Thompson has heavily criticized a number of video games and campaigned against their producers and distributors. His basic argument is that violent video games have repeatedly been used by teenagers as "murder simulators" to rehearse violent plans. He has pointed to alleged connections between such games and a number of school massacres. According to Thompson, "In every school shooting, we find that kids who pull the trigger are video gamers." Also, he claims that scientific studies show teenagers process the game environment differently from adults, leading to increased violence and
copycat behavior. Thompson has described the proliferation of games by
Sony, a Japanese company, as "
Pearl Harbor 2". Thompson has rejected arguments that such video games are protected by
freedom of expression, saying, "Murder simulators are not constitutionally protected speech. They're not even speech. They're dangerous physical appliances that teach a kid how to kill efficiently and to love it," as well as simply calling video games "mental masturbation". Thompson further claims that some of these games are based on military training and
simulation technologies, such as those being developed at the
Institute for Creative Technologies, which, he suggests, were created by the
Department of Defense to help overcome soldiers' inhibition to kill. He also claims that the
PlayStation 2's
DualShock controller "gives you a pleasurable buzz back into your hands with each kill. This is
operant conditioning,
behavior modification right out of
B. F. Skinner's laboratory." Although his efforts dealing with video games have generally focused on juveniles, Thompson got involved in a case involving an adult on one occasion in 2004. This was an
aggravated murder case against 29-year-old Charles McCoy Jr., the defendant in a series of highway shootings the previous year around
Columbus, Ohio. When McCoy was captured, a game console and a copy of
The Getaway were in his motel room. Although not representing McCoy and over the objections of McCoy's lawyers, Thompson succeeded in getting the court to unseal a
search warrant for McCoy's residence. This showed, among other things, the discovery of additional games
State of Emergency,
Max Payne, and
Dead to Rights. However, he was not allowed to present the evidence to McCoy, whose defense team was relying on an
insanity defense based on
paranoid schizophrenia. In Thompson's estimation, McCoy was the "functional equivalent of a 15-year-old," and "the only thing insane about this case is the (insanity) defense". In 2024, years after his disbarment from practicing law, as well as his notoriety with gamers fading with the passage of time, Jack Thompson had appeared to have denounced his disdain for video games. On an interview with the
My Perfect Console podcast, Thompson praised video games for helping out disabled people with their interactive nature.
Early litigation Thompson filed a lawsuit on behalf of the parents of three students killed in the
1997 Heath High School shooting. Investigations showed that the perpetrator, 14-year-old Michael Carneal, had regularly played various computer games (including
Doom,
Quake,
Castle Wolfenstein,
Redneck Rampage,
Nightmare Creatures,
MechWarrior, and
Resident Evil) and accessed some pornographic websites. Carneal had also owned a videotape of
The Basketball Diaries, which includes a high school student dreaming about shooting his teacher and some classmates. The suit sought $33 million in damages, alleging that the producers of the games, the movie, and the operators of the Internet sites were
negligent in distributing this material to a minor because it would desensitize him and make him more prone to violence. Additional claims included
product liability for making "defective" products (the defects alleged were violent features and lack of warnings) and violation of RICO, the
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, for distributing this material to minors. Said Thompson, "We intend to hurt Hollywood. We intend to hurt the video game industry. We intend to hurt the sex porn sites." The suit was filed in federal district court and was dismissed for failing to present a legally recognizable claim. The court concluded that Carneal's actions were not reasonably foreseeable by the defendants and that, in any case, his actions superseded those of the defendants, so the latter could not therefore be the
proximate cause of the harm. In addition, the judge determined that "thoughts, ideas and images" in the defendants' materials did not constitute "products" that could be considered defective.
