The Escapist Bulletin: Ignoring the Proverb: An Offensive Defence

It was a happy day for gamers when Jack Thompson was disbarred. One of gaming’s most vocal critics had been discredited professionally, which took all of the power out of his arguments. Even the most ardent supporter of Thompson’s message would have a hard time backing the man himself. Alas, that isn’t the end of the Jack Thompson story; a year after his disbarment, Thompson is talking about making a comeback, and a comeback from Jack Thompson only means one thing: Gaming is up for another assault.

Unfortunately, what it also means is that gaming forums are going to get filled up with angry posts about how "stupid" Thompson’s crusade is, how he is "a liar" and "an idiot" and how he "should die". Apparently, some gamers don’t think that the hobby has enough enemies, and have decided to add themselves to the list.

When Kevin McCullough went after Mass Effect on his Town Hall blog, his argument was riddled with misconceptions and outright fabrications, and could have been countered quite easily with a sensible and reasoned response. Instead, gamers poured onto his website in droves – giving him more traffic than he’s ever likely to get ever again – ready to defend gaming with all their might. It’s baffling that a group that spends sufficient time on the internet to have even heard the names Jack Thompson or Kevin McCullough is so quick to forget one of the basic rules:

Don’t feed the trolls.

It’s perfectly reasonable to get angry when someone attacks something you love, but swearing and cursing like a gut-shot pirate plays exactly into their hands. When Kevin McCullough tells the world that Mass Effect is a game of inter-species perversion, or Jack Thompson says that Grand Theft Auto is a murder simulator, throwing a tantrum like a spoilt child is not going to convince onlookers that it’s you they should listen to and not the guy in the nice suit.

What the gaming community has to understand is that this backlash against gaming is inevitable but also temporary. Comic books, role-playing games and even rock music have come under attack in the past; in 1990 the band Judas Priest was sued following the 1985 suicide of two of their fans. The families of the fans claimed that the band had inserted subliminal messages into one of the songs that had compelled the two men to kill themselves. Equally stupid is Jack Chick’s ‘Dark Dungeon’ cartoon, which is so misinformed it would be hilarious if wasn’t deadly serious.

Fast-forward a few years and bands like Slipknot regularly turn up on daytime radio, a comic book movie is the fourth highest grossing movie ever and role-playing games, while not especially mainstream, are no longer considered the tools of the devil. The same kind of acceptance will come to video games as the current generation of gamers becomes the generation in charge, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that the video game industry is worth billions of dollars.

Gaming has a lot of positive aspects, beyond the improvement of hand-eye co-ordination, and it has a vibrant culture all of its own that draws a lot of intelligent and creative people. So when someone disparages us, we need to show ourselves at our best – not as the pack of raging savages our enemies paint us to be.

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