Comments on: Sony Defense Force Remixes Halo Ad

By: Jack Thompson, Attorney

Jack Thompson, Attorney — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:24:19 +0000

John B. Thompson, Attorney at Law
1172 S. Dixie Hwy., Suite 111
Coral Gables, Florida 33146

September 21, 2007

Elliot S. Kaplan, Attorney
Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, LLP
2800 LaSalle Plaza
800 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, Minnesota Via Fax to 612-339-4181 and e-mail to eskaplan@rkmc.com

Re: Sale of Halo 3 to Kids Under Seventeen Years of Age at Best Buy Stores

Dear Mr. Kaplan:

As you know, I sued Best Buy a couple of years ago to stop its sale, through its chain of retail stores throughout the country, of ESRB-rated “Mature” games to kids under the age of seventeen.

As you also know, Best Buy entered into a formal agreement with me whereby it agreed to age-ID any customer trying to buy any “Mature-rated” game who appeared to be 21 years of age or younger in order to make sure that sales of such age-restricted games to anyone under 17 would not occur. Best Buy made a very big deal of this new policy of checking anyone 21 and under, thereby garnering parents’ goodwill with this news.

As you may know, the very same Miami Best Buy store that sold my son, with no parent in sight, the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City game when he was only ten years of age just two weeks ago sold him the extremely violent, sex-contented, “Mature-rated” BioShock video game. The Best Buy clerk, Alysia, told my 15-year-old son “I don’t care” as to his age. She never checked for age ID. Best Buy is thus clearly breaching our agreement.

Finally, as you may or may not know, Elliot, Microsoft’s much-anticipated, violent, Mature-rated Halo 3 is going on sale this coming Tuesday, September 25, at midnight around the world and at Best Buy stores. It had better not be sold to anyone under 17.

So, here’s the deal, Elliot: Either Best Buy today issues a stern and very public warning to all of its stores, with the public being prominently put on notice as well, that Best Buy’s 21-and-under ID’ing policy will be strictly enforced as to Halo 3, or you and I will be in a Florida court, again, Monday morning, where I will be asking the court to enforce the solemn agreement of Best Buy to ID anyone appearing to be 21 or under as to Halo 3.

Halo, as you may know, trained Lee Boyd Malvo to kill his victims in the DC Beltway snipings. NBC News reported that, and that fact was proven at Malvo’s trial.

The scientific evidence is in and it is unrebutted that violent video games played by teens increases their aggression and makes violence more likely. See American Psychological Association official report of August 2005, the Harvard University brain scan studies, the Indiana University MRI studies, and the 2005 US Supreme Court case of Roper v. Simmons.

Best Buy has until five o’clock p.m. today to comply with the above demand, or else.

Sincerely, Jack Thompson

Copy: Bill Gates, Microsoft

By: drunk munky

drunk munky — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 20:56:37 +0000

For the older gamer.

ZX spectrum or Commodore 64.

Atari ST or Commodore Amiga.

Megadrive or SNES.

After 25 years of gaming am I getting bored of the “My consoles better than yours” C**p?

No.

Think yourself lucky if you bought a XBOX360 because you have more than 10 games to play and if you got a PS3 then I’m sure you’ll get a couple of decent games soon so stop bad mouthing a game that will gross more than 200 million dollars in its first fortnight.

When you get a game like that then you can start bragging, until you do why not go and play a really exciting game of Motorstorm, a very next gen racing game that brings ground breaking concepts to the driving genre, NOT!

By: somewhat

somewhat — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:56:38 +0000

Some people tend to compensate for lack of substance by bashing other peoples opinions over the internet…

By: somewhat

somewhat — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:54:54 +0000

I can’t stand playing against aim-bots, that’s why I tend to prefer the consoles. And not upgrading my PC every 6 months is also an advantage for me. Granted you have to buy a new console every 3 or 4 years to keep up with the Joneses, I still prefer it to my PC, and the graphics are almost on par with the new consoles compared to a PC (even though graphics aren’t what make a great game for me).

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:39:26 +0000

yeah, that’s the main thing i like about consoles: i can pick up the latest game for one three years down the road and it will still work perfectly. if i do that for a PC title, i’ll probably have to upgrade. of course, if i had the time/patience/money to constantly upgrade my computer, i’d probably go with the PC version every time.

By: weclock

weclock — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:15:29 +0000

you’ll always have people who are over excited about stuff, because their real life lacks the substance that they need.
Yes, in general games that are on PC are better than their console counter part, for the most part because of the ability to mod it, use your personal controller preference, and the like.

but the simplicity of consoles still r win.

By: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:00:05 +0000

PC > Console

End. Of. Story.

By: somewhat

somewhat — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:58:36 +0000

Amen.

By: William

William — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:44:03 +0000

i really think fanboyism needs to go away. I love the Xbox 360. I love the PS3 and I like the Nintendo Wii. I am not going to get irate because someone doesn’t like the same system I own. That’s like people arguing about the kind of car you drive. It’s really silly to me.

Just play games and have fun.

By: john

john — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:03:23 +0000

Halo is like a bloody cartoon, cant get into it. Far too cheesy not brutal for violent enough. Where are peoples faces?? I hate shooting robots!! Sure it’s great online but I’d rather play resistance or even the orignal UNREAL! ROLL ON KILLZONE2 with RGL!! (that’s Real Generated Light, something only the PS3 can do) not these shitty DRAWN ‘light lines’ on every 3shitty game.

By: somewhat

somewhat — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:38:27 +0000

I admire their conviction and ability to believe their own subsituted reality. Well done video, but I hate to rain on their parade. The PS3 will eventually come into it’s own, but Halo is the reason I bought my 360.

By: Shroom

Shroom — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:12:13 +0000

Sony Defense Force – they have to do something, I mean it’s not like there is anything to be played on the PS3, so they run this website instead to pass the time.