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Ledonne and his title stopped short of providing a direct interpretation - neither artist has been especially specific about 'what it means,' or in instructing players on how they should interpret their work or what 'message' should be taken away.

Ahem...

OK, to begin my argument I am going to set forward two definitions that the semantics can be debated evenly upon.

Art

Fine Art. Yes, I know he said 'High Art', but there was no such definition so I used the next best thing I could find.

Looking at the two definitions, Ebert's statements seem a little soft. The first bullet point for 'Art' seems to support video games of at least qualifying for consideration inside its ranks. Using the first two bullet points for 'Fine Art', the incredibly controversial Super Columbine Massacre RPG can easily be debated as a form of Fine Art. Have fun arguing over that one.

Bullet points three and four under 'Fine Art' seem to support Ebert's assertion. 'Fine Art' is not functional, and to be judged by the theories of art. It also asserts a hard definition for the forms worthy of this definition (painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, music). My initial issue with this is the 'theories' part. Theories are built upon to create new theories using new information gathered from the application of the older theories. Is there a cut off point for the validity of a theory in this case? What are the criteria used to establish applicable 'thoery' in this sense? What was the criteria used to establish writing as able to qualify as 'Fine Art' when at one point all that existed was verbal story telling? Ebert compares games with Shakespeare, but according to this definition - that doesn't quite qualify as 'Fine Art' either. Once again, I realize he said 'High Art', but 'Fine Art' and "High Art' are used interchangeably by many.

Bullet point 5 of 'Fine Art' seems to remove everything Ebert has ever reviewed from the definition of 'Fine Art', making him wholly unqualified to define what is and isn't able to attain the categorization. I don't know, maybe Ebert has reviewed a movie that wasn't created for commercial purposes - but I highly doubt it. Even if he has, his references to Shakespeare's writings and Andy Warhol's paintings fail as these were commercial efforts.

Take it one step further, Andy Warhol's paintings were created in his famous studio the Factory. Andy used capitalisms methodologies as a method of delivering his vision. The soup cans weren't art - the ability to create them so efficiently and have people THINK THEY WERE ART was the art. It was a pretty impressive social statement that established him as a great artist, and thereby allowing the definition of 'Fine Art' to be applied to his works. This completely undermines every single one of Ebert's assertions by allowing work to be defined as 'Fine Art' after the fact if the creator can somehow establish their greatness AT ANY POINT IN THEIR WORKS EXISTENCE.

Hell, Van Gogh, and his work, was considered nothing until he DIED - thereby eliminating access to anything that wasn't already created. By this logic, and it has been applied by academics and the plebeians alike, almost ANYTHING can become 'Fine Art'.

Fundamentally, I see this mans statement as a great example of how large the generation gap really is between the Boomers and X on. The Boomers fight to keep their definitions relevant and superior instead of recognizing the disruptive cultural technologies created of the past two decades and embracing the possibilities they enable.

I can totally tell that none of you have played this game and you're totally bashing on it. You're doing exactly what the media does with games like Grand Theft Auto, etc. This game glorifies nothing about Columbine, but gives insight into what happened that day. Also, the game costs nothing, you can go ahead an download it for free. http://www.columbinegame.com/download.htm Just my 2 cents, stop hating without being educated about what you're criticizing.

PTFG

Welcome to the downside of free speech. Deal with it. Seriously, if you don't like it - don't view it - but the opinion that you should be able to categorize and then subdue some content based on your fragile sensibilities is not only fascist, but downright ignorant. Free speech comes with the requirement that people can self regulate what they choose to consume.

Hmm... interesting thing about 'Free Speech' is that it's name is often misconstrued. Free speech often implies that you can say anything or do (in a creative context) anything you want, which is not true. You are not allowed to lie or make false statements verbally or on paper. That's slander and libel.

Wikipedia's Free Speech has an intersting introduction paragraph where they talk about where freedom of speech comes from and how it's implemented. To summarize, 'free speech' was a 'ideal' that was created long ago and adopted and modified by a variety of governments. Each governments laws are different on Free Speech but they're all based on the original ideal. Specifically, each society has different beliefs on what one can say when dealing with propaganda, hate speech, obscenity, and defamation laws.

