Kotaku
By: Brian Crecente
Back in May I spoke with Danny Ledonne about his game Super Columbine Massacre RPG and why he made it. In light of last week's shooting at Dawson College in Montreal, I decided to revist the issue with Ledonne.
Q. When and how did you first learn of the possible connection between your
game and the shooting at Dawson College?
A. Thursday, September 14th, 2006. The phone kept ringing. I didn't have
to be at work until 11am and had every intention of sleeping in. I thought,
"why there be this many calls back to back at this hour...?" Soon enough, I
check the answering machine to find half a dozen messages from reporters
wanting interviews. I knew something had happened and I knew it was with
the Columbine game. Ten minutes online was all it took to figure out the
rest.
Q. What was your initial reaction?
A. My very first reaction, frankly, was to head to my toilet bowl and throw
up. I knew what was in the works and I knew the next week would be spent
keeping my head above water while the press tried to bury me with
guilt-laden questions and implications of complicity in murder. I also knew
that this was no time to fold or get weak-kneed. I made a game. I believed
in it. Now it was time to defend it. No one would do that except me.
I sifted through old emails and posts on the SCMRPG forum, looking for
anyone that might've come my way from Kimveer. I thought, "did I know this
guy?" "Could I have stopped any of this?" "Was there a fan who left
warning signs that I ignored amidst my daily routine?" Thankfully, the
answer was "no;" Kimveer had never contacted me at all. Period.
Q. In retrospect, would you still create the game knowing what you know now?
A. Knowing that the game would become an underground cult obsession, knowing
that someone would eventually ferret out my identity, knowing that I would
get death threats and receive requests for autographs, and knowing that one
mentally disturbed man would cite my game as one he liked to play before
randomly shooting at college students... there's no way to honestly answer
that question. I would LIKE to say, "yes, there's no question." But of
course that's impossible to gauge.
I didn't know I was making something that became part of a movement to give
video games an agenda, a social conscience. I didn't think more than a few
dozen of my online friends would play it. I think the game needed to be
made. Despite my lack of technical skill with video game design, it turns
out the person that made it was me. Maybe that sounds deterministic but the
concept of a deep, dedicated game about Columbine was waiting to happen;
that shooting happened at a very formative age for an entire generation of
gamers and I'm sure it marked us all in one way or another.
It's hard to imagine the last two years of my life without the development,
release, and reactions of SCMRPG. It's almost like my double-life... filled
with names I don't have faces for and a cast of tremendously thoughtful,
talented, curious, or angry people. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't
have bothered to remain anonymous for over a year; in the end I never wanted
the game to be about who made it but rather what it is.
Q. What do you say to those out there who point to the shooting as a reason
why your game should not have been made?
A. This is a question with very deep implications that are worth dissecting,
I think. If one is interested in making something for the public to
view—be it a painting, a book, an album, a film, or a video game, should
the POSSIBLE harm that may come out of this work be grounds for its
suppression from society? This is, in a sense, pre-crime. If you believe
in what you're doing and you want to express yourself, the expression should
be primary and any interpretations that come after must always remain of
secondary importance to the creation of the work itself.
On another level, the entire correlation between the Dawson College shooting
and my game is unfounded. Though it was far from shooter Kimveer Gill's
favorite game, it was among the list of games he liked to play. I can only
assume, after 150,000+ downloads of the game, that it is also a game that
other people like to play (ones who won't be going postal). What else did
Kimveer like? Black clothes? Goth music? Pizza?
"Super Columbine Massacre RPG!" hardly contains the graphic violence someone
wishing to destroy the world would be looking for. It requires a lot of
reading, some puzzle solving, and menu-based combat that is so far removed
from any real act of physical violence that you might as well be playing
Smash Brothers Melee for your fix. The game is devoid of bomb-making
recipes or any skill-building in sighting in a firearm. If Gill "got"
anything out of SCMRPG, it was merely that there were once two boys as angry
and bent on destruction as he was. This of course, would be just as easily
deduced by reading a few documents online (of which he certainly did as
well).
If anything, the Dawson College shooting is proof positive that games like
SCMRPG SHOULD be made; until video games are no longer among the "usual
suspects" for homicidal rampages, the public needs to more carefully
consider why interactive electronic media is somehow the manufacturer of
Manchurian Candidates.