Grand Theft Auto Actions in law Ohio In February 2003, Thompson asked permission to file an
amicus curiae (or "friend of the court") brief in the Ohio case of Dustin Lynch, 16, who was charged with aggravated murder in the death of JoLynn Mishne; Lynch was "obsessed" with
Grand Theft Auto III. When Judge John Lohn ruled that Lynch would be tried as an adult, Thompson passed a message from Mishne's father to the judge, asserting that "the attorneys had better tell the jury about the violent video game that trained this kid [and] showed him how to kill our daughter, JoLynn. If they don't, I will." In a motion sent to the prosecutor, the boy's court-appointed lawyer, and reporters, Thompson asked to be recognized as the boy's lawyer in the case. Medina County Prosecutor Dean Holman, however, said Thompson would be faced with deeply conflicting interests if he were to represent Dustin Lynch because he also advised Mishne's parents. Claiming that delays had weakened his case, Thompson asked Medina County Common Pleas Judge Christopher Collier to disqualify himself from presiding over the case because the judge had not ruled on Thompson's request for two months. The boy himself eventually rejected Thompson's offer, withdrawing his insanity plea. Lynch's mother, Jerrilyn Thomas, who had demanded that Collier appoint Thompson to defend her son, said she changed her mind after visiting with her son in jail, saying that the charge against him "has nothing to do with video games or
Paxil, and my son's no murderer."
Tennessee Thompson returned to file a lawsuit in Tennessee state court in October 2003 on behalf of the victims of two teenage stepbrothers who had pleaded guilty to reckless homicide, endangerment, and assault. Since the boys told investigators they were inspired by
Grand Theft Auto III, Thompson sought $246 million in damages from the publisher,
Take-Two Interactive, along with
PlayStation 2 maker
Sony Computer Entertainment America and retailer
Wal-Mart. The suit charged that the defendants knew or should have known that the game would cause copycat violence. On October 22, 2003, the case was removed to the
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. Two days later, the plaintiffs filed a notice of
voluntary dismissal, and the case was closed.
Alabama Thompson was involved in a similar suit in
Alabama in 2005 on behalf of the families of police personnel killed by
Devin Moore, a teenager who was reportedly a compulsive
Grand Theft Auto player. The lawyer's participation in the case, however, ran into a dispute over his
pro hac vice, or temporary, admission to practice in that state. The opposing attorneys sought removal of the privilege by arguing that Thompson's conduct was unethical and claiming that he had threatened and harassed them in letters and emails. The judge added that Thompson had violated his gag order during Moore's criminal trial. Thompson tried to withdraw from the case, but his request was denied by the judge, who went ahead and revoked Thompson's temporary admission to the state bar. For his part, Thompson said he thought the judge was trying to protect Moore's criminal conviction at any cost. He also complained about the judge's ethics, saying a local attorney who claimed to have influence on the judge had assured him the case would be dismissed unless the attorney was on Thompson's team, and also claimed that Rockstar Entertainment and Take Two Interactive posted slanderous comments about him on their website. In the aftermath of this lawsuit, Thompson lobbied
Alabama attorney general Troy King to file a civil suit and call on retailers not to sell "cop-killing games". In January 2005, Best Buy agreed that it would enforce an existing policy to check the identification of anyone who appeared to be 17 or under and tried to purchase games rated "M" (for mature audiences).
New Mexico In September 2006, Thompson and attorney Steven Sanders filed a suit in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, against
Sony,
Take-Two,
Rockstar Games, and teenage killer Cody Posey, for the wrongful death of three members of Posey's family. The suit, on behalf of surviving family members, claimed that "obsessively" playing
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City made violence "pleasurable and attractive," disconnected violence from consequences, and caused Posey to "act out, copycat, replicate and emulate the violence" when in July 2004 he shot and killed his father, stepmother, and stepsister and then buried them under a manure pile. According to Thompson, "Posey essentially practiced how to kill on this game. If it wasn't for
Grand Theft Auto, three people might not now be dead." The suit claimed that Thompson had been told by a sheriff's deputy that the game and a Sony
PlayStation 2 were found at the ranch. The suit also claimed that the game taught Posey "how to point and shoot a gun in a fashion making him an extraordinarily effective killer without teaching him any of the constraints or responsibilities needed to inhibit such a killing capacity." The game in question does not actually teach the player anything about handling a firearm. Gary Mitchell, Posey's attorney, said Thompson contacted him "numerous times" before the trial, urging him to highlight the game in Posey's defense, but Mitchell said he "just didn't find it had any merit whatsoever."
