Now Jack targets MGS. How low can he sink?

In the last couple of days, there's been some controversy about a guy who killed himself while posting at the Metal Gear Solid Unofficial Site forum. You can read the whole story at Gamepolitics. Of course, our friend Jack Thompson could not resist jumping on the wagon, given that the words "videogame" and "kill" appeared in the same paragraph, and that someone had actually died. He did not lose time to post in forums, writing insulting remarks for the whole gaming community. Since he's long run out of arguments, he resorts to plain abuse. He's like a bully that has lost a fight, and just starts kicking around in fury, just trying to hurt whoever's at hand, not wanting to stop because he'll have to bear his own shame. (BTW, what he does in the posts quoted is legally called libel.) We don't need to insult him back, he does a pretty good job of presenting himself as a *adjective of your choice* after reading the quotes.


This is the comment Jack posted in the same blog (the comment has been erased from the forum):

Your "gamer friend" will find peace through the Lord, Jesus Christ, but sadly it's too late for that.

There is a void in every heart. You can fill it up with the things of God, or the things not of God. This unfortunate soul chose to fill it up with combat games. The playing of these video games is masturbatory activity, meaning senseless self-stimulation. If you gamers could use a dictionary you would know that that term is not necessarily a sexual one.

The real tragedy here extends beyond the life and death of this one fellow. There are literally millions of young people and young adults whose despair is deepend by turning to the things of this world and then finding them meaningless.

All of you gamers need to put down the controllers and get a life. The utter inanity of the vast majority of postings here shows how vapid "gaming" really is.

You are one of the cheerleaders for this wasting of time and the wasting of lives. Do you feel any remorse for having contributed to this "culture of death?" Of course not. Hey, let's all play MORE games, and ignore all the really productive things to do with our lives.

Let's pretend to be shocked that a gamer might descend into deeper depression, as his gamer "buds," knowing he was killing himself, couldn't figure out how to call 911 themselves for him. That would have involved leaving their computers I guess.

He continued with his insulting remarks at the GameFAQs forum:

Yesterday Dennis McCauley reported, by starting this thread, the suicide of an American "hardcore gamer" who alerted his fellow gamers that he was dying. My posts in this regard upset many of you. So, I should like to sincerely apologize for the following:

1. Noting that this is not the first time Metal Gear Solid has figured in a suicide. See my op-ed in the Washington Times at http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040701-085600-3597r.htm. The Wellsboro boy committed suicide in the bathroom when his attempted "Columbine" went awry. His father correctly blamed the game.

2. I should further like to apologize for pointing out to pixelantes that obsessive play of such games feeds depression, and that the "gaming community," especially those in the industry that design these games to be addictive, are partly responsible for his demise. I apologize ahead of time for contacting his parents and telling them they should get a lawyer and sue the makers and distributors of Metal Gear Solid. I won't be that lawyer, but I'll help them find one.

3. I apologize for having to yet again change my email address in response to the great video game defenders of "freedom of expression" who inundated me with criminal threats, extortion, obscene emails, criminally harassing phone calls, and other stuff I had best not specifiy. Oh, and John at XXX-XXX-XXXX, I guess you missed the fact that the last punk who did this wound up in jail in Houston. Nice going, ace. Ever hear of "caller ID?" So, yes, I apologize for once again proving by your vigilantism what hypocrites drive the "gaming community." You people, along with Dennis McCauley, are so clueless that you actually conducted here, at this site, a "pixelante t-shirt contest," not even grasping the fact that a pixelante is one half rung above a bludgeoning skinhead, or cracker if you prefer that term.

4. Finally, I most sincerely wish to apologize for pointing out now that the European press got the facts in this story correct and Dennis McCauley did not. The gamers who had his phone number, his roommate who acted too late--all of them could have and should have gotten the police over there immediately, not "persuade him to call the police." The guy was committing suicide for Heaven's sake! You call the police immediatley, give them the phone number, and they can then instantly get in gear (metal gear, if you prefer) and get over there. Gamers are so out of it, they can't figure even that out.

Dennis McCauley concludes his crocodile tears, let's congratulate ourselves for being such a loving "gamer community" with his bathos-filled "May you find peace, gamer friend." Dennis, and the rest of you, pay attention: You find peace in Jesus Christ, not in GTA or Metal Gear Solid, or 25 to Life. You find it only in Him. The gate is narrow. Further, he was much more than a "gamer." In fact, his gamer status helped kill him, along with those who sucked him into the culture of death that games foment. And Dennis, he was NOT your "friend." You never knew him. You and the gaming community don't want to know him. Because if you know him, which is necessary to be a "friend," you will find that his real friends helped construct for him a world, a death style, that helped take him away to eternity.

I have sat with families touched by such tragedy. I understand it. You all couldn't care less. For that, I sincerely apologize, and for saying this yet again: Put down the controllers and get a life.

Jack Thompson

Of course he can't be the lawyer to sue the makers of MGS, since his license will be revoked for malpractice one of these days.

There should be a reference to him in MGS4.