Jack Thompson vs. Mark Methenitis debate: The whole shebang

She said ''Thats What''

Of course he is, even when being polite he is full of misinformation and faulty statistics.

He's inventing statistics to justify his position against violent games, something he's done for years but the problem is that he does it with the assumption that nothing the industry has done keeps adult game out of children's hands even if it WERE true. The truth is that many times a parent will see the rating and not care because it's what their kid wanted rather than understanding it's a violent game and putting it back on the shelf if they deem his in capable of dealing with the violence. It's not companies or kids or even the games that are responsible it's the PARENTS.

You dont get your kids tickets to a Rated R slasher flick and then say "have a good time!" they arnt supposed to be there without an adult and you have to get past the teller and the usher without a parent to watch it. So why would you as a parent, the only impediment to a child experiencing that violence chose to just step aside just because it's a video game?

And even if kids DIDN'T play video games, they can STILL learn to kill just from the freaking NEWS. when I was 8 years old and running around with a piece of wood holding it like a riffle it wasn't because the little 16x16 3 color sprite on a screen inspired me to. No, it's because I'd seen guns on TV and the NEWS and knew how they were held and what they were used for.

When are movies penalized?

Movie are not regularly penalized, but there are studios that will punish retailers for breaking the rules. Its just not as common as Jack thinks.

Your logic is compelling and understandable, Erik my friend. I shall quell my nerd rage through the traditional gamer means: meditative zombie slaughter.

*Revs chainsaw*

only reason why he's being civil here is because he knows he's being painted as a maniac, this is him trying to get people to believe he's not the psycho that he's very often demonstrated that he really IS perhaps he's even medicated.

Dont be fooled.

"As for his point about Video Games being the only media that is rated but not penalized, I would love for him to watch TV even once so that he could see the blip of a rating that proceeds each show that everyone just ignores."

He means the production studios are not penalized by the government or the authorities in charge of those ratings.

We know for a fact that TV ratings violations are punished. See: Wardrobe Malfunction

Civil to a man that was barred from his practice because even his own people thought he was insane and illogical? Good points? I see none, nor any examples of it. His irrational logic is brought upon by his illogical religious views, which I should point out is an oxymoron. Jack Thompson should not have relevance anymore, but he does anyway because people love the "town drunk" character so journalists continue to report on him because it's funny. If we honestly wanted to be civil with him at THIS point, we should just ignore him. It would spare him further embarrassing additions to this crusade against video games he has created.

He says games "train" people to kill. He's probably not an honestly bad person, just a stupidly misinformed one who isn't strong or smart enough to admit he's wrong.

I actually agree.

His issue has actually always been about the selling of "M" rated games to underage kids.

The argument here isn't WHETHER they should play them... the argument is WHO should be determining their allowance.

And in this regard, I agree with Mark. It should be the parents. I'm so damn sick and tired of parents who feel it isn't their job to discipline and/or pay attention to, their own damn kids.

We don't need the damn government making these decisions for us.

While I think that Jack's stats are usually BS and I think more harm comes from High School football than children playing M rated games, I agree that they shouldn't play them.

I also think that Jack could accomplish a lot more by appealing to the parents and informing them of how every modern console has parent controls that are easy to use, of how they should be involved with their children, and should know what games they are playing and what games their friends let them play.

This is a far more affective strategy, not only for ensuring that kids don't play mature games, but also for ensuring your child doesn't become the next kid to shoot up his school. It definitely will work better than leaving it up to the govt.

I guess the only way to prove Jack Thompson wrong is be nice to him and not call hill names and say he's "Full Of Shit" And "Idiot" and to be fair he does have some legitimate points about whether or not it is okay for a fourteen year old should play GTA. Although he does shoot down his own case at the beginning when he said that video games can dangerous depending on the person, because that can literally apply to every type of media books, TV, movies, comics and there have been cases though out history that link any of these media to acts of violence. But all and all it was a good debate i have little respect for Jack Thompson (who would have thought that) and hope we in the gaming community and Jack Thompson can come to some sort of comprise in the future.

No, his point was FIRST that M-rated games should not be SOLD to minors, then as a side-note polled the audience if minors should PLAY such games.

Mark totally missed the point when he brought up drinking alcohol at home with one's parents. That's not analogous to what Jack was talking about. Letting a minor BUY alcohol would be analogous.

That's... Uh... Perfectly reasonable...?

Mark was a poor representative if he didn't respond to that point. All he had to do was relate the purchase of a violent video game to kids watching the daily news for free where we get constant flashes of burning buildings, yellow tape of murders, scared and distraught 911 calls, and so on and so on. That's just one example of violence kids are exposed to every day that he could have responded to. I didn't watch the debate, I don't need to, I know what Jack is all about calm or not. His points are extremely irrelevant, he's a "more government" man making decisions for us and our families when we are perfectly capable of doing that ourselves. But Jack doesn't think so, he thinks we're idiots blind to what our kids are doing or how it affects their developmental process. He didn't get barred and banned from Law for no reason, he's just that insane.

Not only did you not watch the debate video, your comment about Mark's position makes almost no sense in the context of my own comment.

By that reasoning, it should be legal for children to buy alcohol.

Yes, some kids still get it under the table, but it certainly makes the process more annoying.

TEEN games? Really?