Go them. Standing up for SCMRPG right to be in there. It's wrong that they cut it like that.

Wow... Iwelyk. Great argument.

Nice counter argument MrFlannery.

I am sure he did not realize that he had to make a substantial comment based on lots of research to make an informed and meaningful comment when posting a comment on a blog about video games. I am sure in the future he will not make this mistake since you have let him know.

Fine. They cut it because of it's content. If we can have WWII games why not Columbine games? While I don't think I'd want to play it, it wouldn't have been cut if it were a movie. If we want games to be taken more seriously we need to not let them cut this. I could understand a porn game getting cut but, not this.

"...there are moral obligations to consider here with this particular game in addition to the impact it could have on the Slamdance organization and its community."

You want impact? You got it.

I am glad to hear this is starting a movement. I can not wait for the day when video games are fully recognized for their merits; whether they be artistic or educational on any level.

Just to play devil's, or someone's, advocate for a second. Lwelyk, define porn.

I was talking where the game was just having sex. And a bunch of horny teenagers made it popular.

Brian (along with everyone in protest) is correct in saying that this is not about SCMRPG, it is about "if gaming as an industry can make that final leap into artistry"

Hopefully this whole episode of the game, the slamdance event, the expulsion and hopefully the re-admittance will make people think about just that.

If Braid and flOw were pulled from the finalists why does the main Slamdance website have them up still?
http://www.slamdance.com/games/

All I know is Brian just earned 6 points for use of the word 'shitstorm.' Nice job! :)

Nikrai they weren't pulled they removed themselves. And it took the site four days to remove the Columbine game from the official site too.

I have to say, I do understand and respect the reasoning of the Slamdance sponsors, and subsequently the response of the Slamdance festival itself. While I don't agree with it at all, it's business (money) that really has the final say most of the time.

The problem as I see it with video games as an art form is in its short and largely one-dimensional history. Only recently have games aspired to be more than simple entertainment--hell, only recently have games been around. And in a world where the most respected things are the ones with long-established reputations, it's a hard fact that it will take a long, long time for games to break through the historical stigmas and change cultural--global--attitudes.

While I've never played it, I commend Donny Ledonne and games like SCMRPG for trying to create something not just different, but significant. I think we should defend things like this--not necessarily the games, but their value and merit. However, I'm wary of Mr. Croal's comparison (even if it is a loose one) to Maus or Guernica because I think it neglects the fact that not only is the game controversial, but so is the medium itself. I can see how it would be extremely difficult for most people to see SCMRPG as anything more than a game, when all it has to distinguish itself from an exploitative triviality (superficially, at least) is the author's defense and explanation. Controversial art and literature at least have the collective historical weight of their respective media to lend validity and significance.

I hope to see more shitstorms like this in the future. I hope controversies like this keep happening. Nothing's going to change overnight, and the discussion needs to keep going.

They're absolute legends for pulling their entries from Slamdance. They deserve an award for that. Can we give them awards for it?

According to the original story on this, they pulled the game because enough sponsors threatened to back out that they would have to cancel the festival. I don't know how true that is, but that was the claim made by the organizers.

All these people getting up in arms about it being pulled are doing the festival a disservice by simply taking their games and going home. If they want to support games as art, then they need to put their money where their mouths are. Cover the necessary funding that will be lost by including the game or shut the hell up.

Randomnine

Nope no awards to give out, but we do have gold star stickers.

This is wonderful. I've always wanted some kind of shakeup in the industry to occur (even if it is only at an independent festival level) just to see how everything played out.

No, nothing JT does is considered "shaking up" in my book. This, however, is great. I hope Columbine gets reinstated and Slamdance tells off whoever it was that forced them to take it down in the first place. If gamers can hold their ground but gamer execs can't, this medium isn't going anywhere for a while.

If Slamdance was beholden to its sponsors to only show "cuddly" cutting edge art, then the festival was flawed from the very beginning. Their sponsorships should never have had any say over the artistic content of the festival; no other real festival has that sort of arrangements. Sponsors know to put up, then shut up.

If Slamdance was unable to provide that sort of artistic protection to its entries, then it doesn't deserve to have those entries at all.

Video games are art, plain and simple.

