Destructoid Interviews SCRPG! and VTech Creators

Destructiod got interviews with Danny Ledonne and Ryan Lambourn, creators of the Super Columbine Role Playing Game and V-Tech Shooting respectively. It calls them the "most hated game creators alive". [Via TIGSource]

Ledonne comes off as thoughtful as usual. It's very clear that despite what some people think, Danny has put a lot of thought into the whole debate which has raged around his game:

Regarding the bigger question of whether a SCMRPG player won't "get it," I wonder if Shakespeare had the same question asked of him when he wrote a play like 'Titus Andronicus.' How does Oliver Stone feel about the fact that countless criminals regard "Natural Born Killers" as their favorite film (including Eric and Dylan)? I'm not sure I know the answer to this, per se, but I know the rhetorical question is worth asking. Should artists think twice before picking up a microphone, a brush, a pen, a mouse, or a camera because there's a possibility that their message (if there is one) may be misconstrued? I believe the answer is "absolutely not." Art is often about impulse; when I saw RPG Maker I had the impulse to create something. I followed it.

-- Virtual school shootings: interviewing two of the most hated game creators alive

Ryan, on the other hand, seems to have thrown this together largely for shock value and attention whoring. Granted, his interview is over IM and hence is more slapshot and informal from the get go - but I've done interviews over IM from both sides and it didn't come across this bad. For instance, when asked why he did it:

Ryan Lambourn: i just made the game as a recreation of the events as i knew it as best detailed as i could in the short game form.....and added jokes of course for lulz factor

RL: it was meant to be offensive so me and my friends and people like me and my friends could have a laugh

RL: a laugh at the other pissed off people....and the game of course

RL: making so many angry has won me enough points for the rest of my life :d

And then down the way:

RL: i dont support being angry over a game

So, you know, whatever. I'm not sure you should expect much from some who doesn't even support his own stated goal.

So Ryan comes off as a bit a jerk. Should we care? Should we attach much to a game based on the developer's attitude. In a case like this - where a game is almost as much, if not more, of a statement than actual entertainment, we probably should.

At the same time we should also probably just accept games as media and either use them as a starting point for reasonable conversation or leave them behind. SCRPG! has incensed many, many people - but it's also given rise to some interesting commentary from both sides of the industry on the role of violence in culture and media.

It doesn't seem likely that Ryan's work will follow.

Wired Sums Up Virginia Tech Reactions

A high school student was suspended for customizing a first-person shooter game with a map of his school. A contractor was fired from his government job for talking about a gun, and then visited by the FBI when he created a comic about the incident. A dean at Yale banned realistic stage weapons from the university theaters -- a policy that was reversed within a day. And some teachers terrorized a sixth-grade class by staging a fake gunman attack, without telling them that it was a drill.

These things all happened, even though shootings like this are incredibly rare; even though -- for all the press -- less than one percent (.pdf) of homicides and suicides of children ages 5 to 19 occur in schools. In fact, these overreactions occurred, not despite these facts, but because of them.

The Virginia Tech massacre is precisely the sort of event we humans tend to overreact to. Our brains aren't very good at probability and risk analysis, especially when it comes to rare occurrences. We tend to exaggerate spectacular, strange and rare events, and downplay ordinary, familiar and common ones. There's a lot of research in the psychological community about how the brain responds to risk -- some of it I have already written about -- but the gist is this: Our brains are much better at processing the simple risks we've had to deal with throughout most of our species' existence, and much poorer at evaluating the complex risks society forces us face today.

-- Virginia Tech Lesson: Rare Risks Breed Irrational Responses

Pretty dead on stuff right there. Bruce describes the sound and fury as "security theater" - and aptly places everything from absurd rules to scapegoating into the cast.

Virginia Tech Flash Game Ransoms Self

A homemade video game about the Virginia Tech shootings has surfaced on the Internet less than a month after the shootings, and it has drawn angry responses.

The game, V-Tech Rampage, casts the player in the role of shooter Seung-Hui Cho. The video campus and surrounding area includes a post office, Norris Hall, a dorm and students to shoot. The player can use the keyboard to make Cho walk, talk and shoot, and the game follows the general plot of the events of April 16.

The song "Shine" by Collective Soul, reportedly a favorite of Cho's, plays in the background.
"It's so contemptible it's beneath response," Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said.

-- Video game casts player as Tech gunman

I was well prepared to launch into my, "despite content it has some right to exist" style speech, until I read this:

In response to the negative reaction to the game, Lambourn posted a note asking for donations in exchange for taking the game down.

Addressed to "Angry people," Lambourn writes, "I will take this game down from Newgrounds if the donation amount reaches $1,000 US I'll take it down from here if it reaches $2,000 US and I will apologize if it reaches $3,000 US."

Newgrounds founder and CEO Tom Fulp did not respond to an e-mail request to comment on the game.

Some have compared Lambourn's notice with a ransom note, and he has since said that it wasn't meant to be serious.

Serious or not, it makes you into an ass. Ledone has at least been up front for his reasons to create Super Columbine RPG and none of them were provoking people out of cash to remove the controversy - in jest or otherwise.

Guy Loses His Job Over Firearms Comment

Just during my web comic browse, I stumbled on this over at Little Gamers:

Matt (you know, the guy that writes machall and three panel soul) was talking to one of his co-workers about buying a gun, and seeing as he's a "comedian" like the rest of us, he added a joke when talking about it (I guess that's the conversation that actually took place more or less). As you can see, someone at the office heard it and got scared, so he got called into the office and fired, he later did a comic about that too. This was the day of the V-tech shootings, but Matt hadn't heard about that when the conversation took place, and I actually don't think that's even related.

