Wank of a different sort than normal

[timepiececlock]

It's not fandom wank, but it feels decidedly f_w in nature.

Yup, I'm getting a big kick out of the Jack Thompson thing. Before now I enjoyed the Penny Arcade, read it often and ocassionally printed out a funny strip that I could connect too.

Now? Now I love them. I'm officially fangirlling them, and it's not even over a comic strip.

Basically, there's this guy named Jack Thompson. He's a lawyer who campaigns in lawsuits against companies that make violent video games. Very known in the industry, I guess. One day he makes this strange offer to the gaming industry at large saying that if someone will make a video game about an angry father on a killing spree murdering video game execs and video game store clerks after his son is killed by a kid who watched violent video games, Jack Thompson will donate $10,000 to the game creator's charity of choice.

Everybody in the gaming industry and the internet thought that was a really, really bizarre offer to make. I told my roommate who isn't a gamer at all and she also thought that was absurd.

One of the two authors of Penny Arcade webcomic (mostly about gaming) wrote him an email asking him why/WTF?/ something to that effect. He called them up, yelled at them, and generally presented himself as a crazy person. They made a comic strip about it. They also mentioned it in their comic site blog, which typically has an entry or two for every strip.

There was more email trading. And not just with Penny Arcade. VG Cats, another gaming-centric webcomic (they who made the fabulous FMA/Harry Potter strip), was nice enough to transcribe their experiences.

Meanwhile, some of the large, public anti-video-game-violence groups are backing away from JT very very slowly, saying his bizarre offer does not represent their organizations. You can read the letter that the founder and head of the National Institute on Media and the Family sent him.

Then, I guess some dudes made something like what Jack Thompson was asking for, and he renigged on the whole thing, saying it was just a satire. Including, apparently, the offer for charity.

So the duo at Penny Arcade, they being cool cats indeed, made a $10,000 donation to Entertainment Software Association, a charity group that raises money for various children's programs (ex: Boys And Girls Club), in Jack Thompson's name . Literally in his name-- their site blog has a picture of the donation check, and they wrote his name on it.

But that's not the best part. (and by "best" I mean wankiest) The best part is that Jack Thompson wrote a letter to the Seattle Police Chief, saying he wanted the two authors of Penny Arcade to be arrested for harrassment.

I shit you not, folks. You can read that letter on their site too.


Other links on the topic can be found at:
http://www.gamepolitics.com/
http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=10830

Comments

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Old news being a subjective term, as most of this has happened within the last week, some of it as recent as yesterday. I've been reading about it for several days now myself. When I thought about making a post, I figured I might as well consolidate and provide explanation for the entire series of wanky events, rather than just a one-line comment, so people who hadn't would know what I was refering to.

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

Its a good explanation, and I know that many of our mutual friends wouldn't know about it bc I'm the only one who really keeps up with the gaming industry, etc. *fangirls Penny Arcade*