Take-Two reaction On March 14, 2007, Take-Two
filed a lawsuit seeking to permanently
enjoin Thompson from filing any public nuisance action against the company that would block the sales to minors of the unreleased video games
Grand Theft Auto IV and
Manhunt 2. The suit alleged that Thompson's lawsuits violated the company's
First Amendment rights. Responding, Thompson said: "I have been praying, literally, that Take-Two and its lawyers would do something so stupid, so arrogant, so dumb, even dumber than what they have to date done, that such a misstep would enable me to destroy Take-Two." One analyst said that the settlement was likely to mute his public pronouncements and lawsuits against the company. However, upon the game's 2008 release, Thompson called
Grand Theft Auto IV "the gravest assault upon children in this country since
polio," and asked Minnesota Governor
Tim Pawlenty to "pursue and file criminal charges against [Minnesota-based retailers] Target and Best Buy". He also sent a letter to Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick's attorney, addressed to Zelnick's mother, in which Thompson accused her son of "doing everything he possibly can to sell as many copies of GTA: IV to teen boys in the United States, a country in which your son claims you raised him to be a 'a
Boy Scout'. ... More like the
Hitler Youth, I would say." On May 1, 2008, Thompson appeared on the
CNN Headline News program
Glenn Beck, asserting that the game's sexual content made its sale to minors illegal, and that he was working with law enforcement to have criminal prosecutions brought.
GameZone emails In September 2013, Thompson expressed his hatred of
Grand Theft Auto V during a series of e-mails exchange with GameZone writer Lance Liebl during its launch week. The game happened to launch the day after the
Washington Navy Yard shooting. Traditional media outlets such as
Fox News and
MSNBC sought out to find proof that violent video games, such as
Grand Theft Auto V, had a role in the brutal killings. GameZone responded by writing an article that disagrees with this. These caught Thompson's attention, who then sent an e-mail to the site. "Look, Lance," he wrote in an email, "
The American Psychological Association has established a causal link between these games and increased aggression. The Dept. of Defense uses them for that purpose." Liebl responded by offering Thompson a chance to come on the site and explain his stance, which he refused, describing
gamers as "too brain-impaired to get it."
Bully Beginning in 2005, Thompson supported a campaign to discourage Take-Two's subsidiary,
Rockstar Games, from releasing a game called
Bully, in which, according to Thompson, "what you are in effect doing is rehearsing your physical revenge and violence against those whom you have been victimized by. And then you, like
Klebold and Harris in Columbine, become the ultimate bully." According to Thompson, the game "shows you how to—by bullying—take over your school. You punch people; you hit them with sling shots; you dunk their heads in dirty toilets. There's white-on-black crime in the game. You bludgeon teachers and classmates with bats. It's absolutely nuts." Thompson sued
Wal-Mart,
Best Buy,
Target,
Circuit City,
GameStop, and
Toys 'R' Us, seeking an order to bar the game's release. Thompson said he hoped that the pressure would get retailers to refuse to carry the game. In March 2006, the
Miami-Dade County Public Schools board unanimously passed a
resolution criticizing the game and urging retailers not to sell the game to minors. Thompson also criticized
Bill Gates and
Microsoft for contracting with Rockstar Games to release the game on the
Xbox. Rockstar Games co-founder Terry Donovan responded, saying "I would prefer it if we could simply make great games and not have to deal with misunderstanding and misperception of what we do." After receiving no response from Rockstar regarding an advance copy, Thompson filed the public nuisance complaint against
Wal-Mart,
Take-Two Interactive, and
GameStop, demanding that he be allowed to preview the game before its October 17 release date. Take-Two offered to bring in a copy and let both Judge Ronald Friedman and Thompson view the game in the judge's chambers on October 12, 2006. The judge ultimately saw no reason to restrict sales and dismissed the complaint the next day. Thompson was critical of the judge's decision, telling the judge "You did not see the game... You don't even know what it was you saw," as well as accusing the Take-Two employee who demonstrated the game of avoiding the most violent parts.