-- Matt.. oh Matt [little-gamers.com]

I didn't see a permalink, so that quote will probably get lost when this archives. Regardless, the resulting Three Panel Soul comic is at least bitterly funny if it weren't that the whole thing is insane. So now you can get arrested for writing essays and fired for water cooler talk.

I'm sorry - what country do I live in again? I know Virginia Tech was a frightening travesty - but our culture seems to be almost flailing into confusion over how to handle itself. That handle quickly becoming the one we're flying off of.

Arrested For Writing

Allen Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.

The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now.

Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.

"I'm not going to lie. I signed the petition," said senior James Gitzinger. "But I can understand where the administration is coming from. I think I would react the same way if I was a teacher."

Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing.

-- Student writes essay, arrested by police [Chicago Tribune]

I heard about this on NPR on the way in. Incredibly scary that a kid could get 30 days in the slammer for simply handing in his homework. This essay wasn't made public anywhere - and yet he is charged with the same crime as someone pulling a fire alarm in a crowded theater. If the essay wasn't directed at anything or anyone in particular - what precisely were they trying to defend?

Sometime people need to stop treating everything as a crime. How is a trip to the therapist or a conference with a parent not the more rational, reasoned response? If Lee was a real danger (and every indication is that he is not) - would a criminal charge even work as a deterrent? I don't see how.

Jack Thompson For Hire

Jason Della Rocca got hero status from me for calling Thompson an ambulance chaser. Thompson apparently called Jason an idiot and a jackass and challenged Jason to a debate.

What's telling is what transpired afterwards. Thompson will debate - but only for money. Jason writes:

Personally, I’m not interested in getting paid under such a controversy-for-profit model. As you’ll see, my “counter challenge” of coming up toå Montreal to do a free debate at Dawson College (where a school shooting took place last year) was declined by Jack. Oh well.

To his closing remark about being paid to defend the industry, the opposite is more true. In an ironic twist of economic fate, the IGDA is not directly rewarded for getting involved in the censorship/violence struggle. Since any such work cannot be excluded to non-members, and that everyone in the industry benefits from progress, such work is by definition a “collective good”.

-- Massacre Chasers Profiting Most From Fear and Tragedy

Jason posts the priceless email exchange. If you want to debate Jack in public, his first step is for you "to get an agent". That's right - Jack's intellectual conversations begin with having his people talk to your people.

Jack is a tool. He makes his living by being a public figure. I'm glad that Jason chose not to take the money. For one thing, it is pointless to debate things with a guy like Jack because he refuses to stick to little rules like facts and reality (crucial points in many a debate). For another - it is really time for Jack to be out of a job.

Jack Thompson profited off the deaths of innocent people by lying on television. There is no civil stage to put him on anymore (if there ever was).

When The Media Wakes Up To Jack Thompson

I suppose it was inevitable. Sooner or later Jack would say something so incredulous that when no evidence at all would support him, the media outlets would finally question him.

Meanwhile, authorities released a search warrant listing the items found in Cho's dorm room. Not a single video game, console or gaming gadget was on the list, though a computer was confiscated. And in an interview with Chris Matthews of "Hardball," Cho's university suite-mate said he had never seen Cho play video games.

-- Were video games to blame for massacre?

Which leaves the door wide open for such a quote as this, just a bit down in the same piece:

"It's so sad. These massacre chasers — they're worse than ambulance chasers — they're waiting for these things to happen so they can jump on their soapbox," said Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association.

And from SFGate.com, what almost amounts as a confession from the media:

How does this happen? Unfortunately, I have some insight. In a previous life as a news reporter covering courts, I remember the strong temptation to go to lawyer Gloria Allred for quotes. Sure, half of what she said sounded like blathering nonsense, but she was so easy to get on the phone before deadline.

But the Thompson situation is infinitely worse, because his misinformation mostly goes unquestioned by anchors who clearly know nothing about video games. Most just nod their heads gravely or don't seem to understand what he's saying. And while Allred is one of many lawyers who offer opinions on legal issues, when it comes to video games, Thompson's seems to be the solitary number in the mainstream media's massacre-coverage Rolodex.

All of this is a shame, because it sets back important debate. There are real video game issues that need to be discussed intelligently, including the industry's confusing ratings system, minors interacting with adults in online games -- and, yes, the level of violence in Mature-rated games.

-- Another tragedy, another platform for video game fearmonger

This is what I wrote in September of last year (after the Kimveer Gill shootings):

Remember, Devin Moore was a "someone who loved trouble, stealing cars and dabbling in drugs", according to his own father. Not some straight-A student who suddenly fell into a den of evil video games. None of these examples - not Columbine, not Devin and not Gill - have any indication that either the people involved were anything but unbalanced regardless of the kind of media they enjoyed.

Focusing on these extreme sensationalistic cases isn't good for either side. It demonizes gamers and drowns out the legitimate science. There are studies that video games can be inappropriate for children ... either because of content or quantity. However by trying to make a good parenting issue into a mental health or crime prevention one ... everyone loses out.

Course, I keep saying this over and over. The media could care less, though, because they're out for the sensational story. Politicians could care less because they just want to look like they care about the children. Jack Thompson could care less because he's insane.

-- Cathode Tan

Perhaps after the pundits (I include you, Dr. Phil) realize just how off the mark this was - they can realize the wicker man they've been creating out in the field. Fox can't consider it a serious news outlet and Jack Thompson a "school shooting expert" at the same time. Either you report the truth or you report sensational nonsense. It's time to draw the line in the sand.

This kind of misinformation and the connected attention whoring by the likes of Thompson is an insult to journalism, to gamers and to Virginia Tech and all the other victims of shootings trivialized and marginalized by somebody's media crusade. And not in that order.

The time to stop was about two years ago, actually. It's good to see a little catch up being made though.

Thanks to Patrick and GamePolitics for the links.