Former ESA Prez: Game journalists made Thompson

by Xav de Matos on Sep 27th 2008 1:45PM

With the recent news of his upcoming disbarment hitting every RSS feed from here to infinity the gaming world was focused on the professional failure of Jack Thompson but have moved on. On the other side of the fence, former Entertainment Software Association president and frequent Thompson punching bag Doug Lowenstein has sent a letter to Kotaku asking them and other gaming journalists to reflect on how we helped to create the Thompson hype machine.

We can't but help but agree with Lowenstein in some way. However, with Thompson at the forefront of some of the biggest controversies the industry has seen in the last few years it would have been difficult to report on the issues without mentioning his name.

Would ignoring someone really make them disappear? If that were true then the entire Konami presentation at E3 2008 would have been a ghost show. Amirite?

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Tags: doug-lowenstein, esa, jack-thompson

Reader Comments (3)

Any press outlet covering the gaming industry was clearly in the right in covering Thompson if they thought his actions would have a discernible impact. And in many cases, I think he did - if nothing more than his impact on mainstream awareness of gaming, for better or worse.

I fully believe that gaming violence was not his primary concern, but simply a convenient means to an end to further his career as a "pundit." BUT, when even my mother can hear his bile on the Today Show, some attention has to be paid to his message and analyzed by the community. Ignoring him is not the correct answer.

What Thompson wanted - and got - was to be vilified by many, championed by others. He created strong reactions that many press outlets and gamers themselves helped perpetuate. By screaming bloody hell on message boards and blog comments, the people who hated him most helped assure another appearance on Fox News. If he were simply reported on and reacted to with a bit of mature detachment, he would be nothing more than an obscure footnote.

I think there's a difference between covering him when it's worthwhile and covering every last thing he does and offering him a soapbox.

A lot of sites did both and a lot of them went out of their way to make fun of him over it. That's hardly constructive. Meanwhile, he got absolutely no attention by any other media group, really.

I don't think ignoring him would have made him go away, but certainly there were a lot of major, professionally minded sites that handled it on the level of some random crazy kid's blog.

You know, maybe the gaming media did encourage Jack Thompson. It's entirely possible.

Y'know what probably had a much, much greater impact on him? The mainstream media covering him, putting him on TV, and reporting on his crazy accusations with an "objective" viewpoint. And somehow, I doubt they were too concerned with whether they were creating a monster by encouraging a crazy person. I'm sure that sort of thing happens all the time.