'Columbine RPG' Creator Discusses the Dawson Shooting

Back in May, Brian Crecente of Kotaku and the Rocky Mountain News had a chat with the maker of the 'Columbine RPG'. Today, he talks again with game-maker Danny LeDonne about possible connections between his game and the Dawson shooting. From the article: "My very first reaction, frankly, was to head to my toilet bowl and throw up. I knew what was in the works and I knew the next week would be spent keeping my head above water while the press tried to bury me with guilt-laden questions and implications of complicity in murder. I also knew that this was no time to fold or get weak-kneed. I made a game. I believed in it. Now it was time to defend it. No one would do that except me."

Comments

Games recreating historical events

[CastrTroy]

I imagine this could happen to anybody who develops games based on historical events, than enact violence. I'm sure there's WWII games where you played on the German side. There's always video games where you play the bad guy. He shouldn't feel guilty because someone who enjoyed playing his game was also crazy. Maybe it's what pushed him over the edge, maybe it's not. I highly suspect that this kid was really messed up even before played the game.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[MrTester]

I agree. I think the Columbine RPG is completely tastless and would never touch it even though I love games.
However, I support the developers right to create trash and the consumers right to buy it. On top of that, not for a second do I think that the game is what caused someone to go and act out. It like saying that allowing people to drive teaches them to be drunk drivers. Ok, its not a perfect annalogy, but Im in a hurry. Sue me.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[Joe The Dragon]

there is a PlayStation 2, Xbox and PlayStation Portable (PSP) game World Trade Center video game being made http://www.defunctgames.com/shows.php?id=scrapbook -40

aslo check out this flash game http://weeklies.sordeo.com/games/wtcdefender.html

Re:Games recreating historical events

[Das Modell]

This is a non-issue. The game's designer is in no way responsible for what some whackjob does. No point in even discussing about it.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[kabocox]

I imagine this could happen to anybody who develops games based on historical events, than enact violence. I'm sure there's WWII games where you played on the German side. There's always video games where you play the bad guy. He shouldn't feel guilty because someone who enjoyed playing his game was also crazy. Maybe it's what pushed him over the edge, maybe it's not. I highly suspect that this kid was really messed up even before played the game.

Let's be honest: We don't have accurate games. I love WWII games as much as the next guy, but I don't recall a single one where you were an SS officer incharge or part of running a Nazi death camp. I recall some of Japanese airplane games of WWII of them bombing Pearl Harbor. Any air plane bombing game should be fairly ok. We don't have war sims that show what really happened when your army captured an enemies city/village/town. We have the burning and occasionally we do have looting in games. I have, yet to see Civ, Age of Empires or any other game do the full rape, pillage, and burn rountine. Let's face it; our games are much cleaner than they could be. I personally don't like shooters because I'm not good at them. They aren't really meant to have a story other than hey I need a somewhat morally good excuse to shoot everyone in front me. I'd say games like Wolf3D and Doom where you are shooting genetically modified humans, or aliens/demons gave the player moral absolution from slaughtering everything in their path. If I picked up a school shooter and it was modded to use us my classmates from highschool and the teachers, I'd have a very difficult time just randomly shooting people that pissed me off before the police came and gave me a head shoot. That game wouldn't be very fun for me. Now a game where I get to play with the drill team or cheerleaders or just Sim Drill Team with lots of bouncy 15-18 year old girls I could see outselling Mario. I may have had off days, but I never had that kind of downward spiral or wanted to go through it. Now, I could see a really well done RPG with extensive plot and background with 50-60 hours of play and the climax ending is the player breaking killing relatively random main or supporting characters. Actually, the more that I think about it the more that it seems like really good RPG material if done right. The problem is every RPG that I've played has some from of leveling and I don't see how a school shooting based RPG would have that phase. A mainly social interaction RPG with your character breaking and going crazy does sound like an interesting twist.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[TubeSteak]

The problem is every RPG that I've played has some from of leveling and I don't see how a school shooting based RPG would have that phase.

You start by clobbering your fellow kindergardeners over the head with wooden blocks & then work your way up from there.

Kindergarden: wooden blocks
Lower School: jab them to death with safety scissors
Middle School: dodge ball to the head
High School: 12345 is the combo for the gun safe
College: take chem 101 & start blowing things up
Grad School: alcohol poisoning
Middle Manager: knife people in the back
Upper Management: well timed firings will cause suicides
CEO: create an extra strong cancer-causing cigarette
Politician: kill hookers. start wars. be creative.

And that's just one potential path. The only limit is the creativity of the game designers. Heck, join the police force and get paid to shoot people!

Re:Games recreating historical events

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

RUN! RUN to the patent office before ROCKSTAR takes it from you! GO GO GO!

Re:Games recreating historical events

[dasunt]

I've played Battlefield: 1942, and the game has "names" of each soldier.

It is rather disturbing to be aiming at someone with a name.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[westlake]

I'm sure there's WWII games where you played on the German side.

Name one. Just one.

More importantly, name one where you are role-playing the Gestapo interrogator or the SS officer in the Death Camps.
"Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS" does not count.

There's always video games where you play the bad guy.

Usually at some "safe" psychological distance from your own situation. The closer you get to reality the more deeply you enter into territory where a clinical psychiatrist using role-playing techniques would be very, very cautious.

This is the root objection, the principled objection, to games like "Bully" and "Columbine."

We expect a psychoactive drug to be tested for safety before it is sold. When something appears to have gone seriously wrong we expect the product to be taken off then shelves until the problem is fixed.

He shouldn't feel guilty because someone who enjoyed playing his game was also crazy. Maybe it's what pushed him over the edge, maybe it's not.

I cringe a little at the thought of someone "enjoying" the events of Columbine as a role-playing experience. You could see the strain on the actress's face who played a Karla Holmuka-like serial sex killer of teens on Law and Order.

Actions have consequences.

It it is not unfair to ask of the author of Columbine to think a little longer and a little harder about what it is he has unleashed. Not to defend his game in a reflex action.

Not to fall back on the gamer's excuses, the clichés and platitudes, that would absolve him of any responsibility.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[KnuthKonrad]

I love WWII games as much as the next guy, but I don't recall a single one where you were an SS officer incharge or part of running a Nazi death camp.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anything forbidding enough that some perverted minds don't abuse it for their own amusement/propaganda. German neonazis did such a ... i dare to say "game" ... back in the mid 80s. :-(

Re:Games recreating historical events

[EmperorKagato]

Have you played the game? Have you bothered to see the screenshots?

We expect a psychoactive drug to be tested for safety before it is sold. When something appears to have gone seriously wrong we expect the product to be taken off then shelves until the problem is fixed.

What's wrong with the game? Is it buggy? Do you get stuck in certain areas? Does it cause your computer to restart?

Name one. Just one. (WWII German side games)
Battle Field

More importantly, name one where you are role-playing the Gestapo interrogator or the SS officer in the Death Camps. "Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS" does not count.
That does sound like a very interesting game.

Have you ever heard of a game called Hell Cab where you get the option to send all the women and children to the lions and hear their tormenting screams?

Do we ever think about how the Germans felt about seeing their defeat within numerous movies and video games, as well as their society being labeled as genocidal?

Re:Games recreating historical events

[ultranova]

I love WWII games as much as the next guy, but I don't recall a single one where you were an SS officer incharge or part of running a Nazi death camp.

Well, what store would carry it ? Besides, you can allready turn Sims into death camp simulation if you wish, so there's no need of it...

We don't have war sims that show what really happened when your army captured an enemies city/village/town. We have the burning and occasionally we do have looting in games. I have, yet to see Civ, Age of Empires or any other game do the full rape, pillage, and burn rountine.

Civ and Master of Magic let you raze a captured city to the ground for gold.

I'd say games like Wolf3D and Doom where you are shooting genetically modified humans, or aliens/demons gave the player moral absolution from slaughtering everything in their path.

Actually you're shooting Nazis in Wolf3D. Only mission 2 has modified humans in it, and even they seem to be surgically, rather than genetically, altered.

As a fun detail, Doom 2 has a bonus level where you get to meet again the Nazis you sent to Hell in Wolfenstein. I wonder where they went that time around ?

If I picked up a school shooter and it was modded to use us my classmates from highschool and the teachers, I'd have a very difficult time just randomly shooting people that pissed me off before the police came and gave me a head shoot. That game wouldn't be very fun for me.

