I'm a 19 year old kid that enjoys to listen to hip-hop occasionally, and I like to play games.

I have never played SCMRPG, maybe in the future, but I don't need to play it. Censorship is at all time high, and that is all across the board, in all types of media, but ESPECIALLY with video games, as we speak a govenor in the state that I live in is pushing for more "anti-game" bills.

It pisses me off when people step up and say "this is wrong for you to show something as tragic as this", or "this game sucks and that's why it should be thrown out". That is not the point, the fact that it was pulled and is being censored is the thing of importance, and while I have never even heard of Slamdance before, as soon as I read into this it scared me.

Let's just put it like this. I will be supporting this festival movement, and I can pretty much speak for everyone when I say

Slamdance is dead

potential

So being pulled from an athletic event for being black (in this case) is now on par with creating a game trivializing a sorrowful event in order to get mass attention and then getting that game pulled? Excuse me, but that's a damn stupid comment.

And until someone can enlighten me to how this game somehow has artistic merit I'll continue to think of it as trivializing a very sad day.

Games are different from books, movies, and paintings. They offer a much more personal and different way to experience the world and reality. To relate it to such mediums makes it something it just isn't.

But no one seems to actually focus on this game that's been lionized and placed on a pedestal as a martyr for the war on Slamdunk. You're all mad the game's not seen as "art" but as a "super columbine massacre rpg." It's oddly ironic.

I've never played the game so the poor saps who spent all of 30-40 seconds (depending on everyone's varying level of stupidity) reading this comment have wasted a part of their lives they'll never get back. heh

But then I could really give a damn, because at the end of the day it's just a stupid "game".

pangelboy

loolapalooza

At least fucrate admits that Farenheit 9/11 WAS scripted. Hopefully he realizes that it had to be scripted, because anyone that knows how to look up even the most basic facts would be easily be able to determine that that moron made up about 90% of that film.

motoyugota

If an athlete was pulled from a sporting event because of his color -- would you seriously stay in the event just because you had a better chance? Or, would you stand for something more, realizing that there is a bigger picture out there ... besides the fact you could be the next to face discrimination.

jayntampa

Khanstant

The Stingray will swim around the oceans, avoiding all sorts of obstacles, and finally reach shore long enough to find an unsuspecting Steve Irwin and clamp down on him with it's tail spike! Fun!

If you got the least bit offended, then go fuck yourself. Jaws has the exact same gameplay.

*giggles* Super Steve Irwin Stingray Stab Wound Simulator...

robobeau

It is the developers' "prerogative" to determine what's right or wrong. The SCMRPG dev made a game with questionable artistic merit (in my opinion), though deserves no less recognition than any other games with socially acceptable subject matter. Wether he did or did not trivialize the subject matter makes no difference, and should have no bearing on its judging. If the game's bad it's bad. If it's good, it's good. That's what the Panel is for, not the Sponsors.

The end result (the game), no matter how controversial, is something true to the devs, and wether WE think it's art or not doesn't matter. It's subjective. Something that a judging should not be.

robobeau

Slamdance is too old to be cool anymore.
They were lame 6-7 years ago.

Having your game in slamdouche is like having a fucktard tribal tat, or really uncool scar.

plus, I know a guy who worked for them and he's a douche, too.

djomg

"
They came for the Communists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist;
They came for the Socialists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Socialist;
They came for the labor leaders, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a labor leader;
They came for the Jews, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Jew;
Then they came for me - And there was no one left to object.

- Martin Niemoller, German Protestant Pastor, 1892-1984
"

It doesn't matter if Super Columbine Massacre RPG isn't redeeming as a game, it wasn't pulled for not being good or meaningful.

By taking a stand in defense of the least redeeming of games (arguably Super Columbine Massacre RPG)...We stand up for all of them.

fenndoji

Braid, Flow, Toblo, Once Upon A Time, and Everyday Shooter have all pulled out in protest. SO FAR.

If additional developers continue to pull out, Slamdance may collapse entirely.

Alsee

"Super Columbine Massacre"? Honestly, if you're not trivializing something, and you want to make a point of that, a good place to start is the title.

The current name sounds like one of the Japanese translation jokes running around (MASSIVE DAMAGE!) , and I can see why it would raise someone's eyebrows. Most often they people who criticize games like GTA and this never play it, they just hear about it.

"There's this game, about Columbine, called Super Columbine Massacre that lets you run around killing school children!"

That may not be the point of the game, but devs need to do a better job educating people as to what their intention is.

x440Magnumx

I hope I'm not the only person to realize that the game dev's are protesting in the exact same way as the thing they are protesting against. Sponsors threatened to pull support because of a disagreement with policy, and now the dev's are pulling their support in protest of the same thing. When one group does it, the industry cries foul, the other are instead crowned as heroes. This is moronic.

And for gods sake, stop treating this as a holy war against gaming unless you want it to turn into one.

Piuro

You said: 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) ...

Apparently, you've never played or read about Plasma Pong. It plays completely different from the original Pong game. It's driven soley by fluid dynamics (as the Slamdance page says here).

Luke

loolapalooza

cybereality

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

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.

L_K_M

L_K_M

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.

Yamen

mr.crowley

sonofrock

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*

Sunjammer

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?

fucrate

squidhat

Wernstar

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.

ReverendSlim

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.

FunkyJ

mfelps

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.

hanford

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!

NighTrekr

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.

MyNameIsGame

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.

dd-toronto

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'"?

Evil Tortie's Mom

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

juv3nal

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

Acute Gamer

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.

MisterSleep

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. :)

Fuzz

evan57

moonfirelol

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.

DashTheHand

barktwiggs

I believe Goethe felt the same way about art.

Torusan

Mr_Fuzzypaws

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.

imaria

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.

DaveKap

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

yashichi8bit

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.

Improbable

randomnine

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.

MisterSleep

Brian Crecente

doubtful

Nikral

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

yashichi8bit

lwelyk

Brian Crecente

stephenzerotwo

You want impact? You got it.

Torusan

lwelyk

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.

SirPimps

MrFlannery

lwelyk