Well, in my opinion, one of the funtions of art is to entertain. Kojima may not know it, but art is a "service," too. Whether its to entertain, to inform, or to educate. I believe the other developers who pulled their entries can even be so much as criticized for having an information and art heavy media, much like their very own creations, to be pulled for reasons probably more personal than "moral." The Slamdance probably thinks it would lose its credibility having SCMRPG in their finals roster, but I believe its losing much more than they would have imagine.

I believe Goethe felt the same way about art.

I've ignored the Columbine Massacre RPG mostly till now. Ironically, this latest hullabaloo has made me more interested in playing the game. How's that for unintended consequences.

I personally disagree with any sort of censorship, when it comes to games, movies, music or other forms of artistic expression. If the artist cannot convey what they truely want, than how are we taking part in what they truely wanted to express.

On the other hand, I don't believe that SCMRPG is all that artistic that the creator has made it out to be. In my honest opinion, I feel that he is a person that just wanted to make a game that would be senselessly cruel and funny to the people of the world that think that Columbine was "funny." The same type of person that enjoys griefing new players in a MMORPG. The same type of person that thinks its funny to Teamkill in multiplayer. The same type of guy that could and would take any advantage out of a situation he could in order not to get blame pinned on him - sort of a "hand caught in the cookie jar" if you will.

I honestly don't care one way or the other on his game being removed due to it being "inappropriate," because for the most part it was. I think hes actually glided along on the 15 minutes of fame a bit too long at this point.

Censorship as a whole is wrong. Bad enough we have soccer moms telling us how immoral we are, now this kind of garbage?

I think this whole thing might just blow up in slamdances face. I think we as gamers should boycott this festival in order to prove the point that we do have the right to make games like this. The rest of the participants should drop out of the competition emediatly. We sould set an example for all future video game festivals.

Its good to see people not being selfish and sstanding up for the greater good of the medium. I especially agree with how they decided to do it, as outlined in Kelee Santiago's quote. Good on them.

And for anyone who hasn't played SCMRPG, your not allowed to have an opinion on it, because it is not what you think. Ok, well, your allowed, but your opinion will most certainly be wrong. :)

@DashTheHand

I agree with you for the most part, especially about censorship. Censorship should be an exercise in personal (and parental) restraint, discipline, and education, rather than a forced limitation.

Re: SCMRPG: there is a difference between fame and infamy. The adage about "no such thing as bad press" doesn't count when there's no money involved. Furthermore, art is art, even if it's bad art... while we as gamers can have discussions on the actual merits of the game itself (hell, I'll probably never play it), the topic at hand is what it will take for everyone else--sponsors, business people, non-gamers--to take games seriously enough that we can discuss them objectively without the stigma behind them being "just games." Very fine line, but one that has to be pointed out, nonetheless.

Taking out the Columbine game is coming close to a 21st century book burning. Not Good.

If you can read this: Thank a teacher.
If it's in English: Thank a soldier!

@DashTheHand:
Have you played the game? It's not what you say it is. It maybe doesn't fully live up to the artist's statement, but at no point is it trying to be funny.

MisterSleep said: However, I'm wary of Mr. Croal's comparison (even if it is a loose one) to Maus or Guernica because I think it neglects the fact that not only is the game controversial, but so is the medium itself.

But paint, as a medium, has been controversal. So has the medium of film, both photographic and moving.

You can't forget that. It may not have been in the cases Croal illustrated, but it has been the case in the past.

However, I think people are missing the real point of this.

This whole debate illustrates why funding from private sponsors is immoral, especially when concerning "art".

Slamdance was set up to allow filmmakers to get their films shown. It was set up in opposition to Sundance, which was seen to be growing in it's commercialisation and not fully representing independent film makers.

Commercial organisations now have the ability to determine what is "art" at a festival which was set up to counter this very idea.

It just shows the growing corporate conservatism in the USA which is destroying all forms of American culture. And unfortunately it's spreading to other places, like Australia... =(

FunkyJ opines, "This whole debate illustrates why funding from private sponsors is immoral, especially when concerning "art"."

Hmmm... we'd never have the masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci and a lot of other guys if they hadn't had patrons who commissioned the stuff, paid their living expenses, and all that.

Do you mean something like "funding from private sponsors AGAINST or IN OPPOSITION TO 'art'"?

It's also worth remembering that videogames were accused of inspiring the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre; whether or not you think the game is art in and of itself, its existence as a serious-minded commentary on the massacre qualifies it as an artistic statement almost automatically.

