Could some people understand video games any less? Apparently not Jack Thompson.
Thompson is threatning action against Rockstar for Vice City, wishing to remove the game from store shelves. His reasoning? Vice City contains sexual content.
After some investigation on the part of Jack Thompson’s cited sources, who couldn’t believe themselves how he manipulated their content into some monstrous design, it was determined that Jack Thompson misunderstood the following:
“At any rate, the rest of the mod scene was rather surprised when Patrick released it, so I don’t think anyone else even thought it was there. Although not many people (in the scene) are really shocked or surprised that Rockstar was working on it. Vice City had missions involving a porn studio with cutscenes showing people wearing less clothes than Hot Coffee while filming a porn, so to most who have been playing the series for a while, hot coffee seems like a natural progression. Especially considering all the other simulation flavored aspects they added to San Andreas.”
What does this mean for Take Two and Rockstar? Nothing – the ESRB were fully aware of those cutscenes when they gave the game the M Rating. The cutscenes themselves do not feature nudity, which is quite a testament to how lax Hot Coffee really was.
There is potential that the game is placed under review by the ESRB. But as is, I find that rather unlikely. I do believe that the ESRB will defend its decision to give the game an M rating, despite its questionable ruling with Hot Coffee.
UPDATE: Reply from Jack Thompson to Next-Gen on the issue:
“The problem for the ESRB, then, is worse. The modders themselves indicate that this “cutscene” rivals what is in the “Hot Coffee mod,” and in fact it does. Thus, the ESRB has put an AO rating on GTA:SA yet has put an M on a game whose content should have been known by them to include what is described. Kiss the ESRB good-bye.”
What does it say to me? Forget the content of this message – it means that Jack Thompson didn’t get his facts straight. This above email is a classic example from “Propaganda 101”: namely never admiting a mistake, and circumventing any errors at hand to make it seem like you’re in the right facing a [silently shifted] issue.
Ladies and Gentleman: Jack Thompson is nothing other than a non-existant cause looking for a reason within the video-gaming realm. He will stop at nothing in his quest, most probably because he is attracted to the attention he receives. The above example shows that he cares nothing of the facts, and would rather circumvent his errors with new fronts rather than face them. This is not a new allegation either – he’s been operating this way for years.