There's a huge difference between people who piss you off and people who torture you for years for their own sick fun. The first category doesn't evoke true bloodlust, the second does. If you only knew the first in school, be thankful, but don't generalize your experience.

Now a game where I get to play with the drill team or cheerleaders or just Sim Drill Team with lots of bouncy 15-18 year old girls I could see outselling Mario.

Or just get the best of both worlds: translate Giana Sisters to 3D :).

And please learn to use paragraph breaks. Your text is needlessly hard to read when it's all just a big blob and will be simply skipped by many readers because of it.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we ever think about how the Germans felt about seeing their defeat within numerous movies and video games, as well as their society being labeled as genocidal?

No, and we don't care. Fuck the Krauts, they lost and are lucky to be still existing. I hope they die.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[westlake]

What's wrong with the game? Is it buggy? Do you get stuck in certain areas? Does it cause your computer to restart?

these are not the questions the families of Columbine and Dawson are asking.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[mgabrys_sf]

Here's one with a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZ_manager

There was one back in the 80s - so that would be two games. At least.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[mgabrys_sf]

Here's your Gestapo pleasure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZ_manager

Enjoy.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[werewolf1031]

I'm sure there's WWII games where you played on the German side.

Name one. Just one.

Panzer General, dammit! My God, how young ARE you people that you've forgotten one of the most highly praised (and damned entertaining) WWII games of the early 90's? And IIRC, if you executed your strategy well, you even had a chance to invade Washington DC by war's end. If that doesn't qualify to be among "WWII games where you played on the German side" then nothing does.

Re:Games recreating historical events

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.
However, someone who would design a game based on Columbine, is a "whackjob" themselves.

Irresponsible Society

[Enoxice]

Shouldn't they blame the music of GWAR for the shootings, too?

Happy Death-Day to Columbine!
Let's make the world an Oklahoma City, fine.
Wacky-Waco Happy Death Day, babies that were burned
The Wheel has turned!

Why can't society just accept that some (all?) humans are prone to violence, and that video games aren't murder simulators that teach you how to shoot a gun. Society as a whole is just teaching irresponsibility: let's just blame someone else, my son/daughter would never do that, it must've been the video games! Yeah!

kinda sad

[j00r0m4nc3r]

I didn't even know there had been a shooting

Re:kinda sad

[CastrTroy]

Which is really weird, because I saw it on a couple US networks (i'm assuming your in the US). NBC had it on the news. US Networks usually jump on news like this. Of course your going to correct me and tell me that you live in Montreal, which would be kind of sad.

Re:kinda sad

[krotkruton]

I also didn't know about the shooting. I live in the US, but have given up on the network news because I find that I get more relavent information by reading between the jokes on the daily show.

Re:kinda sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Mention of the shooting was oddly absent from the Daily Show. (Maybe they didn't want to touch it knowing that he listed it as one of his favorite shows?)

Re:kinda sad

[Saedrael]

Translation: I don't watch the news; odd that I don't know about current events.

Hmmm...

Re:kinda sad

[sumdumass]

Thats because you didn't read in between the lines of the news stories. The press release covered in america read like this.

Karma be damed:
Dateline montreal:

President bushed fucked up again, _Someone went on a shooting rampage_,

Global warming will destroy the world in twenty years, _at dawson colledge_,

Scientist have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that evil corupt republicans are behind global warming, _Police nutralized the gunman after 20 people injured_,

Bush lied people died. _11 people were adminted to hospital for gunshot wounds_,

cheny blew cover of CIA agent as payback for unfavorable warmongering report submited by her husban, _6 of them are in critical condition_,

Were the WMDs MR President? Bush lied people died, _Memories of canadian massacre that predates colimbine by 10 years_,

Republican cycle of violence and death caused this shooting, _resurfaced and everyone was glad the new gun control laws in canida are working_,

Those republicans caused columbine and now this, Bush is an idiot, _witnesses say the gunman had a stone cold look on his face, didn't recite any slogan or anything_,

Bush is still an idiot but somehow pulled the wool over the eyes of everyone to make this happen. _you knew your life was in danger when you were running out of the building and police swat teams were running in_,

It's those republican's fault, _Witnesses claimed thye saw blood on the steps leading upto the colledge_,

Vote democrate and we won't let this happen again, Did we warn you the 20 years will be more like 10 if you don't, _This could have been a bad situation, five minute later and student would have been leaving thier classes_,

The democrates have learned from the columbine incident, they won't let it happen again like the republicans did. _One woman said the shooter was white, aged about 19, and looked like "the stereotype, with the long black trenchcoat and all the studs and piercings and stuff like that._,

vote democrate because those republicans let something like this happen in another country and they are war-mongers, Vote democrate-bush lied people died, Bush is satan and if you remeber, cheny shot his lawer who was going to out him on the valerie plame scandel that we know know was the work of a disgrintled Richard Amatage. Did we say global warming is the republicans fauly? and bush lied people died.

If you look hard enough, you can see the story.

11/5, the Game!

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's what really inspired V!

Really great interview

[drinkypoo]

This is by far the best interview I've seen on the subject, although I'm sure I missed some. He really represents himself well here. As a humorous aside, reading the interview made me glad I didn't play the game - specifically because it contains "maudlin smashing pumpkin midis" and if I had to sit there and listen to that I might really kill someone.

Re:Really great interview

[WhiteHart]

Of course it's not games... it is the corrupt Republican masters in this country that promote gun usage.

I wouldn't go so far as to lay responsibility...

[DurendalMac]

The guy didn't make these kids pick up the gun. However, you have to admit, that game was in very, VERY poor taste, and I question the integrity of the guy who made it. Hell, even I think so, and I love all kinds of horrid, tasteless humor. Like I said, he's not responsible for it, but geez, it's only a matter of time before Jack Thompson finds someone to sue him.

What a creep

[Otter]

I doubt there's the slightest possibility that the shooting wouldn't have happened with or without this guy's game but -- ughh, what a self-absorbed, pompous, whiny creep he is. Somebody plays his game and then goes and shoots up his school, and all Danny LeDonne can do is cry about how hard this has made life for Danny LeDonne and spray about what a hero he is.

Re:What a creep

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, the line between troll and opinion has blurred into oblivion.

Goodbye opinion... we'll miss you.

Re:What a creep

[FLEB]

I get what you're saying, but on the other hand, it's not like he's calling media outlets and sending out press-releases on his own. If they're calling asking you questions about you, you're going to talk... about you.

The wonders of Google targeted advertising

[arivanov]

The ad on slashdot for this article shows some incoming release from the Grand Theft Auto franchise for PSP. So we may not match violence to computer games and vice versa but google ads (or whatever broker Slashdot uses today) surely do. Quite entertaining actually.

Re:The wonders of Google targeted advertising

[Big_Al_B]

So we may not match violence to computer games and vice versa but google ads (or whatever broker Slashdot uses today) surely do

Or perhaps ads are simply targeted within each Slashdot news section?

Re:The wonders of Google targeted advertising

[joe 155]

You mean you actually see the ads?... you really need Adblock

Re:The wonders of Google targeted advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

that gta ad was on my screen when reading all of the anti-violent-game stories the last couple of weeks... cracks me up every time

I still think it's bad taste.

[celardore]

Even though making games about this kind of thing may be unique, original, or heck even fun - it's plain bad taste. Making the game is glorifying the horrible real event whatever the authors or more so, the players say. There is something that seperates this from games like Resident Evil, or Grand Theft Auto. The 'real' element. Playing GTA:SA for example, it would be fine to be thinking "I'm gonna go cap some balla ass now!" because it's an ambiguous target in a ficticious enviroment.

Playing the Columbine RPG, any such sentiment would be creepy and morally wrong. "Yeah! That'll teach those innocent students!" I don't know the actual plot of the game, but I can't imagine it is as detached as playing a gangster, soldier or pilot etc. Saying that though, Postal II was quite fun. Damn, I contradicted myself after typing all that. Bah.

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[voice_of_all_reason]

Playing the Columbine RPG, any such sentiment would be creepy and morally wrong. "Yeah! That'll teach those innocent students!" I don't know the actual plot of the game, but I can't imagine it is as detached as playing a gangster, soldier or pilot etc.