Q. What were you trying to achieve with your game?
A. "Achievement" is difficult to speak to in the sense that I didn't expect
my game to find a mass public audience at all and the CREATION of the game
was foremost in my mind rather than any RECEPTION it might have. This
aside, I wanted to put the game online to give people a unique way of
looking at the worst school shooting in US history. I wanted to give people
something to talk about—more over to take a subject we thought we knew and
challenge how well we know it. I wanted to engage people in the idea that a
video game can be more than a way to pass the time—that in fact it could
challenge the player's sense of morality and leave them with a chilling,
accurate depiction of a real-life event (one that was of great significance
to me).
Q. Do you think that was achieved?
A. SCMRPG has far exceeded any and all expectations I had for it... except
one... which is your next question.
Q. Do you think that perhaps the message in your game is too buried or
intellectual for everyone to find, does it worry you that perhaps some might
misinterpret what you were trying to do with the game?
A. I think there are elements of the game that are completely lost to most
people. This is in part because the subject matter doesn't flag down our
most intellectual sensibilities and also because, of course, video games
don't usually contain philosophers, poetry, or deeper meditations on
society. The base assumption is that this is a game where the stated
objective is to kill as many innocent kids as possible. Most people never
make it through the game and certainly don't readily consider the game as a
sociological critique or a deconstruction of the form (that is, "the video
game").
I think people that have come looking for a graphic exploitation of the
shooting—one that celebrates violence for its own sake and saturates the
screen with blood and torment—are always disappointed. I have gotten much
disparaging email about having not made a first person shooter, having no
way to "win" except to reflect upon the event with the press conference at
the end, and in general taking away all the sexy action and supplanting it
with dialogue and maudlin Smashing Pumpkins midi.
In short, most people misinterpret what I was trying to do with the game...
thankfully some of them are willing to really listen to what I have to say.
This was a game that was created in response to the scapegoatism video games
face today and as such it is the "perfect target" for already zealous
critics of video gaming. In the end, SCMRPG is something of chimera that
becomes whatever the player wants it to be: a horrible exploitation, a
thorough research project, a crappy little 16-bit game, or a point of
fixation for someone who wants to kill people.
Q. Do you think good things have come out of the creation of the game?
A. Absolutely. I am contacted all the time by people thanking me for
telling the story that most people won't touch—and it a way most people
would deem unthinkable. Moreover, many young people are now talking openly
about something they used to keep bottled up inside. Looking over the lives
of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, it was precisely that lack of contact with
the rest of humanity that permitted them to fall so far off the deep end of
nihilism.
Through the forum and personal communication, I have gotten angry young men
to think through the consequences of "another Columbine" and can say with
confidence that I've made a positive difference in the lives of young people
who don't really have anyone... the ones who are pushed into lockers, called
"faggot," ridiculed and ostracized. I can tell them I've been through it,
that life isn't always that way, and if they can find something they love
and excel at it, they'll be miles beyond their tormentors in just a few
short years.
The positive correspondence also comes in the form of women who spent their
teenage years suffering with depression and suicide, sometimes deeply
sedated by SRIs like Luvox, Zoloft, and Prozac (the first of which, as
SCMRPG players know, Eric Harris took and abruptly stopped before the
shooting). The fact is that for some people Columbine reads as an
"alternative history" to the daily agony they face in their teenage years.
I feel like I can help them to see past that and find ways to process their
pain without leaving a trail of blood and television crews.
Q. Did you ever have any contact with 25-year-old Kimveer Gill?
A. None. I know a friend online who had contact with him briefly. That's
really the extent of it.
Q. Have you had any contact with the people affected by the Dawson shooting?
Who contacted you and why?
A. I have been in contact with one survivor in particular who wrote me out
of a kind of sobering curiosity. He wanted to understand why I made the
game and felt as though it was in part responsible for the shooting. After
we spoke further, he began to understand the content of my character and the
game took on a slightly different context for him. I told him about CHS
survivors I have befriended and, more than anything, listened to him and
extended my empathy for what he's going through.
Q. What was that conversation like?
A. Conversations like that are never easy but nonetheless very important.
Part of "owning" my creation means being open and available to talk with
people about it and to meet them on common ground. It's amazing to me,
though: when people are truly willing to listen to one another, there's
almost nothing that can't be overcome. Talking with people on opposing
points of view, and slowly finding how much we really are alike after all,
is one of the most humanizing and transformative experiences of my life. I
think we have a lot to learn from our abilities to reconcile and accept one
another. There surely needs to be more of this in the world today.
