Rockstar Victory – Jack Thompson Whines

By Kat | October 13, 2006

A Florida court denied Jack Thompson’s request to restrict the sales of Bully. Apparently, Thompson is not interested in appealing, because by the time an appeal case would hit the courtroom, the game will already be on store shelves.

The more interesting aspect of the story might be the nasty letter that Thompson has written to the judge in the case. Kotaku has it all. According to Thompson, the judge has “consigned innumerable children to skull fractures, eye injuries from slingshots, and beatings with baseball bats.” He then scolds the judge for only watching video of the game, instead of playing it, and for not watching the entire video.

Then, Jack Thompson likens the judge’s actions to Iran leading weapons inspectors to places where nuclear testing wasn’t occurring – allegedly the same way Rockstar allegedly showed the judge the least-violent parts of the game. But even that’s not enough – Thompson whines because the judge was supposedly smiling when he provided his ruling. Taking things personally, aren’t we?

The letter ends with a mild threat – the threat of Mr. Thompson bringing the parent of a child who died as a result of videogame-influenced violence to the next trial.

This all reeks of immaturity to me – a lawyer writing a nasty letter to the judge who ruled against him?