Columbine Game Kicked From Slamdance Festival

Imaria writes "A Kotaku post has the news that Super Columbine Massacre RPG! has been kicked out of the Slamdance Gamemaker Festival. After reaching the finals, the organizers were forced to remove the game from the running to appease mounting external pressure. According to the post, this is the first time in the Slamdance Festival's 13 year history that they have removed either a game or film due to criticism. From the article: '[Game creator] Ledonne said that he bears no ill will toward the festival, but that the decision to pull the game does raise concerns about freedom of speech and video game development. "I don't want to paint them as the villain in this," he said. "I don't think the real issue is a couple of guys at Slamdance who decided to reject my game, it's the larger pressures placed on them."'"

Comments

Fools.

[Irish_Samurai]

If they didn't want to deal with this sort of thing they should have never accepted the entry. But letting it get to the finals and then kicking it out?

Cowards. I am losing respect for almost every aspect of today's society and its dogma propped institutions. If it negatively affects our commercial viability, our image, we must condemn it. Never mind what the game is actually trying to do, move the medium forward by using it as a means to address complex social issues - not just shoot space baddies.

Re:Fools.

[Irish_Samurai]

Arn't there better ways to "address complex social issues" than in a game where people are supposed to have "fun" with it?

If it was an educational game that actually teached something, i'd have less problem with it, but this one was clearly meant for the entertainment value.

Have you played the game? I have, and let me tell you something - it has zero entertainment value. It's entertainment level is just enough to keep you progressing through it. Also, this is an attempt to move the medium forward. You need to get off the nomen of "game" as it is outdated. A lot of these things aren't "games" anymore. Using your mentality we never should have let the "talkies" move into a training or education tool. We never should have let radiotelegraphy and spark gap transmissions move into the realm of entertainment.

Like someone else said: it is of poor taste.
Poor taste is not a viable criteria for art or education.

In other news on /.: a game maker is making a game about nazis gas chambers: a simulator of people choking to death and a second game about kidnapping and raping people. When confronted on the controversy of it's games, the game maker said: "it is freedom of speech, it gives me the license to do whatever i want".
Welcome to the downside of free speech. Deal with it. Seriously, if you don't like it - don't view it - but the opinion that you should be able to categorize and then subdue some content based on your fragile sensibilities is not only fascist, but downright ignorant. Free speech comes with the requirement that people can self regulate what they choose to consume.

Re:Fools.

[Das Modell]

I face complex social issues in video games every day. Silent Storm presents me with difficult situations: should I sneak behind him and empty my pistol into his back, or should I kill him with a frag grenade? Where should I place this anti-personnel mine to maximize casualties? There are no easy answers.

Re:Fools.

[sesshomaru]

Mark Ames recently wrote a book, called Going Postal. One of his theories about the phenomenon of "Going Postal" both in the schoolyard and the office, is that there are powerful, institutional forces at work that have a vested interest in people NOT understanding this phenomenon. If they can't get people to drop it with, "they were just kooks," (which becomes difficult when it becomes a trend) they have to come up with an excuse (video games, antidepressants, etc.) to explain the trend without getting to actual causes.

Basically, these events are an inevitable result of certain situations that are allowed to go unresolved, relentless pressure that causes a mental breakdown in certain people in our society, leading to these kamikaze missions. Demonizing these killers is useless, many of them intend to die either by their own hands or at the hands of the authorities. It's not like even the ones who survive get off with light sentences.

The plaintive "Why" at then end of one of these massacres is an important question that needs an honest, rational and thoughtful answer. However, such an answer will lead to calls for reform, which the people who push irrational, demagogic explanations for these events want to avoid.

Slamdance is supposed to be a place for controversial media that is to hot for even Sundance, so being too hot for Slamdance is something of an honor.

artists statement

[rednuhter]

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

excert

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

Market Pressure == Censorship?

[andphi]

FTA: Ledonne said that he bears no ill will toward the festival, but that the decision to pull the game does raise concerns about freedom of speech . . .

I'm confused. How is the decision by non-governmental entities that something is undeserving of their support or attention a threat to freedom speech?

The game developer did his talking when he made the game. If Congress was directly shutting him down, that would be a problem. Other people deciding that his game is in poor taste or too soon or just plain wrong, and taking their money with them when they leave, is perfectly normal and legal. There is no constitutional right to be heard, only to speak freely. The intended audience can blow the speaker off at will.

Re:I say "good"

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Pretty sure it was.

You don't need any sort of "freedom of speech" to agree with the general consensus-- Nobody is ever going to stop you from parroting their views and agreeing with everyone. Hell, at worst you'll just end up being elected to an office.

Now, if you want to actually go against the grain and vocalize something controversial that most people wouldn't agree with or find acceptable, THAT is when you need freedom of speech protecting you.

As for this game specificially, I don't know enough about it to say anything. If it really puts you in the kids mindset by telling the story and really putting you in the experience it could be a great thing to help people understand something few can.
Or maybe it will be a really bad game hidden under the veil of some columbine references. Too early to tell. Think of it like this: Theres a world of difference between what most would consider child porn and Taxi Driver, but "a movie about a 12 year old prostitute" could cover them both and if you immediately discard it based on it being a touchy subject, you'll never know.

Taboo

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I guess it's a double standard to say that reliving WW2 in so many FPS games is the same idea, but to me being a kid going through a school killing your peers is something nobody should WANT to do...

Yes, it is a double standard because the reality is, being a kid going through a school killing your peers is something quite a lot of people would like to do.

There's a lot of posts in this thread about how this game is tasteless, has no merit, has only shock value. That no one would want to play it. Is that really tue? Think about it. There are people who think about doing this kind of thing everyday. So how is this game any more wrong than street racing simulations or computer generated pornography? What's the essential difference?

I tell you exactly what the difference is. Debate on Columbine is taboo.

Stray outside the accepted interpretation and you are "dishonoring the memories of The Children(TM) who died". Just ignore the fact that the average second level school is closer to The Lord of the Flies than normal society. Just ignore the millions of young people who waste their time day in day out in an institution they loathe. Just ignore the fact that the institution most closely resembling secondary schools is public prison. If you dare to highlight such things, you're "no better than the killers".

So, no; running through the corridors of Columbine High School killing your fellow students is not really much more morally repugnant than killing American or Chinese soldiers in BattleField 2, or launching nukes on cities in Civ 4. It's just more politically incorrect, because that is how the media have decided to treat it.

If Slamdance wants to follow the media/party line, that's their business. But they should stay off the moral highground when they do. That's for people with actual beliefs and integrity.

Re:Good for Slamdance

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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

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

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

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

http://www.columbinegame.com/