At least when it comes to frivolous lawsuits aimed at Take Two. Game Industry Biz is reporting that firebrand attorney Jack Thompson and Take Two have reached a settlement where, "Thompson has agreed he will not sue or threaten to restrict sales or distribution of future Take Two titles."

In an interesting twist Thompson has agreed to only communicate with Take Two through the publisher's legal counsel. This isn't the end of troubles for Take Two. There has recently been a major management shake up and threats of the publisher losing it's NASDAQ listing.

Can the tide really be turning? Given Rush Limbaugh's recent, enlightened comments can it really be that the mainstream press is waking up to the respectibility of video games?

I'm actually GLAD JT is trying to spearhead this assault. He's trying his absolute hardest to get what he wants, but even most of his supporters realize he's crazy as Hell. His only achievement is anti-progressing his very own movement. Now imagine if we had someone competent in his place. I shudder to think...

I think that's why GamePolitics exists. Gamers shuddering about politicians using it as a bullet point.

I was going to post this as a seperate news item... but it actually works nicely as a comment attached to this news item.

Kotaku.com has a clip of Jack Thompson's logic being questioned by Chris Matthews on Hardball, and Mr. Thompsons struggling to justify himself. This is in regards to him being interviewed as a "shooting expert" about the Virginia school shootings. And in fact this is a follow-up to an earlier Kotaku.com point-by-point analysis of Jack Thompson's interview while this story was breaking and still live (on FOX News). In both cases, Thompson promotes his standard viewpoint that videogames are what's responsible for anyone acting out like this and akin to terrorist activities.

Certainly the situation in Virginia was tragic for those involved and made many question the safety of their lives and of their kids. So it's somewhat distasteful to see someone like Jack Thompson, jumping to be interviewed with very little evidence or knowledge of the case, and once again trying to condemn the videogame industry for his own ambitions.

I'd hardly say Jack Thompson's "trap" has ever been shut. flipkin's original post is merely about one lawsuit being settled... and frankly, that only amounts to potential savings on a budgetary spreadsheet.

That Jack Thompson is trying to use this tragedy to further his own agenda is almost criminal.

Flipkin's post and the follow-up comments prompt two remarks from yours truly:

1) The influential American political magazine The Weekly Standard recently published a glowing cover story on Sid Meier's Civilization series. While this degree of positive coverage was a first to me, I have recently seen similar favorable mainstream commentary on Age of Empires and the like. So I would say that the mainstream press has at least acknowledged that not *all* games are bad, and that some may even be very, very good.

2) The Rush Limbaugh commentary is further evidence for what I have long suspected: There will never be a consensus for any strong form of video game censorship in the U.S.A., since those who are most likely to find video game sex/violence morally offensive (political conservatives) are also the ones most suspicious of “quicky” regulatory solutions imposed by government.