Slamdance Festival Loses More Entrants

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yet more displays of solidarity with the creator of Super Columbine Massacre RPG, additional Slamdance finalists have withdrawn.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.

USC Interactive Media Division Withdraws Slamdance

[moore.dustin]

USC Interactive Media Division Withdraws Slamdance Sponsorship [usc.edu]

Never has such a bad game caused so much hoopla.

[Vellmont]

I've played this game, and it's quite bad. I'd say it's as bad, or worse than "Custers Revenge" [wikipedia.org] the Atari 2600 "rape an American Indian" game which I also played once on an emulator. Though to "Custers Revenge" credit, they didn't try to claim some garbage about it being art, games changing the world, or whatever.

The interview of the game developer is pretty funny. He sounds like a freshman humanities 101 paper using phrases like

"but for me it helps to inform one of the core ideas of the game: a criticism of the conventions of gaming in part to critique the limitations games currently have to deal with regards to genuine issues."

and gems like:

"It was a courageous, progressive gesture because it suggested that maybe gaming could be growing up a bit and face the music that all forms of art can be valid tools for societal exploration"

Sadly being kicked out of Slamdance is going to give this guy far more press than he deserves. No, not because he created something controversial.. but because he created a crappy game with no subtlety and just expected everyone to accept that "all forms of art can be valid tools for societal exploration".

Here's a clue to this guy. If you want your "art" to be accepted as a "valid tool for societal exploration", you just might want to create something that doesn't suck monkey-dick. Then that whole "it's art and changing peoples opinions of what a game is" thing might have a bit more validity.