Ah, you subscribe to the "if you think it, you did it" system of morality. Does it work the other way around? If I daydream about helping out in a soup kitchen or giving clothes to the salvation army it earns me brownie points with my local magic sky diety?

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I can't comment on your opinion of taste, I disagree with your statement that the other students were innocent. The Columbine incident seemed like a normal highschool occurrence, where the jocks and the cool kids pick on the losers, with no intervention from the teachers and staff. In this case though, the losers were armed.
I certainly don't condone the actions, but I can understand the feelings that caused them.

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[Kyrka]

Well... much like beauty, the situation is in the eye of the beholder.

Imagine, if you can, playing this game yourself for fifteen minutes. I expect the reactions are quite binary. Either a.) You're human enough to be absolutely repulsed by it, and join the author at the toilet bowl - or - b.) you turn out to be a sick, twisted, demented fuck and actually have a good time playing.

Whether you are one, or the other, is of no consequence to the author... I'm sure you can see my point. Lemme guess, we're going to decide we need yet another law, right?

Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. - Gary Zukav

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[giorgiofr]

How about c) you read about it on /., play it for a bit, find it a poorly written but certainly controversial game, and pass on because you don't have any strong feelings about it?

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[space_biker]

It's an interesting, but shallow point. I'm sure the GP understands that you can't punish someone for their thoughts. But there's a dangerous path to be followed when you put an idea in someone's head and give an avenue for repeated re-inforcement of that idea. You'd be stupid to argue that someone's actions didn't originate with a thought.

The argument I'm hearing is that, if you're of a sane mind, then it's ok to play degenerate games that desensitize the reaction to violence and horror as long as you don't act on it. He's pushing a poison that's sure to kill at least somebody. If the poison doesn't kill, it leaves irreversable damage in anyone it touches.

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[Who235]

5 is just not enough points for a post that good.

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that daydreaming about working in a soup kitchen isn't enough to make you do good, you have to play a game about working in a soup kitchen in order to raise your community service meter, to do good?

Whose argument is shallow? Do you have a reason to believe that reinforcement to do bad things is different from reinforcement to do good things? What is that reason?

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[westlake]

Ah, you subscribe to the "if you think it, you did it" system of morality. Does it work the other way around? If I daydream about helping out in a soup kitchen or giving clothes to the salvation army it earns me brownie points with my local magic sky diety?

Maybe it does. If it points you in the right direction. But you are evading the issue. Super Columbine Massacre RPG! became more than a daydream for the shooter. It became an obsession.

It is not out of bounds to ask what there is in the social context of the game, the structure of the game, the play of the game, the marketing of the game, that attracts the unbalanced mind.

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[fbjon]

So you're saying that daydreaming about working in a soup kitchen isn't enough to make you do good, you have to play a game about working in a soup kitchen in order to raise your community service meter, to do good?

No, that's not doing good, that's still just playing around. Similarly, if you play violent games and leave it at that, then no problem. But if you repeatedly play games that showcase or glorify actual violence, with real people and events, especially people/events close to you, it will affect your thinking, no? If you then fall into a depression spiral and go on a killing spree, wouldn't the violent games have played a part then? To take your example of the other extreme, if you play happy video games all day long about saving the world and helping people in need, that'd likely affect your thinking as well.

Would you rather play games that make you happy, or games that make you sad[1]? I think it's an interesting question that shouldn't summarily be dismissed as Jack-Thompsonitis.

Or, perhaps games don't affect you at all, in which case, what the hell are you playing for then?

In any case, I'm not talking about GTA here, but the kind of games that are actually disturbing on some level.

[1] I know this happy/sad distinction doesn't correlate with violence levels

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I daydream about helping out in a soup kitchen or giving clothes to the salvation army it earns me brownie points with my local magic sky diety?

WTF is a "magic sky diety"? You sound like a retard when you write stuff like that.

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[Anonymous Coward]

I misunderstood you and thought you were talking about the general videogame case, but I guess where I disagree is that if you play happy video games all day long about saving the world and helping people in need, that'd likely affect your thinking as well.

I play games because I think games can be entertaining. I think games can be insightful. I think games can challenge the participant to think about the real world, but I don't think playing a game about killing schoolkids could make me a murderer any more than playing a game about saving as many people from the WTC as I can before the building collapses could make me a hero.

Would you rather play games that make you happy, or games that make you sad

"Recent" civilization has always had tragedy as entertainment. It's there in game plots too, if you'll accept the story path(s) set by the game's creator for you to experience as part of the game.

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[gbjbaanb]

If you think about putting a cartoon cat in a mincer, its funny. If you think about putting a real cat in a mincer, its sick.

Its nothing to do with the distinction between thinking about things, and doing them - but all about the context with which you think within your head.

Re:I still think it's bad taste.

[voice_of_all_reason]

That's a nice comprimise, but it falls apart when you get to extremes in the spectrum.

For example, a pedo might say "it's okay for me to fantasize about (insert depraved sexual encounter here) as long as I know it's only a fantasy." However, the vast majority of US citizens would want this person executed for doing so.

Don't think So.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't see a WWII "extermination camp simulator" do you?
WWII is also ~60 years removed from 2006. Columbine happened how many years ago?
Columbine game involves shooting unarmed children.

There's bad taste and then there is moral bankrupcy.

Re:Don't think So.

[voice_of_all_reason]

You don't see a WWII "extermination camp simulator" do you?

They made one for the NES. It's called Deadly Towers.

Re:Don't think So.

[Big_Al_B]

Over the years I've played many a WWII flight sim that's put me in the seat of planes from both sides of the conflict.

Re:Don't think So.

[Gulthek]

You don't see a WWII "extermination camp simulator" do you?

Whoa, good idea. I see that fitting right into the "Tycoon" style of gaming.

Re:Don't think So.

[bunions]

> Columbine game involves shooting unarmed children.

Carmageddon involves running over unarmed children, senior citizens and cheerleaders.

I mean, I know it's not exactly a historical simulation, I'm just sayin'.

Re:Don't think So.

[bunions]

also, if I remember correctly, the crowd cheers when you do it.

Re:Don't think So.

[Peganthyrus]

IIRC I remember seeing a couple screenshots of a concentration camp administrator game in an Amiga magazine once, years ago. It was supposedly made by some German nazi wannabe teens.

I'm sure that as more and more people have easier and easier game-making tools, other people of a similar bent have written similar games on newer platforms.

Obviously these things aren't going to be for-profit big-budget games. But they exist.

It sounds like this particular game is not really about glorifying the Columbine shootings. I dunno, I haven't played it.

Re:Don't think So.

[aneurysm36]

haha with style points even!

Re:Don't think So.

[Broken scope]

There is stupidity and the there is ignorance. I seriously doubt you have actually played the game or even tried to understand the basis behind its creation.

Re:Don't think So.

[fbjon]

SimCamp.

Coming next Christmas.

Re:Don't think So.

[Anonymous Coward]

I want a game like this... Hell, maybe I'll make one in the old BBS text game stylee... Real simple like, but phun!

88

Re:Don't think So.

[neoform]

Considering the shooting took place less than 2 weeks ago and many of the victims are STILL in hospital, you'd think a slight grieving period would be warranted before claiming it's part of history that is fair game to be represented in game form.

I'm sure you'd be all for the game if you knew someone who had been shot. I happen to live 4 blocks from Dawson College, and having spent 4 years there, i can say it's really shitty that someone's going to get some kicks out of pretending to be someone who's killing students there.

Re:Don't think So.

[sumdumass]

It sounds like this particular game is not really about glorifying the Columbine shootings. I dunno, I haven't played it.

I played the game. It is of old school doom like with worse 2d graphics. Basicaly, you have to go thru the motions of the two dimshits involved and can do a killing spree of anything that moves. At some point you triger the part were they kill themsleves and you end up in hell. The problemy then is that your a defensless little bitch in hell with deamons and doom like creatures comming at you. I'm not a real serious gamer or anything so i couldn't make it past the hell part (if you can).

In the middle, after certain events, it shows pictures of what really happened with a little narative on what was going on. It didn't glorify any of it but it didn't directly chastize it either. When they kill themselves, it shows the actual mutilated dead eric and dillon and the only thing i could think of was "ouch, hope that never happens to me". Then a sickening/saddening feeling came over me. Once the hell part started i was back to normal but loosing. Dunno if it is because of the death scene or because i suck at games and hell is well, hell to play.