Q. Have you considered making any other video games?
A. (smiles) Grand Theft Election: Miami-Dade.
I'm no video game programmer; films are still my foremost passion and I
think cinematically when I want to tell a story (much of SCMRPG felt like
"directing" scenes with dialogue and action sequences... the flashbacks in
particular).
That being said, I work on lots of smaller games with youth in my community
center (using RPG Maker and similar programs) but if anything Columbine was
the one subject I HAD to make a game about. It was something inside me that
needed to be confronted. I may not have another game like that in me... but
then again I'm a pretty non-linear thinker and I'm always interested in how
electronic media of any kind can affect us.
Honestly I think video games where such a part of my childhood that I'll
always view them as a means through which to see the world. In some ways
they are prohibitive to understanding something but in others can yield so
much interactivity that their power is undeniable. I think gaming is still
in its teenage years and as such there's much to explore in terms of what a
game is and how we can play it. I'm totally addicted to Dance Dance
Revolution, for example, and make my own songs and steps all the time with
Step Mania. I'm almost good enough for Heavy Mode now.
Q. Would you make a video game about what happened at Dawson College? Why or
Why not?
I'm not an ambulance chaser who makes games. I think there are very
interesting stories out there—some of them can lend themselves to gaming.
Just recently I tried out Persuasive Games' Airport Security and that was
completely arresting in an unexpected way (as was the Sim McDonalds game).
I'm not sure there's as much of a story at Dawson College as there was at
Columbine. Maybe I'm wrong. Someone spitefully suggested making a game
where players work as the SWAT Team to kill kids in black trench coats. I
told him to do it; I would link his site to mine if I liked it. I think
gaming could someday be as personal as the blog or the YouTube phenomena;
everyone with a computer and a Net connection can make a game to express
their worldview. It needn't be a top-down medium of producers and consumers
of games. Frankly I'd prefer it not be.
Q. Is there anything else you would like to add about this?
A. "Super Columbine Massacre RPG!" is, from the title on, a satire. It is a
satire of how the media came to view the shooting but ALSO a satire on the
conventions of video gaming itself. I wanted to deconstruct what a video
game could be about while still using many of the conventions available in
gaming. This is difficult for some to understand insomuch as the event
itself was tragic and painful for so many people but I believe true satire
can be aimed at even the most uncomfortable of topics (even nuclear war, per
'Dr. Strangelove.') In the case of SCMRPG, a GAME seemed to be the
appropriate response to so much vilification of gaming.
One of the seminal moments in popular video gaming was the encounter between
Mario and the first Goomba in World 1-1 of Super Mario Brothers for the NES.
There were really three possible options open to the player: 1) jump OVER
the Goomba and continue, 2) jump ONTO the Goomba and receive 100 points, or
3) walk INTO the Goomba and lose one of Mario's three lives. From this
crude simplification of how sprites in video games would interact came an
entire industry based largely on hit detection and other physically-driven
mechanisms for game play. Mario could not give the Gooba a high five
(Goombas don't have hands), could not ask for directions (who needs them in
a 2-D world?), and didn't so much as respect the Goomba's natural habitat in
the Mushroom Kingdom (what with all the vandalism of blocks). Mario could
not even enlist any help for creating his path of destruction until Yoshi
the dinosaur came along six years later...
The article written on SCMRPG for Wikipedia really understands much of the
effort and thinking behind the game. It's encouraging to see that yes, some
people really do understand that the game is critical not just of the
Columbine shooting and how it was handled in the press but also of the
operating constraints and conventions of the medium of video games itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Columbine_Massacre_RPG%21
Most of all, if nothing else I want SCMRPG to convey this: MAKE SOMETHING!
If you have something to say about the world, don't wait around for someone
to create that thing for you, DO IT YOURSELF. No matter who you are, you
have something to share and there's absolutely no reason media conglomerates
should have a monopoly on the creation of culture. In the digital age, we
have been empowered to reshape the horizon of understanding ourselves. So
set aside your MySpace blog, turn off the TV, and put down the controller
for your X-Box. Make something... and don't be afraid that your idea might
not be accepted; the truth is there is probably already a world of people
waiting for you to create it—whatever "it" might be.
Comments
Man-- I just know that no matter how lucid or well-constructed his arguments may be, the guy's still going to get crucified for what he created. We've been fighting the good fight for many years now, and the message never gets through; we're preempted simply by virtue of the bold headlines detailing "video game killers". Sadly, the shooting in Toronto is just what the Jack Thompsons of the world were waiting for. The dead make for easy conscription in any cause.
