14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, Take Two shareholder (as he calls himself nowadays) Jack Thompson offered to help Electronic Arts in their fight to take over the GTA IV game owner and everybody was really curious to see EA's response. There was a little reason for doubt regarding a possible agreement between the two, since John Bruce (this is his real name, after all) recently defended Mass Effect following the Fox News scandal - and that was a strange enough reason, since Fox and Jack seem to be friends in their quest of criticizing video games just for fun.
Today, though, Jack Thompson got a very polite "F* Off" from Electronic Arts, which makes us believe they're not as evil as they seem. Anyway, here is the official answer from the Senior Manager Corporate Communications, Mariam Sughayer to "Mr. Thompson" (via Kotaku.com):
"We have received your letter to EA's shareholder site. In response to your offer to assist in the proposed acquisition of Take-Two, we would strongly prefer that you not get involved in this matter. EA is a strong supporter of creative freedom for game developers. We feel that your past statements - including false claims about content in our games - make any collaboration with you impossible."
Well said - I really know some people out there who would have answered with a totally different tone. Anyway, if you were wondering what the EA rep talks about when it says that Jack Thompson made "false claims" about their game, here it is: a lifetime ago, the crazed attorney went mad about... The Sims! Why? Because it was (and is) an obscene game, showcasing full frontal nudity, sex and so on. Would you, as a game developer/publisher, say yes to a collaboration offer from such a guy?
Still, this polite rejection means one thing: EA just entered Thompson's black list now. I've heard that FIFA 2008 is a really brutal game - you can actually injure players there under the pretext of playing soccer!