All in all, if i had to say this game has a theme, it is look at these asstards doing something stupid for the wrong reasons and they ended up worse then they were. Someone else might have taken something else away from the game. I don't know. I would suggest playing it if your only reason not to play is the link to a hanus crime. It explains a lot about what happened, Removes a lot of the "billy the kid" or "the matric" style romance some people have spinned on it. Even for the crappyness of the gameplay and graphics, it is a good game.

When i was in school, sometimes I would day dream about doing simular stuff(wondering what would happen). It was common in that time for kids to have guns (in my area) and I was in the highschool skeet and trap shooting club so i had them in my locker part of the time. I would say that quite a few of us were armed at some point in time durrign school and we never had an incident like columbine. We did have an accidental discaege once. The shotgun was pointed in a safe direction and it didn't hit anything. It happened when someone steped into the box and found a bee's nest. He jumped, causing the gun to go off, got stung and droped the gun on hid toe (not neccisarly in that order)

I'm glad that thinking about what it would be like is about as far as it ever got with me. BTW, two years after my senior year, they took the "gun clubs" out of the school and then several years later they had some gun and drug free zone thing. "Gun clubs" Should be back in school if nothing else but to teach kids these things aren't toys and how to handle them responcibly. We had a trap and skeet club and a targeting club. Even if the schools hold onto the weapons untill needed.

Re:Don't think So.

[morie]

It made the news all over europe. Can't remember the name though.

Re:Don't think So.

[morie]

You don't see a WWII "extermination camp simulator" do you?

http://www.radio.cz/en/article/82899

almost the same thing

Re:Don't think So.

[Tei]

Yes, theres a "Prison Tycoon 2:Maximum.Security" or something. And seems is a good one. You can even download a free demo for it. Looks very popular too on the warez sites :(((((. Dawn gamers!!. Go and buy the games you love!. I do! :D

Re:Don't think So.

[Tink2000]

I think you have recent events (which doesn't have a game associated with it) mixed up with events that occured some time ago (which does have a game associated with it).

Re:Don't think So.

[szembek]

You are incorrect. The game was modelled after events that took place a few years ago. Another shooting took place in the past couple of weeks which some are blaming on the game. The game came out some time ago as well. I think you have your stories crossed.

Re:Don't think So.

[mgabrys_sf]

Oh you haven't seen this done 15 years ago. There was another one older than that - and I'm sure there's plenty of white-power mods for all kinds of games running RIGHT NOW.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZ_manager

Old old incredibly old news. Where were you?

Re:Don't think So.

[neoform]

my bad :P

personally, after having read into the new shooting a lot, i feel if anything this guy watched the matrix too many times and felt he would be cool if he started shooting random people like in the movie.. that said, it isn't the movie's fault he can't tell fiction from reality.

Re:Don't think So.

[NetRAVEN5000]

IIRC I remember seeing a couple screenshots of a concentration camp administrator game in an Amiga magazine once, years ago. It was supposedly made by some German nazi wannabe teens.

"KZ Manager"

Re:Don't think So.

[NetRAVEN5000]

First of all, they didn't have video games back in the '40s.

Second of all. . . Columbine involved shooting unarmed children. In fact, Columbine was shooting unarmed children. That's all that happened - two kids with low self-esteem went to school pissed off about how poorly their classmates treated them and killed a bunch of people. That's pretty much all there was to it. You can't turn it any other way - killing kids wasn't just something that happened behind-the-scenes that they didn't want you to know about like in WWII with killing the Jews.

Which is precisely why this game was made. Killing kids isn't normal. You're fucked up if you just one day decide to go kill a bunch of kids and then go kill yourself.

But people won't talk about it. According to them, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were just bad kids, and that's that. They don't want to think about what happened to these kids that made them do this, and therefore they aren't thinking of real, effective ways to prevent it from happening in the future (yeah, they outlawed guns and knives in schools, big deal - it doesn't take a gun or knife to kill someone). A better way would be to figure out what made these kids want to do this, and fix that. I guarantee you that these kids would've done something similar even if they couldn't have gotten weapons into school. I don't know exactly what, maybe they'd've kicked the shit out of people or something, but they would've done something bad nonetheless.

And there are "WWII extermination camp simulator" style games: "KZ Manager"

It could actually be his fault?

[aliendisaster]

Well, if he never made this game then we would live in another universe that did not have this game and all of humanity would be different. The shooting may never have happened in that universe. But then again, maybe I caused it when I stepped on the beetle last year. Damn it, I'm a murderer!

My own game

[GrayCalx]

Listen, when I created RapeHer v1, I think people misunderstood what I was going for. I didn't create this video game to give people the experience of what its like to rape a woman, to feel her panic beneath you as dominate and violate her in a customizable number of ways thanks to my own CreateAHole feature. I created the game to create an open discussion of rape in a civilized society. Anyone who takes anything away from it but that is missing my point entirely.

Look... I don't care that he created the game. I'm a fan of tasteless jokes, racist jokes, jokes about anything that is awkward, making fun of a situation is how i deal with those type of situations. BUT if so you have to be upfront about why he did it. I 100% think its a lie that he was trying to create "a sociological critique or a deconstruction of the form." Come out and say, look it was a horrible event but I thought it'd make for an interesting game to play with my friends and once it was online it blossomed from there. He doesn't have to excuse himself for what that kid did, any rational person (read slashdot reader) understands media won't make someone kill like that. At the same time to come out in an interview all high and mighty, acting that his game was misunderstood yada yada is just BS.

Re:My own game

[Enoxice]

Have you played the game? Have you seen screenshots of the game? It is in no way, other than in a literal sense, a graphic presentation of murder. For God's sake, it looks like Pokemon! And from what I hear, it really does examine the event, and not just tosses you in and says "kill as many people as you can for no reason muahahahaha!"

Re:I wouldn't go so far as to lay responsibility..

[Nos.]

Having never played the game, I can't comment too much. However, from reading the article, I get the idea that there is a message in his game that isn't exactly supporting school shootings. I would guess (as he does) that most people miss his message. From what I can gather, the message is more something about "games don't cause violence" or maybe more generically, media doesn't. In any case, the point of the game was certainly not to glorify the events at columbine.

Entertainers can't have it both way.

[Maxo-Texas]

Either 'art' makes a difference to people or it doesn't.

Either it is a light froth which doesn't have an effect on people's behavior (good or bad).

Or it influences people.

---

I think in the 50's psycho boy would be made- maybe get into a fist fight. But since he hadn't seen how to blow people away, that is as far as it goes. I think people who are prone to bad things find ways to express themselves when they see a demonstration of how to do it.

I think some people who would be okay are corrupted by things they would not have been able to see in the past.

---

But freedom of speech is a bitch and you really can't put the genie back in the bottle.

---

In a perfect world- you would somehow isolate people from all these bad concepts until they were older. Freedom of speech - sure. But freedom *from* speech too. People used to go off and form communities which could say "if you want to be part of this community you can't say or do these things". Today, it is increasingly difficult to enforce those concepts.

Re:Entertainers can't have it both way.

[PoderOmega]

Uh what? I'm pretty sure there were plenty of movies with guns in the 50s. WWII movies and Cowboys and Indians for sure. Maybe it was portrayed differently but they didn't use pointy sticks in those movies (well, maybe the Indians).

Re:Entertainers can't have it both way.

[skorch]

Either 'art' makes a difference to people or it doesn't. Either it is a light froth which doesn't have an effect on people's behavior (good or bad). Or it influences people. --- I think in the 50's psycho boy would be made- maybe get into a fist fight. But since he hadn't seen how to blow people away, that is as far as it goes. I think people who are prone to bad things find ways to express themselves when they see a demonstration of how to do it. I think some people who would be okay are corrupted by things they would not have been able to see in the past.

Clearly a baseless claim. People have been blowing each other away, stabbing each other with swords, bludgeoning with whatever large blunt object they can get a hold of, strangling, beating, and otherwise killing each other long before any form of media "showed" them how. There have been murderers and psycho's going as far back as we have recorded history to report on them. Art imitates life; the first murder story wasn't written until well after humans had been murdering each other. Violence came before the videogame, the movie, the book, the written word, and even language, and will still be here when the next form of entertainment rises and we're all blaming it for those darn kids.

