SOE Helps Find Missing Gamer, You-Know-Who Takes The Credit
On Tuesday, we mentioned GamePolitics' coverage of Jacob Prybl's disappearance, how the man's parents were blaming his MMO "addiction", and that they'd hired Jack Thompson to help find their son. While all of us hoped that Young Master Jacob would be found safe and unharmed, we were prepared for the worst (though, admittedly, a number of us were kind of hoping he'd turn up chained to the floor of Jack's basement) and were keeping the Prybl family in our thoughts. Two days later, it turns out that the guy is OK, but when you try to figure out who deserves the credit for the discovery of Prybl's whereabouts, that's where things get weird:
Desperate for information about their son, Jacob’s parents enlisted the help of Thompson, a longtime nemesis of the video game industry. Although it is unclear what efforts Thompson may have undertaken, late Wednesday afternoon, the attorney e-mailed GP with the following caustic update:We found the Pribyl boy. He is in Illinois holed up with crazed gamers. We found him because of my going public and good police work. Tell your sycophantic, panting audience that.
Around this time Andy Zaffron, one of the higher execs over at SOE, contacted GamePolitics and arranged for a conference call with the Prybls. After explaining who they were, Zaffron's team tracked down the accounts Jacob had used with SOE's games and revealed that his latest account for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was being used out of Chicago. It turns out that Jacob had called his parents the night before to let them know he was safe, and GP traced the phone number to a Southern Illinois town. Apparently Jacob has met up with a girl, and forgot to tell his parents that they were going to hang out.
So, let's recap: Jacob is OK, his parents are aware of this, Sony Online Entertainment seems to be run by some pretty nice people, Dennis McCauley is still one of our favorite gaming journalists, and Jack Thompson is back to taking credit for things he didn't do. All, it seems, is right in the world.
SOE, GamePolitics, Jack Thompson in Search for Missing Gamer [GamePolitics]
Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to on 18 January 2007
· Comments (4)
Link at the bottom is broken. :3
As for Jack Thompson? Bah, he can go suck it. :D
It wouldn't surprise me if the whole incident was staged by Thompson to get him in the public eye.
Honestly, who calls a lawyer when their son goes missing? Call the damn cops!
I like how Jack-ass Thompson ignored that SOE put more effort into finding the kid than he did.
Grandstanding isn't putting effort into it. And I do question the parents not calling the police, but a lawyer who may be disbarred soon.
It would have been so great if Jack had kidnapped him to make villains of the gaming industry.