Slamdance invited the game to enter (possibly to court controversy, and attention, to their festival, but certainly also to foster a dialogue on 'What is a game?' and 'What is art?'), then named it as a finalist, then disinvited it on these now legendary "moral grounds" which all of a sudden came up out of nowhere.

If Slamdance wants to remain credible as a festival for serious artistic games then the organizers have little choice but to backpedal and reinstate SCMRPG. And screw the sponsors who are so obviously at the heart of this. Name the ones who are applying the pressure, and then dump them and get better ones.

Define Porn.

The use of any material to arouse a person into a state of wanting to have sex?

I don't know what Brian means but it seems he actually wanted to add fire to the flame with his remark and I totally agree. Imagine someone making a game in which people are getting off on oh...I don't know, driving a car naked, or seeing people watching a painting. Should such a game than be seen as porn and excluded for the sake of those peoples oppinion seeing as they don't agree? Whereas there are so much more people who do not neccesarily see those things as arousing...

There is a line and that line is freedom of speech. How corny that even may sound and how untrue it may be nowadays even in countries who always where keen on waving it around, it still is at the basis of this whole discussion. And the game industry as a whole is made to suffer.

But still that is only the second matter you should all be conceirned about.

Look at the free press the guy has gotten. You can still download his RPG Maker game if you'd like. Plenty of people are going to play it now who otherwise wouldn't have given half a stale shit because it's forbidden. This ridiculous hoopla has transformed the creator into a martyr.

Slamdance is a privately funded festival. They have the right to pull a game if their financial backers don't like the content (but nobody seems to care about their rights...). You don't have to be happy about it, but nobody goose-stepped in, confiscated his computer and destroyed the data, and nobody tried. Go find another festival or start your own (please do!) if the decision angers you.

This entire thing has given SCMRPG far more coverage than it ever would have gotten and perhaps more than it deserves. If you actually consider this to be "art", then be happy!

The problem is that SCM is that is not a good game -- everyone admits that. Without "Colombine" in the title is it simply another skippable bottom-of-the-barrel shoddy RPG.

If a game with those graphics and design were about fairies and dragons it would have never made it into any festival in the first place, but if it did somehow make it in only to be yanked out, no one would have cared. Simply attaching the "Colombine" topic to it does not make it any better of a game or any more important.

I am all for high-art in video games, and I do think games can deal with serious subject matter, but this is not it. This is not the game we should be going to battle for. Not because of it's subject matter, but because it's just not done very well. It's a bad example of good game development, and supporting this game is saying that gameplay and craftsmanship does not matter, which is wrong.

Video games need to learn the lessons of the comics industry. Fear "for the children" destroyed a burgeoning medium, compressing it into cartoons and superhero comics, and it wasn't until companies started to be willing to offend, with amazing works like Maus, that comics began to crawl out of the ghetto they built for themselves out of fear.

Sorry, I should read [b]all[/b] the articles first...

The Director says he dropped it because of his own morals and not because of Sponsors...

Peter Baxter should be stood down as director of the festival then.

As I said, it flies in the face of the purpose of the Slamdance fesitval.

I realise the cost of putting on a festival is massive, and money doesn't grow on trees, but I'd rather not have these festivals than have what the sponsor or director shove their morals down my throat through excluding things they don't agree with.

To Evil Tortie's: we'd never have the masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci and a lot of other guys if they hadn't had patrons who commissioned the stuff

True, but how many times was Da Vinci's (or anyone else's) artistic vision compromised? And how many great pieces of art have been scrapped and lost because the patron didn't like it? We may never know.

I think the bottom line is this:

If the financial backers of a "Guerilla Gamemaker" event can so easily compromise the event's intent, it negates the whole purpose of the thing and it should be done away with. It also indicates that perhaps the wrong backers were involved in the first place. Also, if this one individual's moral code can have such an effect, perhaps the event itself is flawed. If Slamdance is to continue, let's hope future iterations involve investors from the industry who understand the point of the thing, controversy be damned. Let's also hope that the event is directed by someone with a little more integrity, common sense, and (dare I say it) balls.

Kudos to the developers who withdraw from this sham.

It's good to see that the gaming community is not taking this lying down. Regardless of the quality of the game, what it represents is much greater. Games growing up perhaps? I hope so.

Uh, gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that games which reenact historical violence are probably always going to be controversial. This is a good thing. What other simulated historical violence would the audience for SCMRPG like to see? I could list some historical violence, but you get the idea. There is a reason that this is controversial, because the original act is controversial. Pulling it is an option. This isn't "censorship", because the game is freely available. It's an informed choice about what kind of content is or isn't acceptable for the venue.