Art can influence and inspire, without removing control (and therefore responsibility) from a person over their own actions. At best one could say a person who intended to do violence to begin with was inspired to do it in a way that mimiced his favorite game, movie, song, or book, but that hardly is enough to condemn his entertainment for his actions. Just so, one could say someone who was on the path to rising up against an unjust society or government may have been inspired by and rallied behind a revolutionary song, story, or symbol. Clearly it was the social and political conditions that lead to the revolution, not the art.

Since these cases are so rare, that in itself should show that art is not the cause of violence, and whatever influence it does have (it seems at best only able to flavor the event, not to trigger it) is vastly overshadowed by some other serious social and mental factors on the part of the individual.

The shooters are victims too!

[rubberbando]

I'm sure many of slashdotters can relate to this.

High school is a cruel place. Its not easy being an outcast there. People will beat you up just because they don't like the way you dress, walk, or talk or for not having 'popular kid' interests/not being trendy. People will break or steal your belongings for the same reasons. Then when you call for help, your parents don't care as they are too busy with their selves. Your teachers/principals don't care because the bullies are star athletes that bring money into the school. And in some small towns like the one I grew up in, the police don't care because one of those bullies is the sheriff's son.

I not saying going on a shooting rampage is the answer but I guess sometimes a person has to start fighting back.

Unfortunately, guns tend to give instant courage to the meek and give the true victim what appears to them as an easy out....

-R

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[Turn-X Alphonse]

My girlfriend was in that school shooting. What right did that guy have to make her think she was going to die and run for her life?

Just because some asshole picks on you, don't mean you go and put the fear of god in thousands of people. Maybe some people will mod you up, but you're a patheticly immoral person if you think it's okay to "fight back" against innocent people. Guns don't solve any problem when in the hands of the general public, they cause problems like these. If you have a problem with a bully at a COLLEGE you get the police involved and they fix it, you don't go and shoot 20 people while making the rest have a terrible memory for the rest of their life!

Side note : My girlfriends fine, she's getting over it and the college is giving a lot of support to all the students.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[jythie]

*sigh* Look, calling someone patheticly immoral does you no good. People like to simplify stuff like this, but it isn't so. The type of mentality and situation that result in people loosing it and going on a killing spree are NOT simple, and often much of the rage they feel has some real source. It does not simply come from nowhere, and the victims of the shooting did have a hand in creating the situation. When things get bad enough that you start blaming the structure as a whole, people who support and benifit from the system that is generating the abuse feel like ligit targets. They do not appear innocent, they feel at worst bystandards that let things get that bad. This is esp true when it is popular, protected people doing the abusing, since it is the general student population who GIVE them that power and then refuse to take it away. Does that make going postal the right solution? No, it doesn't. Not even remotely. (though your 'bring in the police' example is worrying since often in bullying, esp at the high school level, authority figures will generally not help you, and often dump even more blame on the victim with 'well, if you were normal then everyone would like you' BS, which amplifies the problem. in college unless it is a physical threat, they will just ignore you or, if they are on-campus police, might act much like the HS level authorities) But I find it equaly disturbing that instead of addressing the structural problems that lead to this, people just pull out the 'it was just one sick person' card as if that explains everything away and absolves everyone who had a hand, however minor it was, in the events leading up to it. It lets us protect the image of our darling children and friends (or any ingroup) because they 'can do no wrong' and externalize our problems to 'others' and continue to blame whatever one can as long as it never circles back. If we want to talk relative girlfriends. Mine went through significant amounts of 'outsider' abuse in both highschool and college (ended up snapping in college) and has had terrible memories and nightmares about that ever since too. And for every person who will have to live through the terror of _ONE_ day and it's memories, there are probably dozens of people who have to remember thousands of days of abuse and fear, and no one cares. They don't get support from their college, or other students, they usually either collapse mentally, kill themselves, or try to kill others. But in general few really care what happens to them and all the stuff that caused it is not considered immoral at all. They are just 'weak' or 'sick' people.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up!

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[StikyPad]

Hey guy, did you even read the GP? He said that the actions were wrong, but people that should stand up for themselves. He's exactly right, and if they *had* stood up for themselves instead of bottling up their anger for years, it probably wouldn't have reached such a dramatic climax.

By the way, we don't care who you're dating or how she's doing, and when she dumps you in a few months, not only will you no longer care about Columbine, but if you're truely as sensitive as you appear, you'll probably be so crushed that you'll wish she hadn't been one of the survivors, so ease up on the soapbox speeches.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[mj_sklar]

Not to nitpick, but your, and the GP's posts seem to presume that the shooter was a student at Dawson. The shooter was not, in fact, a student at this school, so the argument that he may have been a victim of bullying isn't all that valid. He was 25, and a graduate of a different school; he never attended the college where he opened fire.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[pissedoffamerican]

"Guns don't solve any problem when in the hands of the general public, they cause problems like these." Correction: Guns don't cause problems, people do. Crazy-person-with-gun would've lashed out violently by other means if guns weren't available. Being a responsible, law-abiding gun owner, I'd like to let you know that I would never use my guns in an offensive manner. They are strictly for hunting, target shooting, and self-defense. Any upstanding citizen who owns a gun will echo this.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[MMaestro]

If you have a problem with a bully at a COLLEGE you get the police involved and they fix it,

I knew kids in high school with death lists, complete with reasons and methods of murder. One even got called in to talk about it and showed it to the officials. Punishment? "Hes an angry kid but harmless." True story. Even happened after Columbine. My friends and I used to joke about how much extra 'protection' was put into place after Columbine especially after this 'incident.'

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[fbjon]

Yes, the upstanding 2% of the population agrees with you. Now, what about the rest?

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[Anonymous Coward]

In this particular case, the shooter was a sociopath - no, make that a misanthrope. He hated the world, so some people in the world hated him back. He deserved that; he asked for that.

Not only that, he was 25 years old and a dropout. He had been out of school for years. He had plenty of time to go into therapy and buy scented candles to make himself feel better.

Face it: everyone, and I mean everyone, has shitty days in school, and feels like they are an outsider. Everyone. Learning how to deal with the people around you, including those who want to harm you, is part of the (informal) education you recieve at school. The difference between people who are good and those who are evil is this: the good people get over it, turn over a new leaf, and get on with their lives. The evil people only focus on the percieved slights they received and wallow in self-pity.

If your girlfriend is still having nightmares about being teased in school, she needs to get over it. Life is a really great thing, if you only see it that way. Shit happens; get over it.

Posting AC for fear of the mean ol' mods.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[pissedoffamerican]

I'll assume you're talking about Canadians. Gun owners account for a helluva lot more than 2% in the US. Logic would dictate that an inanimate object does not cause problems, unless it's something like a ticking bomb. A loaded gun with the safety off won't hurt anyone if nobody touches it. Anyone who thinks responsible gun owners are violent catastrophes waiting to happen are just ignorant. Violent catastrophes waiting to happen are unstable or desperate people. And they'll do plenty of damage whether they've got guns or not.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I don't assume he was a student. My comments were on the posters attitude to events, not the killers.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[fbjon]

Responsible gun owners cannot be catastrophes waiting to happen, that's a ridiculous notion. But I'm not talking about them at all. I'm talking about the irresponsible gun owners.

Gun ownership doesn't translate to intelligence, upstandingness and moral fiber any more than having an internet connection does. And we all here know what kind of people have internet connections.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[pissedoffamerican]

You're right. But the majority of LEGAL gun owners are responsible. The ones you should worry about are criminals who have weapons that are not traceable. A legal pistol owner who's bought a new pistol in the last 10 years or so would be an idiot to commit a crime with his or her pistol. Why? All new pistols (and maybe rifles, I'm not sure) have one round fired and kept by the manufacturer for tracing purposes. So, if you DID shoot someone with your pistol and try to get away with it, law enforcement needs only to scan a database and the ballistics of your gun will match any slugs they find. Anyways, my point is, criminals will continue to be violent whether they've got guns or not. Knives, crowbars, or just metal piping can be used if you REALLY want to hurt someone with more than your bare hands. If you looked at a ratio of legal gun owners to gun-related crimes committed by legally owned guns, you'd see that the number of crimes committed is very low compared to the overall number of legal gun owners. So don't get too worried about your co-worker or friend who owns a rifle and a shotgun and likes to hunt, or owns a pistol and likes to go to the range.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[mj_sklar]

I'm sorry, you must have misunderstood me. I wasn't saying you made the assumption that he was a student. I was refering to the comments in your parent post (by rubberbando), and the reply to your post (by jythie).

