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Too Soon For A Columbine Videogame?
neutralino writes "Rocky Mountain News has a story about a computer game based on the Columbine massacre. From the article: 'Called Super Columbine Massacre RPG, the game mixes cartoonish scenes with photographs of Harris and Klebold, pictures taken from newspapers and television stations and excerpts from their writings... [The game's creator] said he wanted to create something profoundly unique and confrontational that would promote a real dialogue on the subject of school shootings.'"
Other than WW 2 simulations I really don't like the idea of making a game based off of a real tragedy. That'd be like creating a '911 simulator' where you try and fly 757s into the world trade center. It's just stupid, and it riles up the anti-gaming crowd rather quickly
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Gaming site Kotaku "spoke" with Richard Castaldo, who was paralyzed from the chest down from the attack on Columbine, after he played the game in question. Link for the article.
The kotaku article will give you way more insight than any MSM report on the game (most of which won't even bother to d/l the thing).
You can read the full interview with someone who asurvived that day at kotaku. His responses are quite interesting, and he says he has mixed feelings about the game.
I don't think the idea behind the game was to trivialize the shootings, but to comment on them. In other words, it's not trying to be entertainment, it's trying to be art.
Is it too soon for a holocaust movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108052/), or cartoon book (http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/holocaust/spiegelma n.html)?
Just because video games as an entertainment/art form are in their infancy doesn't mean they can't grow up and portray the same subjects that the more established arts do.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
It would never be made, but I would like an current, realistic political assassin game. First, let me make it perfectly clear that I have no intentions of killing or hurting anyone. But it would be sweet to (in a game) choose a goverment you work under (or free-lance) and have a choice of current government officials under opposing goverments that are your targets. You could go over and start grass roots movements or start a coup, or eventually sniper (or use various other methods) your target. Yearly you could download updates to make the government official list from multiple countries current.
I actually wouldn't mind seeing games like that. Simply telling people that racism is bad isn't nearly as effective as showing them why it's bad. I'm not talking about making a game where Nazis and slavers are genericly evil and cackle madly as they go about their (no doubt nefarious) business, I'm talking about something where they're just people doing what they believe is right... and ignoring the suffering around them that is obvious to the player of the game.
If we're going to address painful issues, we need to actually address them, not gloss over them, not ignore them, and certainly not refuse to touch them because they're still to "sensitive."
It's gotten a bunch of people here to equate Columbine to 9/11, slavery, and the fucking Holocaust. Exaggerate much?
For the record, I'm intrigued by the idea of a Holocaust simulator. As long as you don't glorify the proceedings, it would be a great way to teach people about the banality of evil.
Rob
Since we'll have a bunch of ./ers spouting off... might as well make room for someone who lived through the events the RPG depicts:
r vivor-talks-about-columbine-rpg-171966.php
" What did you think of it?
It probably sounds a bit odd for someone like me to say, but I appreciate the fact at least to some degree that something like this was made. I think that at least it gets people talikng about Columbine in a unique perspective, which is probably a good thing. But that being said there are a lot of things that are har to play or watch. And it seems to partially glamorize what happened. It shows a stark-contrast between fantasy and real life in an interesting way."
There is more of the interview at this site:
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/feature/columbine-su
I don't really game much and obviously can't speak authoritatively on the subject of war video games. How many of them allow you to commit atrocities as part of the normal gameplay?
As far as 3 vs 6 million - About 40 million non combatents died in WW2. You generally don't hear about 34 million of the civilians or the 25 million soldiers who died. But everyone knows the six million figure. Why is that?
Why on earth would I be interested in those? Because its fascinating in a very morbid way. Hell....I'm Jewish, almost lost relatives in 9/11, and went through many of the torturous highschool situations that the columbine kids did. I would never do any of these things, but I think games based on them can be an interesting way of exploring the emotions involved in the events....on BOTH sides.
Everybody knows how horrible it must have felt for the families of victims...but I have to say I'd be interested in getting into the heads of the people who actually committed these atrocities.
It reminds me of a class I took in highschool called Nazi Mind. The class was a psychology class looking not at the victims of WWII, but of the Nazis, and what could lead people to do the horrible things they did. BTW over half the class was Jewish. The first day we were asked what we thought of the Nazis and people gave their standard responses about how they were evil and they should die. Then at the last day they repeated the question and most people said they understood why some of them did what they did and that they themselves might do the same thing.
Yeah....this game might touch a lot of nerves and might cause some emotional stress for the families of victims, but I say more power to the creator for making people talk about this. Could the game be a bit more tasteful? Perhaps. But would we be discussing it as much then?
Its funny...for my final project in a history class I did a presentation on why kids need to learn to respect each other to prevent something like Columbine from happening. I made 3 people in the class cry and one had to leave she was so upset because of how sad my presentation was. At the end of the class we had a discussion and one of the "popular jocks" said he just didn't get why they did what they did...even after I had explained everything. His girlfriend called him a heartless loser and proceeded to explain how years of tormet can drive a person to do that sort of thing. Then basically every other person in the class chimed in. The guy, to his credit then realized the truth of it and apologized for his comment and talked a bit about why he had been one of the people in the past tormenting "geeks" etc. So in essence, he was "converted".
And of course for all of this I got brought down to the school psychologist because they were concerned about the report I gave...even though I had gotten approval on the topic before I had even started on it, had said nothing but positive things etc. Yeah, I hit the roof when that happened....
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