Thompson's Words:

Among his most notable endeavors is the effort to get Grand Theft Auto III: San Andreas re-rated as "Adults Only", instead of "Mature". Mature is intended for an audience at least seventeen years old. Adults Only is, on the other hand, rated for an audience at least eighteen years old.

This is an exceptionally complex topic still hot on everyone's minds. We'll be adding a page for it later.

Another endeavor is to rate Killer 7 Adults Only rather than Mature. Here is his open letter to the ESRB, the organization responsible for rating games in the United States. Edited for length - you can see the original here.

August 5, 2005
Patricia Vance
President Entertainment Software Rating Board

Re: Killer 7

Dear Ms. Vance:

I have just learned facts that indicate the above violent game most likely deserves an “AO” rating rather than the “M” rating which your ESRB has given it.

There is no question in my mind that a video game containing “full-blown sex sequences” cannot be rated anything other than “AO” rather than “M.” The reviewer above in fact says that this game’s “M” actually means something, and he says it twice for emphasis.

That answer [to what is not explicitly stated] would put the Entertainment Software Rating Board, in my opinion, in the middle of a criminal conspiracy to distribute sexual material harmful to minors in violation of criminal statutes. This is not a situation in which the ESRB has been blind-sided by hidden or embedded content, Ms. Vance. You all have known that the “full-blown sex sequences” are patently present in the game, yet you chose to put an “M” rather than an “AO” rating on it. Big mistake.

If I were you, Ms. Vance, I would immediately ask the makers of this game, and all retailers, to pull it from store shelves. If you don’t, expect for others to use this latest scandal, which I am hereby officially kicking off, to call for a dismantling of the ESRB.

The fox has guarded the chickens long enough. Killer 7 seems to prove it.

Sincerely, Jack Thompson

[Archive]

He is also responsible for much furor about a game called Manhunt, which he holds to be responsible for the murder of one child by another in the UK. Here are some quotes on that matter. The full interview can be found here. The interview was conducted by IGN.

The ones [UK's rating systems] that are in place now aren't working because the day this was on the front page in London a kid was taken by one of the newspapers into a store and he bought it. It's well documented here in the states as well. The Federal Trade Commission just last month proved that despite the promises after Columbine not to market this stuff to kids that M-rated games are still marketed directly to some people under-17 and despite Wal-Mart's and Target's and other retailers' age restrictions, you can buy those games in those stores if you're under age. The restrictions aren't working and that's going to come back and bite the industry because they're not serious about them.

It's a subterfuge. It's a dodge, it's not intended to be effective. It's a fig leaf that they think can cover their culpability, but it doesn't really cover it.

[Archive]

Well, I... would love for America to go to what is the UK system, and that is: you put a certificate on a game indicating that it's not appropriate for minors, and then, as a matter of fact, you don't, uh, sell it to 'em. It's that simple.

Let me explain why that's what we need and why that isn't what we have. In a free country, adults, by and large, should be free to consume whatever they want. Now, you know, most people think that maybe controlled substances oughtta be controlled. Also, clearly, child pornography is contraband definitionally by the harm it does to the victims of it, who are the children, who are filmed being raped when you're making it. So, there's some products that, that even adults shouldn't have. But I think that when it comes to violent games, um, the standard that I think is doable, and that is consistant with the first amendment is that you don't sell adult games or mature-rated games to an age group below which the label in the, in the rating indicate they're harmful. It, It's just that simple.

And, and the problem, though, in this country, as to why we don't reflect, unfortunately, the UK system is: #1, the entity that rates the games, ahem, is wholly captured by the video game industry.

We need an entity which is not funded by the industry.

He has also spoken out against The Sims 2, a Teen-rated game. This teen-rated game allows users to design or download custom content, much like how you might put bumper stickers on your car. Some of these "bumper stickers" are lewd in nature, and Jack holds that the game designers and distributers should be held responsible for the modifications these players are making.

You can see the full text of the following letter here. The following is merely excerpts:

Proof that parents should be concerned as to what is the sexual content in this supposedly “T” game is that one site on the Internet is offering parents a means to shield their kids from the known sexual content of the Sims games. But this gets worse.

It turns out that Electronic Arts, the publisher of all the Sims games, has allowed the player, with a simple cheat code that even the New York Times is distributing, to remove a “censor flag” in the game in order to make the players nude, including the Sims children. A similar cheat code allowed players to access the “Hot Coffee” content of GTA: SA. The nudity is not put into the game. It is already there, put there by EA to be accessed by all. But this gets worse.

Electronic Arts has encouraged the “mod community,” by comments of the game’s creator and by a failure to protect its copyrighted code in the game, to create “skins” for the nude figures that are explicit in nature as they depict genitalia, with some specific mods appealing to “fetishists” as well. The unlocked nudity dovetails nicely into this modding.

