though it is far from done as we still need to learn how to script in the Construction Set so we can set up some quests.