Jack Thompson has issued a press release suggesting the U.S. Department of Defense is involved in an “unholy alliance” with the gaming industry, with the aim of turning kids into violent, remorseless killers.
According to a report by GamePolitics, Thompson said he will be training his guns on the U.S. military in the new year as a result of its continued collaboration with the game industry. In a press release, Thompson said one of the results of this partnership is “the increasing number of commando-style assaults by young gamers,” citing the recent killings in Omaha, Nebraska as evidence of his claim. Thompson also continues to claim, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the Virginia Tech killer was “an obsessive high school player of the military-themed CounterStrike.”
“What is increasingly clear is that the unholy alliance between the game industry and the DOD is teaching an an [sic] entire generation of kids that war is glamorous, cool, desirable, and consequence-free,” Thompson said in his press release. “Believe it or not, there is actually a formal working relationship between the [DoD] and the game industry at the Institute for Creative Technologies [ICT] on the campus of the University of Southern California. U.S. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma is its most unabashed and enthusiastic supporter.”
The best-known example of the U.S. military’s foray into videogaming is America’s Army, first released for the PC in 2002. While ostensibly a recruiting tool, the freely-available game has proven immensely popular with gamers, and has since seen numerous versions released for the PC and Xbox 360. Full Spectrum Warrior, also mentioned in the report, is not officially affiliated with the U.S. Army but was originally developed by Pandemic as a serious game training tool for the military.
