Jack Thompson and the Gaming Press: Who's to Blame When the Bogeyman Melts?

Ding Dong, Jack Thompson's dead, the witch is...well, at least he's been disbarred. That news was ringing high from every game outlet in the world late last week. Until, that is, Doug Lowenstein, the former head of the Entertainment Software Association, ground the celebration to a halt in an open letter to Kotaku this weekend, in which he accused the gaming press of helping to make Thompson the anti-game celebrity he became.

The scribes shot back almost immediately. On Saturday, Dennis McCauley, EIC of our sister site, GamePoltiics, wrote an impassioned defense of his site's extensive coverage of the former FLorida lawyer, coverage which, admittedly, was instrumental in landing the site's rep as the premiere voice at the crossroads between games and the powers that be. In an editorial titled "Former ESA Boss Couldn't Be More Wrong about Jack Thompson Coverage," McCauley put the blame squarely back on Lowenstein, writing that "It was Lowenstein's own unwillingness to stand up to Thompson years ago which emboldened the game-hatin', soon-to-be-ex attorney." This morning Simon Carless also stepped up the mic, defending both the coverage GamaSutra Network gave Thompson as well as McCauley's and, by extension, the rest of the game press.

Rightfully so, we say. And so, likely, would Jack Thompson, who would almost surely respond, snidely, that he is the product of his creator, not any gaming blog.

Fair enough, all around, but what the discussion so far has lacked, including Lowenstein's inciting letter, is that it doesn't matter who "created" Jack Thompson. The real issue is that the entire gaming community — journalists, developers, lobbyists and gamers alike — let a hack lawyer with a stunningly unsuccessful track record as a videogame vigilante become its most prized bogeyman.

Interestingly, the gamers who voraciously gobbled up Jack Thompson coverage like Pac-Man pellets seem to disagree. Nearly three-quarters of respondents to a poll up at Kotaku this morning said they thought the media helped "make" Jack Thompson by covering him too much. That's more than a little rich, since it's precisely their page views, comments, photoshop gags, mashups, parodies and online protests of every shade and hue that guaranteed each new Thompson stunt would land front and center on media blogs of every stripe imaginable.

But nothing the gamers did 'created' Jack Thompson, either. Jack Thompson was a perfect storm, a confluence of circumstance, political climate and the maturation of a medium that now dominates entertainment. "60 Minutes" did not interview Thompson because of Dennis McCauley. Nor did Fox News invite him on air ad nauseam because of Brian Crescente, Henry Jenkins, Geoff Keighley, Adam Sessler or anyone else. The media hooked into 'Hack-mania' because mainstream culture was starting to pay attention to very real issues about the power and influence of games that had been simmering since Mortal Kombat came out almost two decades ago. They chose Jack because he gave them exactly what they wanted — the opportunity to tackle these issues in the best way they know how, with bluster, sensationalism and confrontation. They wanted an archetype, not an activist, and Thompson was only too happy to oblige. He became a star (and not, for example, Leland Yee) because he craftily slotted himself right into the black-and-white, 'balanced' debate-without-nuance our culture loves.

Which is also why he was so convenient for the game community. There was really nothing to debate when Jack was around. Certainly not games. Instead, we were allowed to knock down straw man after straw man, irrational argument after unsubstantiated claim, and poorly written law after spurious legal theory. We went after him because he was an easy target. Someone who made us feel smug, superior and ritually oppressed. And in our self-righteousness, we all had a hand in keeping the bogey man alive.

That's not to say he wasn't a threat to freedom of speech or didn't carry a measure of influence. He was and did. But he also was the best thing that ever happened to the fight for the legitimacy of games and the rights of gamers. He motivated an entire generation of enthusiasts to look beyond the insular bubble in which they lived and showed them exactly the price of their continued complacency. He got us off our asses and into the voting booth. The rise of gamers as a political consituency will be Thompson's true legacy, and gamer activism is, in large part, the house that Jack built.

In the end, Jack Thompson was the Wicked Witch of Gaming, that evil wretch who always seems ready to poison the world, until, finally, one day she's dowsed with water and melts. And after we're done singing "ding dong, ding dong" from every hill and rooftop, we stop and wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place. And as we catch our breath, we realize the power was ours all along.

GG, Thompson.