Florida lawyer Jack Thompson has requested Midway cease and desist distributing Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, in response to a user-created character being made in his image and posted on the internet.
Thompsons e-mail was copied to several news outlets, and includes the following comments:
It has today come to my attention that the newly recently Mortal Kombat: Armageddon contains an unauthorized commercial exploitation of my name, photograph, image, and likeness within the game.
You are commanded to cease and desist immediately [emphasis Thompsons] from the distribution of this game because of this unauthorized, illegal content
It is believed that the content of this e-mail is regarding the images of a Jack Thompson character, which were created using the in-game character creation tool and published by website
Gaming Target. Thompson is not an officially selectable character in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Thompsons request to Midway does not mention this discrepancy.
Thompson rose to prominence during 2005s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Hot Coffee scandal, and has since worked on getting such titles as Rockstars Bully considered as harmful to minors by the law. The Mortal Kombat franchise is no stranger to such controversy the original game was heavily involved in a game violence scandal that in part led to the creation of the ESRB in 1993 though this current issue, should it play out, would share more similarities to the 2004 lawsuit Marvel Comics brought against NCSoft for copyright infringement relating to characters in City of Heroes. All characters in that game are user created, and that suit was eventually settled out of court.