The best metaphore I can think of is this... Free Speech is a lot like Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). You have the 'ideal' standard of what CSS should be, but none of the major web browsers support this idea, and instead only implement some or most of the standards. Each browser chooses to implement the standard independently of other browsers and therefor have inconsistent implementations of the standard. Some things work on some browsers, while others don't. So, even if you design a website following the CSS standard exactly, you might be disappointed to find that it might not work on everyone's browsers, and in some cases, even the smallest lack of support can cause huge problems in the rendering of your design.

While 'Free Speech' is an ideal, much like the CSS standard, it is not implemented the same in every country and some countries sorely lack support. (it would be fun to hear what people think what country is which browser, hehe) While it would be nice to just claim that you can say anything you want under free speech, that is just not true. You have to abide by the laws or your land or work to change them. When you go from your land to another land, you have to abide by their laws. You also have to make sure you freedom of speech does not violate someone else's freedom.

Now, regarding a Columbine game. I just read over a review from one of the Columbine students about the game. All I can say is simple, it appears freedom of speech is working just fine. After all, it's like you said...

Seriously, if you don't like it - don't view it

Which is exactly what the game festival did. The game festival (as an entity) decided they didn't want to view it any longer and stopped. It's not preventing anyone else from getting their hands on it and it's still available off their website, they just made a decision that it's not in their own best interest. It's not being censored because it's still available in the public domain. It's just no longer available through that private organization, which is the right of that organization.

Free speech comes with the requirement that people can self regulate what they choose to consume.

True, freedom of speech lets you say

But the truth is, these guys have made a truly offensive game that is super deliberatly made to be offesnive/controversial.

More "truth" from someone who hasn't even tried the game.

How the hell do you know the truth when you haven't even experienced the truth? Why do you think it is OK to go around spouting off about things you have no understanding of? Sure its your right to make a fool of yourself, but in what warped universe is it personally a good thing for you to actually preach from ignorance? Is that how you make decisions about everything else in your life?

What's worse is that there is no reason for you not to have found out the truth yourself - the game is freely available from the author's website:

http://www.columbinegame.com/

artists statement
http://www.columbinegame.com/statement.htm

excert

  Somewhere between April 20th, 1999 and September 11th, 2001, America entered into a new, terrifying, and desperate era. Citizens can no longer afford to believe the necessary illusions of modern society. In an age when hastily-formed scapegoats and false dichotomies of "good" and "evil" run rampant, SCMRPG dares us into a realm of grey morality with nuanced perspectives of suffering, vengeance, horror, and reflection. In the words of Harris' friend Brooks Brown, there are "no easy answers" to such a socially indicting tragedy. As humanity teeters precariously on the threshold of collapse--politically, ideologically, and environmentally, the days of comatose media coverage and a subservient populace cannot remain. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, through their furious words and malevolent actions, can be understood as the canaries in the mine--foretelling of an "apocalypse soon" for those remaining to ponder their deeds. With 'Super Columbine Massacre RPG!,' I present to you one of the darkest days in modern history and ask, "Are we willing to look in the mirror?"

It's been done: http://www.columbinegame.com/

First of all, someone is going to bring it up eventually, so I might as well be helpful and give everyone the link to the website that has the actual game...

http://www.columbinegame.com/

By the way, it appears that the game was designed using a program called "RPG Maker 2000"

Hopefully their website charges them for bandwidth, and once they get Slashdotted the server hosting bill will bankrupt the authors...

Secondly, I think that most people would feel some concern about copycats, and being that I haven't played the game myself, I don't know whether the perspective in the game glorifies the actions of Harris and Klebold. If it does, this can be pretty dangerous for some kids... Some of the comments in the news story tend to suggest that they are glorifying the murders. For example, the article stated that when someone is killed in the game, a dialogue box pops up stating "Another victory for the Trench Coat Mafia".

I would be against any effort to impose government censorship on this kind of thing, but the authors should have really thought about whether this was a good idea.

If you are going to download this game, you may want to do it soon. The article indicated that some of the content within the game may be in violation of a copyright.