I'm glad that gamers and the industry are trying to take a stand as far as games being art and all that, I just wish the catalyst was an insightful, meaningful and actually GOOD game. Which SCMRPG ain't.

People need to take their crusader blinders off and realize that SCMRPG shouldn't have been entered into Slamdance in the first place because it is a poor excuse for a game. Having a tragedy as a setting in a shit-ass title doesn't make it daring, it's the same as someone making a bad joke about the Holocaust. I make jokes about the state sanctioned slaughter of millions of Jews all the time but it doesn't make me insightful or actually funny. It's in bad taste. A really GOOD joke may make it "darkly humorous", or possibly "devilishly witty".

If game developers want to make a game which is worth getting all up-in-arms about, they need to make it a quality game first. Would anyone have given a shit about Fahrenheit 9/11 if it had been poorly scripted, filmed and edited?

Fahrenheit 9/11 WAS poorly scripted, filmed and edited. The subject matter is what carried it, and not for very long i might add.

SCMRPG is a symbol now, not just a game. Technically it is not proficient, but it is a *complete* product. As a symbol it is also somewhat independent of its subject matter; it's a symbol of games not necessarily being about fun or blind entertainment, but about intellectual stimulation.

*waits for someone to throw shit about how it's not a smart game, and as thus is not intellectual*

*prepares harsh laughter*

That's the problem - developers, as in actual game companies, are not interested in making controversial, artistic games. Well, they might be, but at the same time they've got publishers interests, as well as the continued success of their company to consider. That's why games like SCMRPG will probably only ever come from the minds of dedicated individuals using tools like RPG Maker.
Of course the production values are going to be less. Drastically less. But that's the scope that's available to the individual game maker.

A symbol of what? You want to show this to people who are criticizing video games and tell them "hey look, we can do art, too". This is not how it works.
I read many people here saying that it's a good thing that other developers take a stand, but I really don't see how you can take two kids who shot up un entire school, make a game out of it (and a bad game I might add), call it "Super Columbine Massacre RPG" (!) and say "ho, ok, it's crap, but it's art man! It's a way to show that games are not just about fun and toys."
And please Sunjammer, just before you start laughing, tell us what's an "intellectual simulation". I'm very curious about that.

Slamdance ISN'T some beacon of independant gaming. Honestly, Slamdance is not a very 'pure' competition to begin with. When Pong is a finalist (yes, like, original Pong with no new gameplay, just updated graphics), and they allow in games that are hacked together with stolen artwork (!!!) they really fail to put themselves in any sort of credible realm to begin with. I will agree that it looks terrible to accept a game, place it as a finalist and then drop it, but it's not like Slamdance had much of a reputation in the gaming industry to begin with. Slamdance is less like the traditional Sundance (for films) and more like the Spike TV Video Game Awards.

Now, if you want to see a festival with merit, check out the Independant Games Festival (IGF). They actually have a good perspective on the games industry, given thier background and the people who run it. They also actually have an impact on the real retail market of gaming, not just the freebie flash download games that proliferate Slamdance. (Yes, I know, many of them aren't literally Flash, but you get the picture.) The games at IGF are actually games, built like games by people who are trying to meet market level production quality, not just some hack who throws a bunch of sprites at an unispired game mechanic and glue it together with words like "Edgy" and "innovative".

I'm not just spouting my mouth off here, I do have some background and experience to draw from. I was formerly a studying game programmer at Digipen (look it up), and I currently live with half a dozen guys who are still there, who actually submit games to festivals, and hang out with people who actually make retail games at major companies. I mean, half of you won't believe me, cause I'm just a screen name on the internet, but I've been to parties hosted by one of the guys who is now in the core design team of Portals, just as an example.

One more Link:
http://grumpygamer.com/1389788

They have the right to pull a game if their financial backers don't like the content

So what? Does that make it any better? Does that mean we don't have the right to critizise them for it?

Nobody argues they don't have the right to do this. The fact that they have the right doesn't make the actual act any better.

If game developers want to make a game which is worth getting all up-in-arms about, they need to make it a quality game first.

Why? Who decides what's worthy and what's not?

Im glad people are up in arms over this. As soon as someone actually tries to push a medium in a different direction people don't know what to think, so they condemn it. Happens every time.