Good read. The guy seems pretty intelligent and had far better answers that what I expected to be a bunch of: "I made the game cause I thought it was cool. Sorry people got shot." I do like what he had to say.
One question though. Did you happen to talk to this guy live or was this done through email or IM? Im just wondering becuase he seems to have some pretty long well thought out answers for all your questions, and I'm curious to find out if its because 1) He has been asked the same type of questions so many times that the answers become standard and scripted. Or 2) When he realized he was going to get his ass kicked in the media, he got some sort of PR flak to help him craft out a message.
Any thoughts?
Excelent interview. Well done.
I realy like the insight into Mario as well. never thought of it that way.
I really feel sorry for the guy. I mean, he did make a game based on a horrible event, but it was just that, a game.
I used to watch Sesame Street when I was little. Does that mean that my hatred towards idiots that can't spell is the result of puppeteers?
I don't blame this guy for anything, he made a game and if people have their interperation of it, then its their own doing.
People are always looking for something to blame, and hell it might as well be the video games because it such as "easy" argument:
"He played this violent game all the time, it made him into a killing machine."
People are just looking for the easy answer, when you're dealing with a person, there is never an easy answer.
Dawson college is in Montreal, not toronto Captain.
You are right, he will be "crucified" by the media, but he has been handling himself very well. I have seen him in the past week on 2 seperate shows and both times he fended off criticism very well. Thank god it wasn't some 15 year old moron who made the game, but a very well kept, intelligent man who actually did the game for a deeper meaning.
People really need to get a grip on the fact that video games don't cause this kind of violence. People like Jack Thompson really need to understand that alot of this is a society issue, and sometimes an issue with parenting, not little pixelated images that instantly want to make anyone that looks/interacts with them kill everything around them. Get a grip guys, come on. Great game, by the way. I really enjoyed it.
I really didn't excpect him to give these sorts of answers, he is obviously much more intelligent than I could have imagined, and he gives quite an argument. He did bring up a point about philisophical games, they just aren't happening, and just as I like books that after reading I sit and think about, I would love a game that really made me think about life and my views, games like that should really be made more often
Erp! I meant Montreal-- Toronto is burned into my head 'cos that's where I saw that blasted headline. The Toronto Sun, I think? "VIDEO GAME KILLER" in big fuck-off bold print. Heh-- it's a small wonder they didn't add on a photo of a dead baby with smaller, not-quite-as-bold print beneath it: "Check out this dead baby! Did video games cause this baby to die? FIND OUT ON PAGE 6!"
This man is, simply put, awesome. He made a game, and that's it. I'm very impressed with his ability to deal with the press so well and not fold under pressure.
Email interview, though I've talked to him and interviewed him over the phone for the newspaper several times. His answers always seem to be fairly well thought out.
Yea, I'm really impressed by his entire outlook on the situation. I think I recall reading an interview with him a while back, and it's amazing that he has stuck by his point for so long while facing so much adversity. People have failed to understand his message from several perspectives, some wanting more violence (completely missing the point) while others get pissed about a game made about this topic (probably half of whom never played it.) There have been so many instances recently of someone creating such a game, then immediately retracting it and apologizing when someone is offended by it. It's refreshing that he is stepping up to the plate and defending his game, and remaining aware of the responsibility he has since he is its creator.
Oh, and Jay, in response to your question about the method of the interview, I'm pretty sure it had to be through email. He says, "SCMRPG has far exceeded any and all expectations I had for it... except one... which is your next question," suggesting that he has knowledge of all the questions before answering.
In case anyone is interested, here's the link to my Rocky Mountain News story about LeDonne. It also ran today. This was written off of a seperate, phone interview and includes a response by a man whose son was killed at Columbine.
http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/freePlay/2006/09...
Excellent interview, well thought-out questions.
I haven't played the game but with the comments so far that say "I wouldn't have imagined he was so intelligent" shows me that even though we, as gamers, are angry with people who don't "get" gaming we also don't look so open-eyed at each other. Why wouldn't this guy be intelligent? Making a game is not all that easy, especially one with a major social agenda. Stop automatically judging each other and maybe...maybe the media and public will start to understand and accept us better.
if it was email, how do you know he smiled? Huh? Yea, get out the that one Crecente
Massive douche, I hope the civil suits ruin him.