I had assumed that since your girlfriend attends Dawson, you knew a bit more about the situation than other posters, which seems to be true. (Sidenote; yes, I do live in Montreal, and a few of my good friends were there. None of them got hurt, but they were there. I know what happened, and I've been listening to/reading the news every day since)

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[Spasmodeus]

No, they were not the "true victims". They were not victims at all. That is a myth born out of the rush to explain this horrible act soon after it happened.

They were killers.

Harris and Klebold weren't part of the "trenchcoat mafia", nor were they singled out for harrasment by schoolmates.

Klebold, however was a depressive. And Harris was a bona fide psychopath with a superiority complex, as well as a desire to cause as much suffering as he possibly could.

Read THIS for more details.

Columnbine had nothing to do with revenge, and even if it did, no amount of wedgies or ridicule or stolen lunch money or even after-school beatdowns should garner any sympathy for someone who decides they're going to indiscriminatly kill as many people as possible in retribution.

No, I cannot relate to this. At all.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[Guppy06]

"Guns don't solve any problem when in the hands of the general public, they cause problems like these."

Would you rather he ran around with a machete or a chainsaw? Or what if he simply drove a car through the doors and ran down people in the hallways?

Only a very, very small minority wake up in the morning and say to themselves "I'm going to go into a public environment and kill a bunch of people, just for the hell of it," and neither the Columbine duo or this new copycat were in that minority. Rather, they felt threatened, and likely were to some extent, and they reached for a weapon to try to equalize the situation between themselves and their attackers (be they real or imagined). Simply taking away their weapon of choice will not make their desire for one go away, nor will it make their situation better with whatever threats they perceive. If anything, removing the guns will simply drive these people to reach for something deadlier (would you have preferred a fertilizer bomb?).

Assuming for the moment that you really did know somebody involved (there's always people who like to play the celebrity victim), why didn't you show any concern for the fact that your girlfriend spends most of her days in such a caustic, hostile environment that produces such people? Ever stop to wonder why shootings like this happen more often in schools than, say, shopping malls, or anywhere else the same demographic likes to gather?

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[gasaraki]

If only the psychiatric profession had as much insight as you! We could just tell people to "get over it" and everything would be fine. Suffered years of psychological and physical abuse? Get over it! Shot in the leg? Get ov... oh wait, sorry, you're a victim.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[shinma]

Guns don't solve any problem when in the hands of the general public, they cause problems like these.

No.

Unbalanced people with guns cause situations like these.

A gun is a tool. It has no motivation, and no intent. It does not whisper in its owner's ear, and make them scream "blood and souls for my lord, Arioch!" Taking firearms out of the hands of the general populace would simply leave the law-abiding citizens defenseless against the people who break the law and get ahold of guns anyway.

"But guns are illegal," you say.

These people are planning to break the law anyway. What's one more law going to do if they're planning to kill someone, or carjack them, or break into their house?

I don't own a firearm. But I am glad I have the option of buying one.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[TapeCutter]

"Taking firearms out of the hands of the general populace would simply leave the law-abiding citizens defenseless against the people who break the law and get ahold of guns anyway."

This is nothing but FUD designed to sell handguns, millions of people already live in countries with tight gun control and the overwhelming majority of them like it that way.

"A gun is a tool"

It is an extremely efficient tool with saftey features the depend entirely on the competence of the user. Regulation can effectively improve the "saftey features". Eg: In Australia, "self defense" is not a valid reason to own a gun of any description.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[nalfeshnee]

Like I give a flying FUCK about someone who shoots innocent people dead at a high school.

He had problems? Good, he doesn't have them any more. Shame he had to force his ineptitute on other people.

Oh, and by the way -- you think the police officer enjoyed shooting this guy dead? If you're looking for victims other than the people who were actually hurt by this maniac, try the police force.

Idiot.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[Anonymous Coward]

High school is a cruel place. Its not easy being an outcast there. People will beat you up just because they don't like the way you dress, walk, or talk or for not having 'popular kid' interests/not being trendy. People will break or steal your belongings for the same reasons. Then when you call for help, your parents don't care as they are too busy with their selves. Your teachers/principals don't care because the bullies are star athletes that bring money into the school. And in some small towns like the one I grew up in, the police don't care because one of those bullies is the sheriff's son.

It's not just high school, it's the world. Some people are just more sensitive and lacking in self confidence that they can't deal with things that pretty much everybody goes through at some point.

I not saying going on a shooting rampage is the answer but I guess sometimes a person has to start fighting back.

There are many more productive ways to fight back. Parents don't help, contact child services; Cops won't help, contact the bleeding heart "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" politicians; teachers don't help contact the school board; Use the system to your advantage.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to sound too much like a Clerks reference, but those councelors were kinda useless.

I remember in Jr High going in to talk to the administration about people who beat me up daily. Did I get any additional protection? Did they help solve my problem? No, they brought the kid in, talked to him without his parents, believed his side of the story, and let him out... at which point the beatings increased.

I remember being beaten up IN CLASS while the teacher wasn't looking, punched in the face and head repeatedly, and when I yelped in pain I'd get bereated for not being quiet.

I remember running from place to place because standing anywhere was likely to get you attacked. Gym was hell. I frequently couldn't walk afterwards, with the amount kicking and punching I took.

And I was one of the good ones. I didn't fight back. I didn't hit anybody. I followed the rules. What did it get me? Abused. Constantly. I was the target. Did I have a death list? You bet. I was never stupid enough to do anything about it, and the far more likely scenario was that I simply would find a high bridge and jump. But the idea for my death list came from similarly abused people in my school who also had them.

Unless they've revolutionized in the last ten years, the staff at your schools who are there to protect your kids are useless. Your kids are fending for themselves in a big pot of the ugliest, most animalistic parts of humanity. Teach them that sometimes it's OK to fight back with your fists, before they decide their only recourse is to fight back with guns... Because that really nice principal lady whom you met at the parent-teacher conference isn't going to do shit to keep them safe.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[i_ate_god]

Police officer didn't shoot him dead. Police officer wounded him, he grabbed another student and used her as a human shield as he shot back at cops and then shot himself in the head.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[jythie]

*nods* same here. I was more responding to the general concept rather then this specific shooting since, honestly, I have not been following this one all that much and know little to no details about it.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[jythie]

nicely put ^_^ if I could mod you up I would. Therapy has backfired several times for her (it is amazing just how much damage a therapist who does not have the patient's best interests in mind can do) but we have explored trying to find a good therapist to work on it. Though it is amazing how many therapsists (publicly funded ones in this case, or ones who's paycheck does not come from the patient) also use the 'just get over it' line and then don't really help beyond that. And I have to take some issue with the previous person's idea that not 'getting over it' make her evil. Whole scale of abuse out there, from normal shitty day stuff, to an enviroment that really damages someone. Surviving the former does not give one the perspective to say that the latter should be just as easy.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[shinma]

One night, when I was in German class, two men came into my apartment, tied and beat my fiancee, and stole most of our things.

One of them had a gun. My fiancee was completely defenseless. One man kept the gun trained on her while the other carried things out to their getaway car. Our apartment complex's maintenance man (Brett) scared them off with his personal firearm, before they had finished loading their car, and before they could do anything worse to my fiancee.

They were not intimidated by Brett until he brandished his firearm. I'm quite glad that he had one, and I am eternally grateful to him for risking his life to save my fiancee's.

Self defense and hunting are, IMO, the ONLY valid reasons to own a gun. It would be impossible to regulate firearms in the US, there are too many extant without licenses (my uncle has a collector's license, and he has over two hundred guns in his house alone. Each firearm is not individually licensed. They fall under the umbrella of his collector's license. I can guarantee that he, along with other collectors, would not turn over all of their pieces in the event of wholesale regulation.).