Blank Rome subsequently filed a motion to have Thompson's behavior declared "contempt for the court". Judge Friedman then
recused himself from ruling, and instead filed a complaint against Thompson with The Florida Bar, calling Thompson's behavior "inappropriate by a member of the bar, unprofessional and contemptible". Thompson later drew attention to the game's main character, a 15-year-old male, being able to kiss other boys. Thompson wrote to
ESRB president Patricia Vance, "We just found gay sexual content in
Bully as
Jimmy Hopkins makes out with another male student. Good luck with your Teen rating now." The ESRB responded by saying they were already aware that the content was in the game when they rated it.
Manhunt During the aftermath of the murder of Stefan Pakeerah by his friend Warren Leblanc in
Leicestershire, England, the game
Manhunt was linked after the media wrongfully claimed police found a copy in Leblanc's room. The police officially denied any link, citing drug-related robbery as the motive and revealing that the game had been found in Pakeerah's bedroom, not Leblanc's. Thompson, who had heard of the murder, claimed that he had written to Rockstar after the game was released, warning them that the nature of the game could inspire copycat killings: "I wrote warning them that somebody was going to copycat the
Manhunt game and kill somebody. We have had dozens of killings in the U.S. by children who had played these types of games. This is not an isolated incident. These types of games are basically murder simulators. There are people being killed over here almost on a daily basis." Soon thereafter, the Pakeerah family hired Thompson with the aim of suing
Sony and Rockstar for £50 million in a
wrongful death claim. Jack Thompson would later vow to permanently ban the game during the release of the sequel
Manhunt 2. Thompson said he planned to sue Take-Two/Rockstar in an effort to have both
Manhunt 2 and
Grand Theft Auto IV banned as "public nuisances", saying "killings have been specifically linked to Take-Two's
Manhunt and
Grand Theft Auto games. [I have] asked Take-Two and retailers to stop selling Take-Two's 'Mature' murder simulation games to kids. They all refuse. They are about to be told by a court of law that they must adhere to the logic of their own 'Mature' labels."
Mortal Kombat In October 2006, Thompson sent a letter to
Midway Games, demanding they
cease and desist selling the latest game in the
Mortal Kombat series,
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, claiming that the game was illegally profiting on his likeness, because gamers could use the character creation option to make a character who looked like Thompson. Thompson has supported legislation in a number of states that would ban sales of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors. However, he rejected as "completely unconstitutional"
Hillary Clinton's proposed legislation to ban sales to minors of games rated "M" for Mature by the
Entertainment Software Rating Board. Thompson contended that the government could not enforce a private-sector standard but had to depend on a
Miller obscenity test. He charged that Clinton was simply positioning herself politically, with the support of the gaming industry, by proposing a bill which he felt she knew would be unconstitutional. In July 2005, Thompson sent a letter to several politicians urging them to investigate
The Sims 2, alleging that the game contained nudity accessible by entering special codes. Thompson called the nudity inappropriate for a game rated "T" for Teen, a rating which indicates suitability for anyone 13 and older. Manufacturer
Electronic Arts dismissed the allegations, with vice president Jeff Brown explaining that game characters have "no anatomical detail" under their clothes, effectively resembling
Barbie dolls. Although the game does display blurred-out patches over body regions when characters are naked, such as when taking a shower, Brown said that was for "humorous effect" and denied there was anything improper about the game. In
Louisiana, Thompson helped draft a 2006 bill sponsored by state representative
Roy Burrell to ban the sale of violent video games to buyers under 18 (
HB1381). In an effort to avoid constitutional problems, it avoided trying to define "violent" and instead adopted a variation of the
Miller obscenity test: sales to minors would be illegal based on community standards if the game appealed to "the minor's morbid interest in violence", was patently offensive based on adult standards of suitability for minors, and lacked serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors. The bill was passed unanimously by the state House and approved by the Senate Judiciary A Committee, despite industry opposition and predictions that it too would be unconstitutional.
