Over the weekend, First Person Shooter: The Play premiered in San Francisco. The play is set in a start-up video game company that has achieved big-time success due to a the "hottest, most violent game on the market." Things go bad when the company is blamed for a schoolyard shooting. The play was written by Aaron Loeb, former IGN writer and current game developer COO. Says Aaron:

My main goal was to show the "controversy" to be the inhuman and immoral boondoggle that it is. That we respond to something so horrible as a school shooting by trying to figure out a quick and easy blame-based sound-bite ("videogames did it" or "bullying caused it") is horrifying. In the face of these tragedies we need to talk more, not less. We need to connect more, not polarize into oppositional camps. I wanted the CEO and the father to be men caught up in this lunacy, who eventually have the courage to step out of it.

Ultimately, I hope people who see the play will, if they don't already, start questioning Dr. Phil's motives when he rushes out to say "videogames did it." I hope that they will ask, "Is this really what we should be talking about now? How about talking about the victims and their families instead?"

Admirable. But is the play any good? Brian Ashcraft

FPS Play [Firing Squad via GameSetWatch]

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