Gill would have gone on his senseless rampage regardless of whether he had made this game or not. It's unfortunate that the deeper messages LeDoone talks about didn't make it through the fog of a man's lost mind. While I never played it, I understand that his product is the same thing as writing a song or painting a picture. However, unlike the makers of games like Grand Theft Auto, he's not profiteering off the culture of violence and those it attracts (or, I should say those who take it to heart). And unlike a Hollywood movie, or much of the media, he's not giving it the star treatment either.
From the Rocky Article that was linked:
"Hours before the attack, the 25- year-old wrote on a personal Web site that he was drinking whiskey and feeling "postal."
Why isn't anyone thinking of suing the whiskey makers? Why aren't survivors calling the offices of Wild Turkey and asking, "How could you make this product that let someone to do this?" Why isn't anyone trying to band Whiskey?
(Please don't ban Whiskey.)
don't pass the blame on to mario!
I haven't played SCMRPG! (though I should) so it's hard for me to make any judgements on the game.
As has been said, he does come across as a very intelligent, deliberate individual with seemingly good intentions. However, I'm not sure that this game was a necessarily appropriate way to deal with them (again though, I'd need to play the game to get a better idea).
That being said, I don't think that this game is responsible for the shooting, and I'm almost appalled that people on this site of all sites would insinuate that this guy should be sued for making this game.
Even if the game reveled in the violence of Columbine, there's no reason he should be held accountable for the actions of one fucked up individual.
Information on the shootings at Columbine are well published and documented, and it's not like he saw this game and was suddenly enlightened to the happenings in Colorado.
So why aren't the news agencies held accountable for making knowledge of these events available?
I heard about this game a long time ago, but I've been putting off downloading it. I'm definitely going to have to grab that now.
good to see he has a spine.
This is the kind of thinking that makers of so-called philosophical games (along the lines of MGS2, anyone?) need to be working with. A strong, flexible mind who understand satire and isn't afraid to back down from any subject. When's the last time a good videogame took a shot at videogames?
Really insightful interview. The guy demonstrated be very well educated and intelligent, it is really a shame that the press can't get his point of view or simply don't wanna get since it's the sensacionalism that sells the papers and increase the showing rates of TV programs.
I really hope that he can handle all that bloodsucking press attacks, and that the press can finally get come sense and instead of making that games are responsible for making people doing shit that the responsability lies within the self. It's the guy's fault, his friends and family fault for not giving him any support or love that could have helped him sometime in his life and making him never think about this crazy killing. And more over, it's the society fault for creating such "ideal people models" that results in the creation of the social outcasts that will undoubtly create raging people that will hate their own condition so much that won't think twice of taking revenge upon this "normal society".
I think that I'll try to get a look on this game since he made the game with such idea of making people think about ethics and the society as whole, deserves to be played.
Btw, thanks Brian for providing us such good interview with non-sensationalistic and well thought questions and I wish the best of luck to this guy.
GretzkyR99: I only know of one game that's really made me think about its content in that way, and that was Killer7, which was pretty much ragged on by the gaming public. In many ways it was too obtuse for its own good, and people would spend more time complaining about the game being on rails (an excellent device to focus the player on the story, but horrible in the minds of most gamers) than talking about philosophy.
I think that part of the reason we don't see games trying to do what you speak of is because there isn't enough variety of games like there are books. There's a ton of books to wade through in order to find excellent stories that challenge the mind. Once the cost of game development goes down (through better distribution systems I supposed) I think we'll see our share of literary classics. As of right now though, video game storytelling is probably about on par with the above average (not great) sci-fi/fantasy novel; there's some good storytelling but not anything deep.
Turd Blossom says:
Massive douche, I hope the civil suits ruin him.
Jack? Jack Thompson, is that you?
I'll echo the "intelligent" comments, but am I the only one who busted out laughing at the paragraph describing Mario and the Goomba in 1-1?
I can't be the only one... can I?
I can't be the only one... can I?
It was definitely witty.
I wasn't impressed by his intelligence so much as his capacity for patience and good will in the face of ignorance. If it were me, I would be calling every media personality and critic a fucking moron. Then again, responding by email to thoughtful questions from a person who understands your point of view is entirely different from facing off against a belligerent jackass.
hmm.
Im not going to massage myself here and calim this guy is intelligent or offers alot of insight. But I will say his opinions are educated and was able to address these inquiries in a very polite and direct for, which is nice once in a while.