The Shreveport Times editorialized that Thompson's support of the bill "should immediately set off alarms" and described Thompson as someone who "thrives on chasing cultural ambulances". However, the ESA filed suit under
Entertainment Software Association v. Foti, and U.S. District Judge
James Brady issued a preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking the law from taking effect until full judicial review can be done. The law was
permanently enjoined in late November 2006, and the state was ordered to pay the legal fees of the plaintiffs. Judge Brady was "dumbfounded" that state legislators and Louisiana Governor
Kathleen Blanco wasted taxpayer money by trying to enact the law. At one point, Thompson was asked by the
National Institute on Media and the Family to stop invoking the organization's name in his campaigns. NIMF president David Walsh felt Thompson cast the organization in a bad light whenever he brought up their name. "Your commentary has included extreme hyperbole and your tactics have included personally attacking individuals for whom I have a great deal of respect," Walsh said in an open letter to Thompson. Thompson has additionally worked to influence police investigations concerning violent acts which he views as being connected to violence in video games media. On June 2, 2006, Thompson suggested that
West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, police detectives, investigating the murder of 55-year-old Michael Gore by 17-year-old Kurt Edward Neher, should look into the video games played by Neher. According to Sheriff J. Austin Daniel, an autopsy showed Gore was beaten to death as well as shot in the face. Concerning this, Thompson stated that "nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hit man or a video gamer."
Other public commentary Thompson predicted that the perpetrator of the
Beltway sniper attacks would be "a teenaged boy, who plays video games", and speculated incorrectly that he "may indeed ride a bicycle to and from his shooting locations, his gun broken down and placed in a backpack while he pedals." Saying that the shooter,
Lee Boyd Malvo, had "trained" on
Halo, Thompson later claimed credit for this on
The Today Show: "I predicted that the Beltway sniper would be a teen-aged boy that trained on a game switched to sniper mode. And three months later,
NBC reported that that's exactly what Malvo did. And
Muhammad had him train on the game to suppress his inhibition to kill." John Muhammad was a
Gulf War veteran and earned an expert marksmanship badge in the U.S. Army. Thompson has also criticized a Christian video game based on the
Left Behind series. In
Left Behind: Eternal Forces, players participate in "battles raging in the streets of New York," according to the game's fact sheet. They engage in "physical and
spiritual warfare: using the
power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world." Thompson claims that the makers of the game are sacrificing their values. He said, "Because of the Christian context, somehow it's OK? It's not OK. The context is irrelevant. It's a mass-killing game."