It is illegal to rob a bank, with or without firearms. It is illegal to kill someone. Yet it still happens. I cannot believe that if guns were made illegal, criminals would suddenly get queasy about carrying and using them. The only reduction it would cause is that it would raise the barrier of entry, and the gun-wielding criminals would simply be more likely hardened criminals with the capability of actually using that gun to inflict deadly harm.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[geekoid]

OTOH if your girlfriend was armed, she may have been able to put a stop to it sooner.

Don't blame the firearm, and don't blame the game. It is that persons fault.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[phorm]

For the record, I work in schools. One thing I can say is that the words "Columbine" are still quite in the head of administrators and teachers, etc, as well as the parents that would remember it.

The actual incident happened near my last years of high school. I remember that before I heard about Columbine itself, people who would usually have gone out of their way to break my balls were being unusually nice. I also found out later that most people somehow expected me to follow suite and copycat the shootings. It seemed strange to me, because though I had a lot of people with whom I had personal issues, and I was somewhat a fan of shooter games, etc, I just didn't have any compulsion to come to school and shoot people... both the innocent and the aggressors.

However, the impact of that day left a mark that did have people worried about pushing their targets "over that line." Furthermore, to this day I see that administration seems to take a much stronger notice of consistent bullying, and tends to educate against it more strongly as well. I don't know if that's an offshoot of Columbine or just happenstance, but I do believe that it was in many ways an eye opener for many people.

And to emphasize, I'm not the violent type, and I would neither commit such actions myself nor promote them from others, but I'm not overly surprised it happened. Though there is nothing that justifies the harming of innocents in the manner that this occured, I think what saddens me the most is the overspilling hatred in these individuals into racism and pure bile which brings about their willingness to harm true innocents (as in, not those who have done them harm) and to in the end make them something worse than those whom they railed against.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[TapeCutter]

Armed "home invasions" are so rare in Australia that when it does happen it becomes national news.

I know that the US has a love affair with guns and I do not wish to tell you how to live or what your constitution should say. However, there are other ways to live that both work and have the support of the poulation, to suggest otherwise (as the GP did) is ignorance.

"The only reduction it would cause is that it would raise the barrier of entry"

Precisely! In Australia it is very difficult to get hold of an unregistered handgun. In the US you have porous borders and supply is already very high, it would be much more difficult to control without first reducing the availability. OTOH: The US exports a large number of small arms to (almost) anyone who wants one.

BTW: Handgun collectors are catered for in Australia, you need a police approved safe and you must allow inspection on demand. My brother-in-law had 30+ handguns including a magnum 44 when the laws were tightened 15-20yrs ago. The safe, the cops and my herion addicted nephew became a PITA, so he moved them to a gun club.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[shinma]

All of my comments come from the PoV of the reality of the American situation. As large as our country is, and as easy as it is for Joe Schmoe to run down to Tijuana, I don't think restricting guns in America can happen.

Firearms are too ingrained in our culture, and too widespread already, to simply remove them. As long as it is easy for thugs to get guns on the black market, I think it's necessary for us to be able to get them through legitimate means as well.

Of course, if guns weren't available, the number of hunting knife-induced deaths would skyrocket, as would home-made explosives. ;P People will always find a way to kill each other.

Re:The shooters are victims too!

[TapeCutter]

"I don't think restricting guns in America can happen."

Given time, any culture will change it's views on much more fundemental issues than gun control, it happens so often that it has a name: "generation gap".

"Of course, if guns weren't available, the number of hunting knife-induced deaths would skyrocket, as would home-made explosives"

Knife attacks may increase, but you have to stab someone an average of 5 times to kill them plus you need to get "up close" to the victim. Stabing and slashing is very different and much more difficult than shooting someone from a safe distance. Most deaths from guns come from accidents, suicides and "heat of the moment" attacks. All these would decrease if guns were less accessible because there is more time for the "killer" to defuse and accidents with knives are rarely fatal.

"People will always find a way to kill each other."

Yep.

BTW: I'm not arguing against hunters, we have plenty here in Australia using single shot rifles or shotguns without magazines. We also have a considerable "safari" industry where tourists can go and hunt water buffalo, pigs, donkeys, goats, camels, deer and all the other pest and game species wandering around the bush.

"But is it art?"

[Captain Sarcastic]

I read the interview, and the primary thrust of the questions and answers seemed to be:

Q: Do you think you'll get in trouble for your game?
A: I shouldn't - it's art, for crying out loud!

Now, I don't think tastelessness is criminal. Otherwise, the creators of the HTML "Blink" tag would've been behind bars some time back. I also think that the author's cries of "Nobody understands why I made this game" necessarily makes him an artist.

Therefore, I can only say that if anyone is trying to blame him for the Dawson shooting, they are making a very long and very awkward reach for a suitable scapegoat.

Re:"But is it art?"

[DoninIN]

This killer, like nearly 100% of murderes has been exposed to the toxic chemical Di-hydrogen monoxide. Why can't we get this stuff banned?
Seriously, Cart=Game Killer=Horse, a person contemplating or depressed or distressed enough to be ready for the murderous rampage seems very likely to give the Columbine game a try, I'll be he saw the movie "heathers" at some point in his life, hell why not blame Howard Stern? He probably listened to Howard at least once, let's put him in prison for this attrocity along with the game developer, and the careless people who actually piped life threatening Dihydrogen Monoxide straight into this persons house! A chemical that was consumed by over 100% of serial killers and NAZI despots!

Play the goddamned game!

[Frogbert]

There have been many people above me claiming that the game is in bad taste and that its creator is a dick. Please before you go shooting your mouth off please download and actually play the game through. It is not only a work of satire, its an obvious one at that.

It's not as blatent as Southpark's satire typically is, but it is there and anyone over the age of 13 should be able to see it.

I'd liken it to Gullivers Travels, you read that book when you are young and think, "hmm great story". A few years later you come away thinking "Perhaps that book was about England".

Re:I wouldn't go so far as to lay responsibility..

[Elsimer]

Did you RTFA? The game isn't a first person shooter, and is "from the title on, a satire. It is a satire of how the media came to view the shooting but ALSO a satire on the conventions of video gaming itself. I wanted to deconstruct what a video
game could be about while still using many of the conventions available in gaming. This is difficult for some to understand insomuch as the event itself was tragic and painful for so many people but I believe true satire can be aimed at even the most uncomfortable of topics (even nuclear war, per 'Dr. Strangelove.') In the case of SCMRPG, a GAME seemed to be the
appropriate response to so much vilification of gaming."

(from the article)

it's even more common than that

[Wizzerd911]

Dunno if you all heard about it but in Green Bay, Wisconsin there were several HEAVILY armed kids that were going to pretty much destroy one of the high schools. They had high yield homemade bombs and a napalm-like substance to block off exits and a lot of serious firepower. Good thing they were stupid enough to tell their friends about their plans and stuff (and yet smart enough to build bombs? Yeah, now I feel safe)

Re:I wouldn't go so far as to lay responsibility..

[FLEB]

I went through the first half of the game (then, to be honest, it got a bit tedious), but I found that the (attempted, reasonably successfully) value in it was something like an in-depth report with a little more personal involvement. It's kind of like the 9/11 Commission Report graphic novel... it applied a different medium to a popularily underunderstood event to give insight that might not be normally taken.

Do I think it could have been done better-- sure, in quite a few ways, but this for being the first game of its type put out by some guy, it was a decent experimental volley.

WW2 game were you played a nazi

[SmallFurryCreature]

Search for "lidice" and "game" and you got your "realistic" ww2 game were you play the nazi's in a masacre. This is the internet. Everything you can imagine has already been done.

Re:WW2 game were you played a nazi

[kabocox]

Search for "lidice" and "game" and you got your "realistic" ww2 game were you play the nazi's in a masacre. This is the internet. Everything you can imagine has already been done.

Um, not yet. I can imagine a Civ/Age of Empires game where the main focus of the warfare was the rape, pillage, and burning. Let's call it "Bad things Humans Do." Adult-Only or Mature Only. I'd also love to see Civ with really different culture outlooks. Like coup warfare, raiding neighboring villages for wives, enslaving or discriminating against anyone not of your culture's traditional religion. Genoicide. Not just you raze a city for some little bit of gold. I mean the organized long term slaughter of those of different ethinic groups or those that just don't agree with those in power. Civ abstracts far too much. I'd want something closer to Age of Empire where you order your troops into that other village and then watch as they don't just kill off the uniform workers, they kill off the males and rape the females. What about heads on stakes or skinning alive for either religious or terror reasons? /. Has produced 2 games that I've never heard of as counter examples that their are Nazi death camp games out there. Sure, From reading about each, it sounds like one was similiar to this columbine RPG and just to spark comment. It was a basic resource management game except you were running a death camp. The other this lidice game sounds like it was made primarily for educational purposes. I'd never heard of Lidice before reading this. Honestly, I'm more surprised that similiar games haven't popped up sooner.

