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Columbine RPG Kickout Has Repercussions
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jan 09, 2007 03:46 PM
from the feel-the-burn dept.
from the feel-the-burn dept.
As a direct result of the removal of the Columbine RPG from the Slamdance game competition, two games (so far) have pulled out of the judging process. The Forge has extensive commentary on the first pullout (the game Braid), as well as the removal of fl0w from the competition. From the article: "Regardless of the artistic merit, the facts as I understand them are that Slamdance had actively courted the creator of SCM RPG! to enter it into the festival, which then judged it to be a finalist before bending over for the corporations and shredding their credibility by removing it from the competition. Imagine Dominoes Pizza deciding it objected to the theme of Brokeback Mountain and told the Academy Awards to remove it. Imagine them doing it after it was already a finalist."
Related Stories
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Columbine Game Kicked From Slamdance Festival 209 comments
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."'"
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Slamdance Festival Loses More Entrants 62 comments
In yet more displays of solidarity with the creator of Super Columbine Massacre RPG, additional Slamdance finalists have withdrawn. The incredibly creative Toblo, as well as the titles Once Upon a Time and Everyday Shooter have taken themselves out of consideration in protest of the Columbine game's removal from the competition. Only eight of the original 14 finalists are still in the competition, with several of those having gotten together to write a letter of protest to the contest's organizers. Danny Leddonne, creator of the Columbine title, has spoken with Ars Technica and Next Gen in recent days, and touches on both his controversial title and the hoopla that now surrounds it. Update: 01/10 20:21 GMT by Z : It doesn't end. Slamdance has now lost a sponsor over this.
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Columbine RPG - How Real Is Too Real? 118 comments
westlake writes "Washington Post columnist Mike Musgrove offers a rare and balanced view from the mainstream press of the Slamdance Competition and Super Columbine Massacre RPG. Surprised by the effective use of flashbacks and the authentic dialogue of the Columbine game, he goes on to say: 'But when it came time to start creating mayhem in the school's halls, I couldn't bring myself to push the buttons to continue. Odd, I suppose, because I have killed thousands of video game characters over the years. And though the game's chunky graphics are primitive...no game has ever made me feel nearly as queasy. I didn't want to be responsible for the real-world violence that happened that day, even in a game.' Ledonne figures that games will either grow into a medium in which it is acceptable to confront and challenge an audience with titles like his, or will devolve into a stagnant, failed format."
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What We Owe the Columbine RPG 66 comments
Gamaustra's Soapbox this week touches on the lessons learned from Slamgate and the Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. Author Patrick Dugan explores the ways in which SCMRPG challenged the media and gamers alike to think about what the medium of games is all about. Covered by everyone from Newsweek to Game Informer, it opened the eyes of non-gamers to the possibilities of the format and forced gamers to rethink their assumptions. "Game Informer's benchmark of game-specialized print journalism may very well inspire other major publications to follow suit with their own coverage, and in the capacity of Game Informer's readership, paints a symbol of solidarity. The twelve year old kid who thinks Gears of War is the best thing going can take a look at these graphics, popular before his birth, and get a sense that his beloved past-time is part of something greater, something he can defend to non-gamers as being inherently valuable." This issue is also explored in the final part of N'Gai Croal's interview with Jamil Moledina, which we talked about last week.
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good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:good for them (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:good for them (Score:5, Informative)
http://braid-game.com/news/?p=21 [braid-game.com]
5 games in total have quit in disgust. Good on em indeed!
Parent
Speaking of Brokeback Mountain (Score:5, Funny)
This is typical political correctness (Score:4, Insightful)
But for some reason I fail to understand, there are dozens of games glorifying WW2 combats, or simulating the Iraq war. Millions have died during WW2, and hundred of thousands died in Iraq and continue to do so. Yet nobody finds reasons to be upset when you incarnate a G.I. killing German soldiers in a game. It's all perfectly normal to them.
My grandfather died in WW2, I never knew him. He was fighting for the "good guys" (the allies), but that didn't prevent my dad from crying often when he thought about him. War simulation games make me just as angry as this stupid Columbine RPG, and people who get their pants in a knot over the Columbine game then go play the virtual soldier ten minutes later make me sick, because they're biased, politically correct idiots with short memories...
Re:This is typical political correctness (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This is typical political correctness (Score:5, Funny)
Killing cops is bad, killing terrorists and nazi's is good! Don't you get it?
Why do you hate America?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure what you're saying here. I rather suspect that you aren't either. Your sentence implies that the creation of the game is exploitation of the event. The game was developed in advance of the event and the creators of the event specifically sought its inclusio
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Making any form of art depicting or relating to a horrific event should in no way instantly disqualify it from competition, recognition, or thoughtful contemplation.
