Jack Thompson. He's back. He means business. He's as crazy as ever.

It's kind of the "cool thing to do if you are a video game blogger" to make fun of 'ol Jackie boy at every chance possible; and who am I to go against whats cool?

Several days ago  (March 18) our favorite video game bashing crazy man Jack Thompson, sent Valve a come-to-Jesus talk letter over a mod created for Half Life called School Shooter: North American Tour 2012. The letter involved all manner of ridiculous speculation and hilarious commentary, as well as a rather vague hinting at the horrible hell Thompson would reign down upon Valve. Sorta.

I like to imagine that this is his normal face.

Dear Mr. Newell:

You either know or should know that the more moral midgets who run Checkerboarded Studios have created a mod for your company's Half-Life which they call School Shooter: North American Tour 2012. This mod is a full-blown Columbine massacre simulator which cannot function without your company's assistance and acquiescence.

Attached herewith is a letter from FHE-ASAP  [the Florida Higher Education Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention] that expresses their, my, and others' concerns about this Columbine massacre mod. As you either know or should know, your Half-Life murder simulator was obsessively played, and thus became a training aid, for a) teenaged Robert Steinhauser, who authored at Erfurt, Germany, the worst school shooting massacre in European history, and b) Seung-Hi Cho, who authored at Virginia Tech University the worst school shooting massacre in world history. As to the latter, the sources of this information are the Washington Post and the New York Times. Now some sociopaths have made reprises of Erfurt and Virginia Tech far more likely.

Given the fact that your company has the technological ability to stop the operation of School Shooter, you must undertake steps immediately to do so.

Speaking for myself alone (for now), you have until five o'clock pm Eastern standard time this Friday, March 18, 2011, to shut down this public safety hazard I predicted years ago this school massacre game would arrive. I hate being right all the time.

GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.

Regards, Jack Thompson

I have a hard time knowing what to say. First of all, I suppose he is right about one thing. We did all know from the very beginning that Half Life was created by Nazi's/Communists/Helghast/Terrorists/BadGuyofYourChoice in order to train prospective soldiers. They simply hid the training module behind unrealistic game play, and completely unreal (as it.. not real) gun mechanics. They didn't want their trainees to know that one bullet could kill them.

BadGuy: "Let's make 'em think they can get shot a lot and then they will just heal as soon as you find some band aids. Aliens are also real. Never leave home without your crowbar!"

Jeez...

This picture just happened to exist.

"I hate being right all the time."

Holy Flaming Santa Clause from Mars with Pixie Sticks, I bet you freaking do. What about that whole BEING DISBARRED thing...

Right.

Oh right, also, some of his claims are entirely unsubstantiated. For instance, he claims Seung-Hi Cho was influenced to commit his massacre by violent video games. If Thompson had spent literally 5 freaking minutes he would have learned otherwise. I simply googled for the official government report, was taken to a link to the report on the Governor of Virginia's official website, and opened up a pdf of the report. Now, I used some crazy voodoo technology (control-F) to find all the places in the ENTIRE REPORT where video games were mentioned. I got two hits...

"Sun [Cho's sister] and her parents recall that Cho seemed to be doing better. He was enrolled in a Tae Kwon Do program for awhile, watched TV, and played video games like Sonic the Hedgehog. None of the video games were war games or had violent themes."

-Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech 

April 16, 2007
Report of the Review Panel
Page 32

"Cho’s roommate never saw him play video games."

Page 42

To Jack,

I didn't even read the report and I already know that a claim like the one you are making is almost entirely unsubstantiated. How in hell you managed to stay an attorney as long as you did, Jack Thompson, making claims that are proven to be completely wrong will continue to elude me. I didn't even have to read it!! "Obsessively played"?! Are you out of your fucking mind?!? The boy watched "dark" movies, listened to heavy metal, and wrote papers about how he hated his peers, but not ONCE is he EVER reported to have played Half Life, or any other kind of violent video game. The kid was just out of his head. A training aid?? Have you never played a video game? Do you ever wonder why all of us normal people laugh at your every word? I don't rant like this, but if you are going to say things like "murder simulation" and, "training aid" I give you one really really really mind-blowing piece of advice. READ

Thanks Penny Arcade. Couldn't have said it better.

As far as I could tell, Valve did nothing to stop the mod. Let's get serious though. The mod uses source code taken from HL2. I don't even believe it's possible for Valve to do a bloody thing.

However, due to all the attention the mod has been getting thanks to our favorite disbarred ex-attorney, ModDB (self titled largest repository of games, mods and addons on the web) removed the mod from their website. INtense! the head honcho of DesuraNET (who owns ModDB) said some things about free speech despite the fact he thought it was in "poor taste" or something. You can go look it up, I didn't really care to research it anymore. Bottom line, people got angry, ModDB got tired of getting emails.

ugh.

Don't get me wrong, I think this game is a pathetic excuse for an "expressive use of free speech" or whatever bullshit label you wanna slap on this insensitive, ignorant, blatantly offensive creation. I just really love the fact that Thompson went to all the effort to write Valve and, while he did in the long run get what he wanted to some extent, Valve probably did absolutely nothing. The mod still exists out there, you can totally still find it, and Valve (as far as I can see) won't do one bloomin' thing. 

GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY

Whatever the bloody hell that is supposed to mean....