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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.'"
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.
Slashdot, where you get modded down as redundant for stating an opposing viewpoint... Independent thought anyone?
Is it too soon for a Haulocaust video game? Seriously, it would promote dialogue and what-not...
I have NO idea what these people were thinking. Mass murder of children is NOT entertainment. Sheesh.
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. - Douglas Adams
he wanted to create something profoundly unique and confrontational that would promote a real dialogue on the subject of school shootings.
I think what he wanted to do was generate some free promotion for himself, and he figured that school shootings would be a great way to get people to take a look at him. Instant noteriety.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
It's in the same boat as that "suicide bomber" flash game and the JFK game. The only thing that's interesting about any of these things is that the internet allows most anyone to create something and publish it. That's not a function of the games, but the ability for the creator to distribute. It's no different from someone's manifesto making it online, compared to the earlier method of sitting in a shoebox under the bed.
If the designer came out and said "I just thought it would be cool to shoot a bunch of kids at school" or "I just wanted to be famous and here's an easy way to do it" I'd respect that more than claiming it's only to promote dialogue.
That's horseshit, and if that's what he claims, then he's got no sack.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
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).
Since each and every one of the comments posted as of this moment is against the idea, I thought that someone should defend the author. At the moment, that someone is me.
First of all, please put aside the idea that there is such thing as a universal sense of taste that this guy is violating. There is no such thing. For example someone might tell you that a joke about rape is never funny, while George Carlin has a joke he provides as a counterexample that gets good laughs: "I'll prove to you that rape is funny. Picture porky pig raping elmer fudd. Why do you think they call him porky?"
By the same token, I remember laughing about the joke about NASA meaning "need another seven astronauts". I was a kid at the time, and I know that doesn't necessarily prove anything because kids lack refinement, but I guess what I'm saying is that refinement is not necessarily a virtue.
Human often deal with difficult situations with humor. Have you ever been in such dire straits (whether physically or emotionally) that it made you laugh, albeit hysterically? Laughter can be a coping mechanism. Of course, from the screen shots, it doesn't appear that they were shooting for humor (pardon the pun, or not. It was unintentional.
The claim is that this game was intended to provoke thought and dialogue. The screenshots seem to back that up, although my primary thought was wondering if the author really believed that access to guns was the problem, since if you believe that, you're a bozo. Any asshole can steal a gun, and there are other weapons available... But let's look at this story. Even without people playing the game, the very issue is causing serious dialogue. This comment is proof.
Is it acceptable to write a book or make a movie about the events of Columbine, discussing the ramifications? If so, then making a video game is every bit as legitimate. It's just another kind of artwork.
Those of you who are not bothered by books and movies about it existing, yet are still claiming that the video game is inappropriate, should go drive off a cliff with any progeny of yours in the vehicle at the same time. You'll do the rest of us a favor by helping to clean the gene pool.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
free is still too much to spend. they should pay you.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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 find it pretty entertaining to get your d**k sucked to improve your health then cap the bitch in the head afterwards (Grand theft auto) but this.... sick, i mean sick.
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
That's what we learned on South Park... you can't joke about something until it's been 23 years!
For some reason, people have this idea that they have the right to never have their feelings hurt. Well fuck them. If being offended by stuff is the worst thing that ever happens to you, then you've lived a charmed life.
I swear, when a people are so spoiled and safe that they can get upset about a VIDEOGAME, it's time for war. Spending a few hours every night in a shelter waiting for the tanks to stop shelling your neighbourhood is just the kind of thing people need to remind of how enormously trivial a videogame is. Seeing your neighbours being taken away to deathcamps is good too. I suppose going to a deathcamp yourself might serve as a reminder, but you would never really get a chance to implement that knowledge...
To summarize: it's just a videogame. Whoopitty shit. Find something serious to care about, like the fact that the USA is adopting fascism, or that Europe has become a power-keg for racially/religiously/economically driven violence. Those things matter. Videogames based on what was possibly the smallest massacre in human history do not.
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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Mod me down, call me whatever, or slander my nation for fostering freedom of speach in my pointy little head (Canada, FYI)... If you dont like a creative work, wheather it be a game, a movie, a book or what have you, please feel free not to play, watch or read it, but what right do you have to prevent people from consuming that media for themselves (hint: none imo), so dont go DoSing websites, or burning books. However, you have rights to, and I encourage you to exercise them. If you feel that playing a Columbine game, or reading/ watch Micheal Moore, is bad, PLEASE PROTEST IT. However do so in a manner that does not hurt other people, try to be constructive while you bring your opinion to the attention of others. Playing as a bad guy, does not make you evil. Being evil makes you evil.
No offense but if you consider games like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor or Vietcong to be WW2 and Vietnam "simulators" you've got a very rosy view of war.
I have yet to play a WW2 game where you fight against Vichy French troops, to liberate a Nazi concentration camp, play as a Russian commissar and shoot Russian soldiers for retreating, to play as a civilian in London during the Nazi Blitz and I have yet to use any vehicle that isn't stuck on rails and doesn't use arcade-ish physics. (I'm looking at you Battlefield 1942/Vietnam.) Hell I have yet to play a WW2 game that lets me fight as a Nazi! Where are the Italian/Japanese/Nazi campaigns in these games?
When there are WW2/Vietnam games that lets me shoot civilians (intentionally or unintentionally) and not cause me to lose automatically, then we can talk about how video games that let you do 'evil' things should be censored (either by the creators/the ESRB/the government).