Jack Thompson is not the Devil. And he never was. Thompson is a lot of things - a scheming liar, a self-aggrandizing opportunist and a social vampire who exploited the pain and misery of others to further his own political agenda to name a few - but evil incarnate? No. He also won't be a lawyer anymore as of October 30th 2008. The recent permanent disbarment of Florida attorney and anti-videogame crusader Jack Thompson has gamers riding high. In their minds justice has been served to this tireless bully who sought at every turn to attack this pastime of gaming that we so dearly love. But is celebration really in order when Thompson never mounted a credible threat? He was a mild nuisance at best but not worth the fuss that was made over him through the years.

Let's consider what Jack Thompson actually accomplished during his campaign against video games. Over the course of several years he filed multiple lawsuits against video game publishers and hardware vendors which were either thrown out of court or voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs. He never won a single lawsuit. Thompson also drafted several bills in multiple states designed to ban the sales of certain video games. All of these bills were found to be unconstitutional and never passed into law. Granted, Thompson made a lot of noise even going so far as to show up on Fox News to discuss the possibility of a link between violent videogames and violent behavior. But the sum of all of his reckless hate-mongering against video games was to get some Grand Theft Auto IV ads removed from a few bus stations in Florida and convince a Miami Best Buy that they need to check IDs when selling mature games. This man was not a threat to our pastime. He was a bad lawyer who saw video game violence as a hot-button topic to get famous. And in that regard he was successful.

The perceived threat of the Jack Thompsons of the world - oh yes, there will be others - is that people who don't know any better will believe what they say. And yes, there's a danger that someone will believe that Grand Theft Auto makes kids kill people or that Mass Effect contains hardcore pornography because "someone on TV said so." But it's my belief, naive and optimistic though it may be, that gaming has so much cultural penetration these days that these claims fall on deaf ears much of the time. Consider that my generation, what I consider the first generation of gaming, are in our 30's and 40's. And while many of us have curtailed our gaming habits in light of jobs, family and other adult responsibility, we continue to game when the opportunity presents itself. We have not outgrown gaming and there's a possibility that we never will.

Jack Thompson waged a war against videogames such as the Grand Theft Auto series, Bully and Counter-Strike.

Now also consider that a recent national survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project concluded that 97% of American young people play games on a regular basis; sometimes with their parents. Gaming is becoming as commonplace as reading, watching TV or going to the movies, and in some cases replacing those activities as the choice for quality family time. There are, and will continue to be, groups of people who wish to place blame for the horrors of society's aberrations squarely at the feet of violent media, including videogames, but as the number of consumers of that media escalates the threat of anyone taking such claims seriously diminishes. People who play games know better and people who don't play games will becoming increasingly difficult to find.

The video games industry finds itself under siege at the moment, but we'll weather the storm just like books, movies, television, music, comics and every other form of entertainment to which kids have flocked and parents have not understood. Despite protests from concerned parents and watchdog organizations, all of this media still exists with some of it aimed directly at an adult audience. There's always a chance someone could succeed in an anti-videogame crusade but historically it's unlikely. And as time passes and more people count gaming as a hobby, the scenario of videogames getting banned becomes more and more difficult to imagine. The threat of someone taking our games away gets less visible as the transition of power takes place from those who have never played games to those who have. In an article for GamesRadar, CEO and current President of Gearbox Software Randy Pitchford summed it up best by writing, "Someday, we'll elect a President of the United States of America who has a gamertag. It's inevitable."

This doesn't mean we have to stand idle and take it on the chin when the next Jack Thompson finds his or her way up to the mic and attacks gaming. But it's more important that the facts come to light then it is to attack the aggressor. Their poorly-researched complaints are usually structured around extreme exaggerations or outright lies and exposing them involves nothing more than a line-by-line analysis of their claims disputing each part that's untrue. If gaming isn't already big enough to shrug off the barbs from people who see it as a convenient scapegoat for the great wrongdoings of the world, then it soon will be.

So don't worry the next time gaming comes under fire from people who don't understand it. But mark these moments in your memory so that as we age and pass the torch to the next generation, we don't have the same reactionary responses and jump to similar conclusions about the as-yet-undiscovered "new hot thing" that we won't understand.

Previous Columns:

• Aren't We Done With WWII?
• What Causes MMO Tribalism?
• Too Many New Games
• The Retro-Gaming Surge
• DRM and Piracy: The Vicious Circle
• Who Is to Blame for the State of Game Scores?
• Expectations and Predictions for E3 2008
• The Legacy of Diablo
• Parrying Premature Attacks on Indy 4
• Why Movie Tie-In Games Suck
• A Perfect Score: Is Any Game Worthy?
• Massively Multiplayer: Fantasy vs. Sci-Fi

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