Most of my reading of low tech / pre gun powder European troops where that they came through and this would happen to anyone still in the small village. That apparently happened on both allied and enemy ground. It was only the peasants that had boltholes or knew when the right time to run that survived. I'd love to think that we've matured alittle bit from that time.

We need these aspects in our games and not to glorify the negatives of war. I'm thinking just exposing the worst of wars past to modern adults. We gloss over alot and make the past prettier than it actually was. I'd be curious how many people would be horrified at razing a city in Civ if they had to actually watch it? Would you sit peacefully and happily raze city after city or would you be horrified because that's just as brutal as war tradionally has been?

I guess we need a game called "Illegal Orders." That is a military ethics game. You are a private and you have to follow orders. You will be given what we'd call "illegal orders" through out several missions. The goal would be to train folks to recongize when not to obey an order or mission objective.

hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

When are people going to learn that the creators of games, movies, literature, blogs, or anything else that someone then uses as an excuse to commit the crime is not a criminal. Art does reflect life and life reflects art... and cause and effect does have a big impact on running the world... but just because someone comes across some form of art and uses it as an excuse to commit crimes is not any justification for the artist and or the art to be criticized and made out to be the bad guy. It goes back to that justification of things in the movie Foot Lose... lots of people have read the Bible and there's lots of violence in there in places. Does that mean that the Bible is inherently an evil thing that should be banned and it's creators and distributors forever shunned from society? Same for that silly cartoon spat a while back where a cartoonist showed Allah. The crazy folks using that as justification to hurt and kill others is unjustified. Individual people take individual actions... and sometimes commit individual crimes. The works of Darwin have led some that don't believe in Creationist ideas to have justifications for doing evil things sometimes because they are justified in their survival of the fittest ways to do whatever it takes to get ahead in this world despite everything else... does that make Darwin's books inherently evil and in need of banning.

Why can't all people just get along and live together peacefully? Relgigons of the world claim that we can bring heaven on to earth in our human forms - they do so in different ways, and sometimes for different reasons. So what if there's some bad ol movie or game with some violence in it. So what if there's some guy coming knocking on your door wanting you to join a church.

All people in history have been humans, from the richest of kings to the poorest of slaves. We are alive today and life does have some meaning to all who are on this earth. Why do we need to run around pointing fingers and yelling at one another for little stupid things instead of taking time to enjoy life and live. Yes, it's sad that people were hurt by some psycho that shot people and of course he's going to blame it on a game... but it's not really the games fault. All of our lives and all of art is based on decisions, or a series of decisions. Some were good choices. Some were not so good choices. Either way, it's the criminal that commits the crime that commited the crime, not the book or game or magazine or film he watched that caused him to commit it. Art makes us think. Unfortunately, some people don't always think proper thoughts and look before they leap and that causes bad things to happen sometimes...

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you have? Then what is the basis?
Tell me now, give me a detailed description, not "it really makes you think" or "it starts a debate".
How? I want specifics.

The stupidity here is claiming you can make adequate social commentary from a game that results in any real changes in the world.

Grow up and educate yourself.

Re:Really?

[cduffy]

Do you think you can "make adequate social commentary" by sitting around and critiquing anyone who tries to make a point?

If you RTFA, the game's author mentions some specific goals he's achieved through this game -- such as causing people to think and talk about games in the context of social commentary, exactly as we're doing now. By definition, then, this goal has been fulfilled. The author additionally notes in TFA that through the game he has been able to open discussions with people who similarities between the history of Klebold and Harris (as presented by the game) and their own situations -- allowing an opportunity to discuss the ramifications of their actions and generally encourage them to go down a different path. Personally, I am reminded by the lesson presented by Nazi Germany -- that otherwise good people can become monsters should they allow themselves to be guided by surrounding circumstance.

As for making a real and substantial difference, that doesn't always happen as a bang. Sometimes little things start to change how people think, and those little things add up over time. If nobody does anything unless they can see the immediate effects of their actions, the many (who individually have opportunities to make small differences) will be overwhelmed by the few with the influence or ability to make big ones.

Grow up, and try to appreciate people's work before attacking it as childish.

Re:Really?

[Broken scope]

No one really ever talked seriously about Columbine. If they had we would not be where we are today with videogame legislation and the so called anti-bullying laws.

No one wanted to talk about Columbine, they didn't look deeply at the root fo the problem. They responded with the zero-tolerance bullshit and completly fucked over ever kid like me. Hell the week after Columbine I was basically forced into anger management classes by the school administration or I would have had to have gone to the "independent" school.

The anger management classes were filled with the kids who spent much of the time drifting between school juvie and ISS. I was a student who was quiet and bullied, I had never gotten into serious trouble before they put into effect the anti-bullying laws and zero-tolerance. Suddenly I was in trouble because i didn't let 2 kids drag my textbook through the mud and stuff shit into my locker. Ya, the schools did alot of good for me. Hell running from security camera to security camera was fun as hell for 3 years. But no, i was the one they were afraid was going to shoot up the school, i was the time bomb, and it was all my fault because i wasn't ignoring them.

Highschool only improved because i beat the living hell outta one of my "Friends" from middle school, right in front of the schools resource officer who was more than happy to confirm that he tried to put me into a choke hold.

Also, the game is not anywhere near what a fun game would be. A loose analogy would be saving private Ryan. The movie is great because of the story it told and the way it was told. The violence was there to prove a point, that war is brutal. Then again I know people who go and watch it and laught when someone gets torn to shreads, they do the same thing in horror movies and gore fests. Does that mean we should ban saving private Ryan? The beaches were just as tragic an event as columbine. Just because one person misues something doesn't mean we go and ban it. We try to understand why they misued it.

This game will piss people off, just like it did when it came out, IT WILL FORCE PEOPLE TO REMEMBER WHAT HAPPEND AND FACE THE FUCKING PAINFUL TRUTH THAT WE HAVE NOT YET FIXED A PROBLEM. WHEN IT COMES TO BULLYING THE WEAK ARE PUNISHED AND THE STRONG ARE REWARDED, WHEN THE WEAK FIGHT BACK THEY ARE PUNISHED EVEN MORE, WHEN THE WEAK EXPLODE WE GO AND PUNISH THE OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE WEAK AGAIN. THE CYCLE REPEATS UNTIL WE HAVE ANOTHER SCHOOL SHOOTING.

Someone will one day realized that telling a bullied kid to ignore the bully will not work. They either need to punish the bully or not punish the victim. However with people like you around we will never talk about the problem, we will just do what we always do, grope around in the dark for an answer to a problem we can't name, even though we can't find our own ass with both hands in braod daylight.

Also don't tell me to grow up, I did that way before i should have had to. As for educate myself, I got out of HS early and am doing a double major.

Also, why don't you post with an name instead of as a coward.

Re:Implied Guilt is not Criminal

[geekoid]

yes, in fdact, no one should ever be allowed to satire anything.

Re:Implied Guilt is not Criminal

[Jack9]

You are not a geek, you're a moronoid. Try reading the post, because it clearly says in there "he shouldn't be able to make the game" because it...oh wait, it doesn't.

Re:I wouldn't go so far as to lay responsibility..

[PaganRitual]

"Hell,even I think so, and I love all kinds of horrid, tasteless humor."

Well, obviously not all kinds.

Also, isn't it great when people that do like 'horrid, tasteless' stuff decide that they are now the judge of what is in poor taste and what isn't?

So when something come along that they finally find to be in bad taste, 'you have to admit' that he is right, because, you know, he knows because he likes that sort of shit, so he should know. Just think of the times that you've laughed at something that someone else regarded to be in poor taste but you laughed it off and said that it was actually funny or just messing around.

We are so lucky to have you people around to let us know when others have crossed the line. Phew.