John B. Thompson, Attorney at Law
1172 South Dixie Hwy., Suite 111
Coral Gables, Florida 33146
305-666-4366
jackpeace@comcast.net

July 23, 2005

Patricia Vance President
Entertainment Software Rating Board
317 Madison Avenue, 22nd Floor
New York, NY 10017 Fax: 212-759-2223

Re: The Warriors to be Released by Take-Two/Rockstar October 12, 2005

Dear Ms. Vance: As you know, the ESRB’s Ad Review Council (ARC), in accordance with its rules, has just required game developer Atlus U.S.A. to yank the ad trailer for its new game Samurai Western from the public domain because of the gore contained in the trailer. Your own ESRB/ARC guideline is this: "No advertisement should contain any content that is likely to cause serious or widespread offense to the average consumer." You can read all about it at www.gamepolitics.com.

Well, the ESRB needs to be consistent, Ms. Vance. Currently, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., is running incredibly violent trailers for its October 12-release game The Warriors that are clearly violative of the above-note ESRB/ARC rule. I have sent you the trailers. The trailers reflect a game that eclipses the violence level even of Take-Two/Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto games.

Why the discrepancy, the double standard, Ms. Vance, when it comes to Take-Two Interactive? Well, well, well. It turns out that Take-Two, of course, is a “Member” of your sister organization, the Entertainment Software Association whose President, Doug Lowenstein, throws money at politicians who get out of line on the video game issue. The money he throws at them comes from ESA “Members.” The “Members,” which include Sony and Microsoft, pay ESA and Doug Lowenstein to throw their weight and their money around. It is a scheme as old as the payment of a bag of silver to Judas Iscariot, only the ones being betrayed here are children. Jesus said, by the way: “If any of you should cause one of these little ones to stumble, then it would be better for you that a millstone be tied around your neck and that you be cast into the sea.”

Atlus U.S.A. is not a “Member” of the ESA and thus does not have “the juice” that Take-Two has, despite Take-Two/Rockstar’s having been, in the last several weeks, nailed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $8.75 million for “fraudulent accounting practices” and by Senator Clinton, by the US House of Representatives, and by others, including the undersigned, for illegally placing sex scenes in GTA: SA and then lying about it.

Exactly what, Ms. Vance, does Take-Two’s CEO Paul Eibler, who is #43 in Bernie Golberg’s 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, have to do for the ESRB, finally, to do its job? Does he have to personally walk into a fifth-grade classroom and hand out copies of The Warriors to children, or does pushing Bully and The Warriors to children through corporate surrogates and pimps suffice?

Do your job, Ms. Vance. Tell Take-Two to pull down its public domain trailers for The Warriors. They violate your ESRB/ARC rules.

Oh, and the trailers prove the game has to be rated “AO,” not “M.” Be careful, Ms. Vance. I and others are monitoring you at a point in time that the ESRB is hanging onto its existence by a frayed controller wire.

Regards, Jack Thompson

Copy: New York Attorney General Spitzer
US Senator Charles Schumer
US Senators Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Sam Brownback, Rick Santorum
Congressman Upton
Assemblyman Leland Yee
Many Others

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1. There is no discrepancy Jack, it's your personal opinion, what normal people refer to as a bad one.