Left Behind author
Tim LaHaye disagrees, saying "Rather than forbid young people from viewing their favorite pastime, I prefer to give them something that's positive." In April 2007, only hours after the Virginia Tech shooting (and before
Seung-Hui Cho was actually identified), Thompson predicted that the shooter had trained on the game
Counter-Strike. According to Thompson, the game "drills you and gives you scenarios on how to kill them [and] gets you to kill them with your heart rate lower." He says that Cho "was in a
hyper-reality situation in
virtual reality." Though Cho had last been known to have played
Counter-Strike in high school, four years prior to the shooting, Thompson asserts that "you don't drop it when you go to college, typically." Thompson disputed Cho's roommate's claim that Cho only used his computer to write fiction, on the grounds that "Cho was able to go room to room calmly, efficiently, coolly killing people." Prior to being identified, Thompson attributed the "
flat effect on [Cho's] face" and the efficiency of his attack to video game rehearsals of the shooting. However, a search warrant released, listing the items found in Cho's dorm room, did not contain any video games, and a
Washington Post story cited by Thompson later removed a paragraph stating that Cho enjoyed violent video games in high school. Despite all evidence indicating that Cho had not played
Counter-Strike in years, Thompson continued to insist that "this is not rocket science. When a kid who has never killed anyone in his life goes on a rampage and looks like the
Terminator, he's a video gamer." Thompson also sent a letter to
Bill Gates, saying, "Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable (for) the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill." However, Microsoft did not create
Counter-Strike – they only published the
Xbox version of the game. In December 2007, Thompson filed suit against
Omaha, Nebraska Police Chief Thomas Warren, asking him to produce information on all "violent entertainment material" belonging to Robert Hawkins, who killed nine people, including himself, in a
shooting at the
Westroads Mall earlier that month. According to the
Omaha Police Department, such information is not a matter of
public record, as it is part of an ongoing criminal investigation. On February 15, 2008, Jack Thompson claimed that the actions of
Steven Kazmierczak, who the previous day
killed five people at
Northern Illinois University before committing suicide, were influenced by the game
Counter-Strike. In a subsequent news release, Thompson claimed that "We have a nation of
Manchurian Candidate video gamers out there who are ready, willing, and able to massacre, and some of them will." Thompson also threatened the university with a lawsuit if the school did not provide copies of "all documents that reveal [Kazmierczak's] play of violent videogames."
Relationship with the gaming industry and gamers Thompson's "high-profile crusades" have made him an enemy of video game aficionados. Other
webcomics have regularly incorporated references to Thompson, alluding to this incident as well as others. In 2006, two
Michigan gamers began a project dubbed "Flowers for Jack", soliciting donations to deliver a massive floral arrangement to Thompson's office. The flowers were delivered in February along with a letter aimed at opening a dialogue between Thompson and the video gaming community. Thompson rejected this overture and forwarded the flowers to some of his industry foes, with such comments as "Discard them along with the decency you discarded long ago. I really don't care. Grind them up and smoke them if you like." Gamers have responded to Thompson's attempt to link the Virginia Tech massacre to the game
Counter-Strike. Video game Web sites and young gamers on Internet message boards "teemed with anger" at what
San Francisco Chronicle reporter Peter Hartlaub called "his serial misstatements," in some cases linking to YouTube videos of Thompson and dissecting his claims point by point.
Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the
International Game Developers Association, said, "It's so sad. These massacre chasers—they're worse than
ambulance chasers—they're waiting for these things to happen so they can jump on their soapbox." According to Della Rocca, Thompson then challenged him to a series of gaming debates, claiming that they could each make more than $3,000 per event. When Della Rocca suggested that neither he nor Thompson accept any money for the events, Thompson refused. stating, "I get messages (IMs, emails, FB notes, etc.) from members all the time, asking what the (almost daily) notes are from JT. Since this one's fairly harmless and I've redacted anything personal (not that I don't love getting his threatening cease and desist letters), I thought I'd share it as a pretty typical exchange." Halpin and Thompson have been vocal opponents since 1998, when Halpin ran the game retail trade association IEMA. The exchange was sparked by a guest editorial that Halpin entitled, "Perception is Everything" for IndustryGamers.com where he called for consumers and the industry to speak out against negative stereotyping of gamers. In March 2011, in response to the creation of a school shooter mod entitled
School Shooter: North American Tour 2012, developed by Checkerboarded Studios on
Valve's
Source engine, Thompson emailed Valve's managing director,
Gabe Newell, demanding that the mod be removed, as he speculated that Valve played a part in the mod's development. In the letter, Thompson stated that
Half-Life was directly responsible for the
Erfurt school massacre, as well as the
Virginia Tech massacre and that Valve had until 5:00p.m. on March18 to remove the mod. ==
The Howard Stern Show==