John B. Thompson, Attorney at Law
1172 South Dixie Hwy., Suite 111
Coral Gables, Florida 33146
305-666-4366
jackpeace@comcast.net
August 6, 2005

July 24, 2005

The Honorable Leland Y. Yee
Speaker Pro Tempore
California State Assembly
State Capitol Sacramento, California Fax: (916) 319-2112

Re: Distribution of Sexual Material Harmful to Minors by the Video Game Industry

Dear Speaker Yee:

I was privileged to be involved in the successful effort, as were you, to compel the ESRB to finally do its job regarding Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I have information for you, however, about a matter that may be an even worse abuse by the video game industry.

The Sims video game franchise is the most popular in history. These games are rated “T” for teen, which means they are supposedly appropriate for kids 13 and over. However, this game is a prime example of the “ratings creep” about which Dr. Kimberly Thompson of Harvard University has written. There is some rather remarkable sexual content in the Sims games which I and others believe would warrant an “M” rating as to the content that is patently in them.

Proof that parents should be concerned as to what is the sexual content in this supposedly “T” game is that one site on the Internet is offering parents a means to shield their kids from the known sexual content of the Sims games. But this gets worse.

It turns out that Electronic Arts, the publisher of all the Sims games, has allowed the player, with a simple cheat code that even the New York Times is distributing, to remove a “censor flag” in the game in order to make the players nude, including the Sims children. A similar cheat code allowed players to access the “Hot Coffee” content of GTA: SA. The nudity is not put into the game. It is already there, put there by EA to be accessed by all. But this gets worse.

Electronic Arts has encouraged the “mod community,” by comments of the game’s creator and by a failure to protect its copyrighted code in the game, to create “skins” for the nude figures that are explicit in nature as they depict genitalia, with some specific mods appealing to “fetishists” as well. The unlocked nudity dovetails nicely into this modding.

These mods are offered at all sorts of “porn” sites on the Internet, and they use the Sims name. EA is fully aware of this and is doing nothing about it. If Electronic Arts wanted this activity stopped, it believe they could shut it down in a New York minute. However, as you and I both know, this industry, including EA, has benefited financially from such collaborations with the “mod” industry. That is what is occurring here, and the damning admissions of the game’s creator, Will Wright, and his enthusiasms for “mods” prove it.

I should like to encourage you to conduct hearings on the full breadth of the scandal within the video game industry, which now includes collaborating with those who are putting sexually explicit material into the hands of children by making an “M” game that is labeled a “T,” then facilitating the unlocking of nudes in the game, and then looking the other way when others are apparently using their copyrighted code to modify the nudes into images that appeal to the prurient interest.

This is not artistic license, in my opinion. It is conspiracy to violate the law at the expense of vulnerable children, behind their parents’ backs.

The ESRB has always been a joke. Now ESRB is a cruel joke.

Regards, Jack Thompson

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