This is not artistic license, in my opinion. It is conspiracy to violate the law at the expense of vulnerable children, behind their parents’ backs.

[Archive]

Jack has an overwhelming hatred of the ESA's president, Doug Lowenstein. Quoted here is an excerpt from his open letter to the ESA's members, the full text of which can be found here:

Is Lowenstein’s the kind of “leadership” the Members of ESA are paying for?

When Hitler invaded Russia, opening up an Eastern offensive on the eve of winter, Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill noted that “Hitler must have been rather loosely educated, not having learned the lesson of Napoleon’s autumn advance on Moscow.”

Your Doug Lowenstein is similarly “loosely educated” about the United States Constitution. I have never, in my eighteen years of public interest law practice against the excesses of the entertainment industry, run into an individual more devoid of even an elementary understanding of the meaning and scope of the First Amendment. Even Howard Stern’s lawyers look like Alexander Hamilton compared to Lowenstein.

Doug Lowenstein embarrasses each and every one of you when he holds forth about what the “Founders” intended when they drafted the Bill of Rights. For Doug, the Founders are GTA’s Tommy Vercetti and Carl Johnson. Doug never met a pixilated prostitute he didn’t like, and I’m sure James Madison would be impressed.

Doug Lowenstein travels with his own private make-up artist. Did you all know that? Obscuring personal and industry warts is a full time job for this man.

[Archive]

EGM: You once compared Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, to Saddam Hussein.

JT: If I did, I want to apologize to Saddam Hussein. Doug is a propagandist to whom the facts don't matter.

[Archive]

Jack Thompson is one of the primary activists against violence and sexuality in media. There is a class-action lawsuit against several game producers and distributers that Jack backs, and this commentary is transcribed from his interview with Chatterbox Game Radio. We put it last because it's extremely long and boring, but very telling. They're suing Take-Two because the ESRB changed their rating.

The nature of the lawsuit has been misreported in the media [referring to the class-action lawsuit against major video game producers]. I spent a half-hour on the phone with the lawyer and I, I said to him, "I think your lawsuit is ludicrous," ah, and then he explained it to me. Uh, here's the deal: his, his grandmother bought the game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for her fourteen year old son, and what's been reported in the media is that it, um, you know, that she didn't know it had this content in it and it was harmful to the child, and supposedly he's been harmed and, and so forth. She didn't know it was inappropriate for a minor.

The basis of the lawsuit is much simpler: She's not alleging and they're not alleging that there was harm, uh, to the child, and that she didn't know it was an M rated game, because of course the descriptor... I'm looking at my version, by the way, I should sell this on E-Bay, a copy of the, uh, hot-coffee modded Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas signed by Jack Thompson, that might be, that might be worth something, actually, on E-Bay.

I'm trying to show I have a sense of humor, here.

The descriptor says "blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, strong sexual content, and use of drugs" and I said to the lawyer, you know, "how did she not know... what was on the game?"

"Well forgive me but," he said, "you know, you deal with the harm issue, and have for many years," and he said, "we're aware of you and what you do, but we're, we're class-action lawyers, and we're familiar with the fraudulent and deceptive trade and sales practices federal and New York statutes and here's the deal: if you sell a product that proports to be one thing, and it's in fact another, then by definition under the, under the black-letter law in that statute you've engaged in a deceptive practice, and, and, and..."

Here's, here's, here's the nub of it: they were selling the game as an "M" game... That's right, but let me, let me tell you what you don't know, and which I didn't know when I called the attorney. The fact that it has now been rated an "AO" game by the industry rating board means that it, by definition, was not what it was purported to be. It was an "M" game, but it was, it was in fact an "AO" game.

The fact is that it is, it is inarguable that the game is now an AO game. You're missing the point: they deceived the ESRB, and the ESRB said that. They said that "they didn't tell us what was in the game". Well, arguendo, they also didn't tell the public. And, I'm, I'm telling you, the fact that there's been a rating change based upon the deception of, by Take-Two of the ESRB almost makes this case a slam dunk. And lemme, lemme tell you, you know, you and I can disagree on that, I'm just trying to to tell you what the theory of the case is, and I, I think you can agree it hasn't been reported this way in the media.

Let's say each game was fifty bucks a pop. If you figure ten million units of GT:SA [sic] were sold, the potential downstroke against Take-Two if the class is certified by the court is five hundred million dollars. Now, I don't think Take-Two can withstand that kind of a judgement.

If you're interested in a more in-depth article, try these:

• Jack takes the industry on head to head.
• Quotes and counterpoints.
• What they don't tell you.