Thompson drops racketeering allegations in lawsuit against Take-Two

It all started several weeks ago when Take-Two Interactive finally filed a lawsuit against Florida lawyer Jack Thompson. According to them, this move was prompted by Thompson’s “history of making multiple threats of legal action, whether substantiated or not”. This of course, incited a reaction from the lawyer, and it was only a matter of time until the inevitable happened: a countersuit.

However, this countersuit has recently undergone an interesting development. The last time that we heard about it, Thompson has accused various websites and institutions of “racketeering”, and basically just plain conspiring against him. Among those that were named were popular video game-related sites such as Gamepolitics, Kotaku, SPOnG, Joystiq, Gamespot, IGN, Game Informer, Electronic Gaming Weekly, and the webcomic Penny Arcade. Others who did not survive Thompson’s countersuit were the Entertainment Software Association, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the Entertainment Consumer Association, and even Doug Lowenstein.

As GamePolitics has found out, the latest revision of Thompson’s countersuit has omitted the racketeering allegations. In fact, the original countersuit was 37 pages long, while the revised version has been trimmed down to a slimmer 14 pages. For those who may be interested, GamePolitics has put up the two versions of the said countersuit for everyone’s perusal, so you can see the difference for yourselves.

In the meantime, speculations on the reason why the allegations were suddenly removed are now flying left and right among members of the gaming community. We’re sure that everyone has his guess.

It all started several weeks ago when Take-Two Interactive finally filed a lawsuit against Florida lawyer Jack Thompson. According to them, this move was prompted by Thompson’s “history of making multiple threats of legal action, whether substantiated or not”. This of course, incited a reaction from the lawyer, and it was only a matter of time until the inevitable happened: a countersuit.

However, this countersuit has recently undergone an interesting development. The last time that we heard about it, Thompson has accused various websites and institutions of “racketeering”, and basically just plain conspiring against him. Among those that were named were popular video game-related sites such as Gamepolitics, Kotaku, SPOnG, Joystiq, Gamespot, IGN, Game Informer, Electronic Gaming Weekly, and the webcomic Penny Arcade. Others who did not survive Thompson’s countersuit were the Entertainment Software Association, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the Entertainment Consumer Association, and even Doug Lowenstein.

As GamePolitics has found out, the latest revision of Thompson’s countersuit has omitted the racketeering allegations. In fact, the original countersuit was 37 pages long, while the revised version has been trimmed down to a slimmer 14 pages. For those who may be interested, GamePolitics has put up the two versions of the said countersuit for everyone’s perusal, so you can see the difference for yourselves.

In the meantime, speculations on the reason why the allegations were suddenly removed are now flying left and right among members of the gaming community. We’re sure that everyone has his guess.