Is there something about Counter-strike that makes ordinary people go insane? I've played scores, perhaps hundreds, of violent shooting games in my life and I have not once planned some sort of psychotic rampage. Years ago (probably almost twenty) at Chuck E. Cheese there was a game (the name escapes me) where the player fired a fake submachine gun at assorted baddies. I played that. I played NARC at the arcade. I played the NES version of The Punisher. I played multiple iterations of Doom and Quake. I own four of the Grand Theft Auto titles. I own the last two Halo games and the last two Call of Duty games. How many virtual people have I slaughtered by now? The number must be in the millions. Still, I hold a job, manage to be somewhat social and don't even own a gun. The answer to this seeming paradox? Counter-strike.
I am fully aware that after only three days this topic is so stale that even MSNBC has covered it, but somehow I just knew that if I did a search for Jack Thompson I would find a new story blaming video games for the school shooting in Indiana. You know what? I think he's right. Not about everything, mind you, but it seems that everyone who plays Counter-strike eventually goes insane and shoots up a school. I only hope that none of my students play this insidious game. Tomorrow, when I go into class, I shall insist that any student of mine who plays Counter-strike switch to Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4 under threat of expulsion.
Christ, I wish I had gone to law school. I could be on TV right now making soundbites about the evils of shooting fake people on a television screen instead of teaching Shakespeare to bored undergrads. I could afford a good pair of sneakers for chasing ambulances. I could lose my sense of shame and dance on real corpses for fame and profit. Hell, I could even be a Senator or a presidential candidate (in a few years, anyway.) (It's not about Right and Left, folks, it's about right and stupid.)
Related: Thompson sends an ever-so-tasteful letter to Northern Illinois University.
