Columbine Game Kicked From Slamdance Festival 209
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."'"
Fools. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I say "good" (Score:3, Insightful)
In a very sensitive area of school-related violence, Columbine is one of the biggest--and also happens to have a violent video game associated with it--DOOM.
I'm not against violent video games, I happen to enjoy quite a few myself. But the idea of an RPG where the player is becoming one of these 2 kids is sickening. It's not "too soon", it will never be time for a game like this. 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...
Re:I say "good" (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder how long it is going to take Clinton to come out and say something about this game?
Market Pressure == Censorship? (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Fools. (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a new type of game out there, Serious Games. The flash games MTV sponsored to raise awareness of Darfur are another example. They're not meant to be "fun", they're meant to explore their subject material using an "interactive medium".
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 tried playing it? Or have you just decided that it's "clearly for entertainment" just because NBC said so? Please don't fall into that trap. As I mentioned in an above comment, think of this as an interactive documentary, with some fictional elements added in (the trip to Hell for one) in an attempt to walk you through the thought processes of the killers. You're not meant to have "fun", you're meant to understand what happened. Demonizing the killers and leaving it at that does nothing to prevent the next crisis. Understanding their emotions, their thoughts, what they were going through, will help you to better figure out WHY.
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".
I disagree. I read it to say "Freedom of speech allows me to discuss controversial issues that would otherwise be banned by the mob." Besides, movies doing the exact same thing (Elephant, Zero Day) got film awards for walking you through the exact same material. Were they "fun"? Of course not.
Re:Fools. (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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.
Double Standards (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder how many of us here played either game.
Re:Balancing the thin line (Score:2, Insightful)
What if I wanted to make a Hitler RPG, would that be freedom of speech?
Yes. There are tons of content (movies, songs, etc) that feature Hitler. Some even don't portray him as a monster [imdb.com]
Re:Taste (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Taste (Score:3, Insightful)
Just felt I had to clarify that. The sponsors basically told Slamdance that they were pulling out just because of the controversy surrounding the nomination. The judges clearly felt that SCMRPG was a worthy selection, or they wouldn't have chosen it in the first place.
Ironically, the author initially resisted the idea, because he forsaw the media circus it would cause. I guess he knew that an interactive quasi-documentary wouldn't get the same respect as a "real" quasi-documentary.
These festivals are supposed to be for celebrating artists who dare to tackle the issue the mob-friendly mass-production studios won't touch. That's the whole point.
Re:Fools. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Balancing the thin line (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I say "good" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Is PTFG a proper acronym? (Score:3, Insightful)
The major problem I've encountered with the replies above is that no one seems to have actually played the game before labelling it as an afront to morality.
I found it to be insightful, in the least, and at points disturbing. It didn't glorify the actions of anyone, but went great lengths to take information that most people have become jaded to, and present it in a light that inspires us to avoid the sort of finger-pointing that wrongly accused Marilyn Manson and ID Software of corrupting our youth.
If we can't use certain media to portray catastrophic events in a way that helps us gain better understanding of why we do the things we do, then what good are they? This type of thinking reduces video games to neat electronic parlour tricks, not the viable form of entertainment and and education that it could be.
Taboo (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Balancing the thin line (Score:2, Insightful)
The developers have been able to make their statement, and another group of individuals has decided that they don't want to help the developers spread that statement by threatening a third party financially to stop the game creators.
Putting it simply:
I don't like what you're doing.
I can't take action against you because I have no direct involvement with you.
I am, however, involved with someone who also is involved with you.
I pressure that third party to stop supporting you or I'll ruin the third party.
Now, lets come up with a hypothetical scenario:
I'm Intel, I don't like AMD.
I can't take action directly against AMD.
I can pressure Dell, by telling them Pentium chips will now cost twice their normal price if they continue using AMD.
Dell drops AMD.
Granted, it's not quite the same, but the point is made.
Back to the original case, there is a freedom of speech issue here, but it's not a first amendment issue. As you correctly pointed out, this doesn't involve the government.
Re:artists statement (Score:1, Insightful)
No problem with that, but at least be honest about it.
Re:Good for Slamdance (Score:5, Insightful)
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/ [columbinegame.com]
Re:Fools. (Score:3, Insightful)
The criticism is that the festival first nominated him, persuaded him to change his mind because he'd created "an important work that needed to be acknowledged", and then bowed to sponsor pressure when they figured it would be a PR nightmare. The article mentions that several sponsors had threatened to withhold all funding unless SCMRPG was taken off the list.
So basically a supposedly independant film festival that honors works done by artists no large corporation would touch, were influenced by a large corporation to not touch a work...
Re:Fools. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is any explanation beyond "they are outcasts who wanted to kill" even necessary to explain something so rare?
What kind of reform would people call for? Banning all guns? Some kind of forced equality to make sure no one can feel bad or cast out? How is that going to work? In my opinion, the only kind of reform that is needed is to make sure people are sufficiently educated to understand just how statistically insignificant this sort of thing really is. If you want to save lives, how about focusing on regular, non-spree murders? On robberies? On rapes? On car accidents? You know, things that actually affect more than 20 people a year?
This game is art in the truest sense of the word (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Taste (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who judges the merit of art or political discourse on the basis of whether it's "tasteful" can kiss my distasteful, profane, but ultimately insightful ass.