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Jack Thompson: VT killer might have played counterstrike

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It's also worth noting that Jack Thompson has named Microsoft as the guilty party in all this:

Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable the [sic] 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.

Also, I'm still trying to comprehend how JT's managing to cite Super Columbine Massacre RPG! in this and still keep a straight face. But I did love the way he hastily blurted out SCMRPG! and Postal as he realised the interview was wrapping up. (I wonder if he suddenly thought, "Fuck--I forgot GTA!" once the cameras had stopped, too.)

I think Chris Kohler has the right idea at the end of his Wired news story:

Please, please sue Microsoft, Jack. Please. I eagerly await this courtroom drama. Put aside the fact that Microsoft didn't even make Counter-Strike.

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Will the State of Virginia help Thompson do you think? After:

Gov Kaine warned against making snap judgements, saying he had "nothing but loathing" for those who took the tragedy and "make it their political hobby horse to ride"

quoted in this article

Also, I'm not sure it's in very good taste for the news services to publish the killer's videos. I haven't seen them yet, not sure I want to.

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Also, I'm not sure it's in very good taste for the news services to publish the killer's videos. I haven't seen them yet, not sure I want to.

I've watched extracts from one earlier; rambling, heavily cliched twaddle of a very sad - and extremely introverted - individual.

And no, I don't agree with the news agencies airing the footage either--because that appears to be what the killer wanted more than anything else; notoriety, perhaps even some distorted sense of revery amongst similarly-minded individuals.

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Also, I'm not sure it's in very good taste for the news services to publish the killer's videos. I haven't seen them yet, not sure I want to.

I agree I think the 24/7 media coverage could prove more influential in imprinting the idea of a schoolroom massacre on unstable psyches than Battle Raper 5: Classroom necrophilia edition.

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I think it was a good thing they showed them... who cares what the killer wanted or didn't want? He's dead now, it's not as if he knows or will ever be aware that he got what he wanted...

I found it fascinating to see the clips.

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Also, I'm not sure it's in very good taste for the news services to publish the killer's videos. I haven't seen them yet, not sure I want to.

The media hasn't had a lot of good taste when it comes to the whole story. I mean, they jumped on the "HE IS A FOREIGNER" angle instantly when it was revealed that he was Korean... never mind the fact that he was in the US for most of his life, since emigrating as a child in 1992. I'm sure if he was white nothing would have been mentioned.

And yes, hucksters jump on tragedy like moths to a flame. JT is one of them. Various NRA groups are others (I've seen many posts claiming that if everyone in the school had concealed arms, it wouldn't have happened :eek: ) And Freepers are running around trying to make this guy out to be a terrorist because of the loosest of connections (trying to claim that he is a muslim convert because of some tattoo that he has :frusty: )

:deranged:

I think I'm going to play some Guitar Hero.

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Oh wait, there's more!

British tabloids (and probably US ones too) are linking the actions to the film Oldboy. Why? Because it has guns in it and it's Korean! Of course!

The Daily Mail hilariously compares a shot of the film with a shot from Cho's video. Of course, it's possible that there are only so many ways of holding a gun to your own head, but in this case the similarity is clearly conclusive!!!!!!!!!!

I feel like punching a reporter now. Hey, if Russel Crow can do it...

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JT really doesn't know his enemy as well as he should, considering he has been ranting about this since that first case he had, which seems like a decade ago.

He described Counterstrike as a game where your objective is just to kill the other players more than they kill you. Sure, this is part of it, but he forgot about teamwork, rescuing hostages, planting bombs, etc. Sure some of these don't help the case FOR violence in video games, but he still has his facts horribly wrong for one of his Top 5 Games To Blame.

No matter though, in that video on Kotaku he get verbally ruined by Chris Matthews, and majority of people have taken him to be a complete dead-horse-kicker.

As for that Oldboy relation, someone holding a gun to their head is quite possibly one of the most vague references I've ever seen. We could say he got the idea from 24 when Chapelle has the gun to his own head, or maybe even the Sixth Sense when that guy kills himself in front of the sink! Oh no not Haley Joel Osment!

Oh, and hi, long time no see.

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Why not link him to director John Woo too. Beause he was holding two pistols, which is a director trademark of Woo. etc. etc.

Actually... if you want to link him with any entertainment form, books would be the best, because he was an English major (iirc). Anyway you can link everything with it. Useless search for a scapegoat.

The fact remains that the guy was seriouly screwed up.

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There are few gamers at Virginia Tech that don't play Counter-Strike, as of a few years ago anyhow (I lived in that town for a number of years) - not the least reason being that one of the creators of the game was a Tech student. Hasn't the military used it to train soldiers? I'd like to see good ol' Jack Offson use his same rationale to rail on the government for training killers responsible for tens of thousands of deaths overseas. But I digress.

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What sickens me is that I think the killer "won", he was apparently a failed writer, and since he taped himself and sent the video to NBC, I think he just wanted his claim to fame... Which is what he got, I doubt he'll be forgotten soon...

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In the same way that the Vampirefreaks guy from Montreal was forgotten, so shall this guy. Quite frankly I couldn't give a shit.

People die everyday. For some reason the west seems to think people care when it happens within our borders. And we encourage them.

It just saddens me that we can so casually report deaths in the Congo, Korea, Iraq etc, yet 30 students in some place in America is worthy of news articles and forum space. Whatever.

I didn't know any of them, if it hadn't been for the media who desperately search for something to publish, I wouldn't have known any more about it than I know about Cambodia, a country still dealing with the shit hand America dealt them them during the Vietnam war.

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Ever hear the expression "two wrongs don't make a right?" Cliché, sorry...

Of course all lives are equally important and it's very sad that the demises of people from certain places don't get taken in to account very often. However it doesn't make sense to disregard the deaths of 32 people "over here" just to try and balance things out. Striving for equality in media coverage doesn't mean to forgo what's already being reported here, but instead to try and also include other things.

Sorry for being preachy, but I really don't agree with your line of thought here.

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How closer the things happen around us, the more we care. It's how we humans work, I guess. If my next-door neighbour dies, even though we hardly spoke or saw eachother, it's going to affect me more than when someone I've never seen before dies a few blocks further down the road. I guess that's how it also works on a greater scale.

--Erwin

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That last line in the article is very illuminating.

See, it was all Microsoft Word's fault. Word is like a thought simulator. It allowed the shooter to rehearse his violent thoughts over and over again.

:fart:

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there must be some way to change the saying "the pen is mightier than the sword" to fit that part.

maybe... "Microsoft Word is mightier than Counter Strike"

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hmmm, a bit too specific methinks

How about "The Text Editor is mightier than the FPS" ?

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This line made me happier than most news articles have any right to:

According to a TheStreet.com story last week, Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive settled a lawsuit against Thompson with an agreement from the activist to stop suing the company and contacting retailers to ban the company's games -- the equivalent to getting a signed statement from Don Quixote to stop harassing windmills.

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Actually... if you want to link him with any entertainment form, books would be the best

That's ridiculous! I love books!

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