For example, Guernica. Picasso painted a well-regarded masterpiece artfully depicting the utter horror and waste that was the bombing of a peaceful, remote town. We could potentially throw this work of art away because of its "exploitation" of a tragedy, or examine
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The primary reason I hate (real) war as much as I do is from my experience in video games about war
I do not think that all war games are good and health, but as a who
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Because, gloryfying WW2 in films and TV established the precedent. Collectively, WW2 has become part of both American and world psyche and mythology. GI Joe is a recognizeable concept (and I don't mean
Re:This is typical political correctness (Score:5, Funny)
But for some reason I fail to understand, there are dozens of games glorifying PacMan, or simulating large scale eating of dots. Millions have died from binge eating, and hundred of thousands died from obesity and continue to do so. Yet nobody finds reasons to be upset when you incarnate a mindless yellow eating machine in a game. It's all perfectly normal to them.
My grandfather died from eating thousands of marshmallows; I never knew him. He was fighting for the "good guys" (fluffy-puff marshmallows), but that didn't prevent my dad from crying often when he thought about him. Eating simulation games make me just as angry as this stupid Columbine RPG, and people who get their pants in a knot over the Columbine game then go play the virtual bulimic ten minutes later make me sick, because they're biased, politically correct idiots with short memories...
Parent
Re:This is typical political correctness (Score:5, Insightful)
That's where you're wrong. War is morally wrong, period. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have gone to war against the Nazis, what I'm trying to point out is that exploiting the human misery that WW2 in a game 60 years later is no more acceptable that exploiting a bunch of kids getting machine-gunned in a school recently. Probably less so: WW2 is a world-wide stain on humanity, whereas Columbine is, despite all its horror, a local event.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's precisely what you just said. The meaning of "morally wrong" here must use the following definition of moral: "Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life." Note the conforming to standards bit. There is no universal morality. There is only what has been defined by society.
Of course, I disagree with you. War is not necessarily morally wrong - if you're the def
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is typical political correctness (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, okay, morality ends up actually being completely subjective to whatever person is deciding whether a particular thing is morally right or wrong for themselves. But you stated war was "morally wrong, period" as if it were a fact and not an opinion. It would have only been morally wrong to go to war to save Europe and ourselves if there was a way to stop the Nazis otherwise that would have guaranteed less bloodshed on both sides. There were certainly acts committed by both sides during the war that would be considered morally wrong by anybody, but the overall act of going to war was morally right.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No. I think all these games and movies have a right to exist, including the Columbine game, or even an Al Quaeda simulator if there was such a game. They have the right to exist because if they don't, then at some point or another, some ot
Here's my two cents... (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I see the organizers of Slamdance as trying to have their cake and eat it, too. They courted the makers of the Columbine RPG primarily for shock value... and the publicity. Then they found out that some of their sponsors objected, and planned to do their objecting with their sponsorship of Slamdance, and decided to remove the game from the competition, meanwhile loudly blaming "outside pressures" for "muzzling" games.
And that is what bugs me about Slamdance. If they were willing to seem edgy with their inclusion of Columbine Massacre, then they could have accepted the consequences of their sponsorships getting yanked. But they didn't, so they shouldn't.
Re:Here's my two cents... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
It doesn't stop at 2... (Score:3, Informative)
This leaves the number of finalists at 8. leaving only ~60% of the original...
MORE pullouts! Slamdance may collapse entirely! (Score:5, Informative)
Super Columbine was ejected.
Braid [ironrealms.com] has pulled out.
Flow [thatgamecompany.com] has pulled out.
Toblo [csnation.net] has pulled out.
Once Upon A Time [wakinggames.com] has pulled out.
Everyday Shooter [everydayshooter.com] has pulled out.
With nearly half of the finalists already gone, just a few more pullouts could cause a complete collapse of Slamdance this year.
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Re:Makes me happy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Slamdance invited SCRPG to participate in its event, voted it to be worthy of status as a finalist, and then kicked them out. That's irresponsible. Why pretend to host an objective contest when votes are for sale to the highest-paying sponsor?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My hope is that because they caved and this flare-up is now happening we will see something come of it. Either SlamDance will lose all of their credibility (very possible), or they will rally and specificly state rules reguarding removal of contestants (guidlines that have to be followed, a
Re:This is not censorship. (Score:4, Informative)
Because, as already noted, they invited it and then declared it among the elite of the entrants before throwing it out?
KFG
Parent
Re:This is not censorship. (Score:5, Informative)
"to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable"
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary [m-w.com]
censoring:
"1 a : the institution, system, or practice of censoring"
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictio
Censorship can refer to goverment censorship, but doesn't have to. Anyone who has any power (including companies, contest judges, etc.) can censor.
As Carlin says "Try to pay attention to the language we've all agreed on."
Parent