However, I have to ask myself. What did you expect? You made a game of questionable content, with questionable motives (sorry i dont buy the whole "people just dont get it argument" most people see a video game, not a work of art or scripture).
what did you expect?
Rez, my thoughts exactly.
If you have been to his forum page the guy is under constant ridicule daily. I am pretty sure he has heard every deflamatory arguement on his game possible, and therefore crafted every rebuttle he needs.
The Problem with the game is that is glamorizes the killers. Ok, so maybe thats not the point but it does glamorize it. And most people are not going to go through that game for a pretentious philisophical skew on the events that happened in Columbine, they just are not going to do so.
He had to know before setting out to make this game that it would be controversial. And for him to expect any less of the press and media is foolish. Just because a game can be made doesn't mean it should. He has been lambasted by not just the media but the internets all around, and it has placed him on his pretentious high horse. From the time the game really gained momentum 'till now it has become a fight of self-rightousness.
One quick trip to his forums and you'll see the kind of people this game caters to. Maybe it wasn't made with these people in mind, but they are there in droves. And I think his "clientel" speaks for his creation more so than pseudo-philisophical arguments can.
Idiots and the troubles flock to controversy. If it wasn't a Columbine game, it would be something else society already deemed "unacceptable". If his audience did idiotic things NOT inspired by his game, then all that means is that his demographic is idiots. It does not mean he MADE them idiotic.
I'm happy he both a) started this all by throwing up, but b) still had the balls to defend his game intelligently. He made it, he owns up to it, and has not backed down on his reasoning just because people are whining about it. But he also acknowledges his opponents, rather that dismissing them with empty rhetoric.
Well, that was a long and interesting read. Best of luck, I suppose. The only thing that really bugs me about the whole thing is that people ALWAYS forget that Columbine, Colorado was inspired by Jonesboro, and Jonesboro by the original "shocking shooting" of the 1990's in Paducah, Kentucky. Columbine was directly after Jonesboro by less than a month.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath_High_School_shooting
Interesting case, especially since it's OBVIOUSLY Harry Potter who was the gunman. :P
But Columbine is small potatoes compared to some of the shootings that happened in EUROPE and Japan or the most brutal school massacre..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
Well, yup!
excellently written, i'm really enthusiastic about projects like these, things that go against the grain and make people confront things they don't want to.
i'm actually surprised at how well thought out this game was, and how articulate the maker is.
I wish people could agree on whether games should be considered art. If this game were legitimately considered art, then I expect the response would be much less severe, or at least no more severe than peoples reactions to whatever music, movies, and books Kimveer Gill happened to like.
I'll bet Kimveer Gill was a big fan of the movie Elephant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_(movie). It's a wonder nobody has attacked Gus van Sant(not that they should). And for that matter, why is it just fine to make movies that aren't "fun", like Elephant, but when somebody makes a game that isn't "fun" it's deemed worthless and a detriment to society? Not all movies are happy and pleasant, nor all music, or books, but we still experience them, and seem to think it is beneficial to do so. Is there that much weight placed on moving a little guy around the screen with the keyboard? It just seems unfair.
The question is whether or not art can be considered a root cause for one of these crazies going 'over the edge'.
Both John Lennon's killer and the guy who tried to shoot Reagan were obsessed with Catcher in the Rye. Should we ban those books?
For me, it boils down to personal responsibility. Clearly, many people played the game (I have not) and did not go on murderous rampages. You can't exactly point to the game and say 'It's the games fault'. No, it's the batshit crazy guy's fault. End of story.
Is it provocative and perhaps in poor taste? Absolutely. Can it somehow be considered to have a negative impact on crazy people? No. Crazy people get set off by all sorts of things. Some people don't like red lights. Others don't like the sound of running water. I don't think we plan on banning those stimuli, since the majority of the population does not go crazy when exposed to them.
I am not in any way shape or form a subscriber to the notion that media content, be it film, book or game would be responsible for the creation of murderering minds, however I am a subscriber to respect and common courtesy. This guy chose to check his at the door when he posted this game to the mainstream downloader.
I am not sure the people who actually lived through the scenes subject to parody in this game need this kind of retortment. People who are now wheelchair bound, affected both mentally and physically for the rest of their lives along with families that lost loved ones and communities that where destroyed due to this.
No matter what the guys standpoint maybe and his desire to be the Howard Hughes of the Satire world. It was just down right disrespect. You'd think with what seems to be an intellectual guy he might have put it to some thought breaking use. Instead he has chosen the lazy way out.
shame.
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