Columbine RPG creator interviewed over festival boot

Killing people is bad.

I don't know, I don't see how people defend it honestly. Maybe it's just because it's one of my worst fears, being in high school and all, but I am glad it got pulled. I heard about it about 2 years ago, when it was still an underground thing. I don't know, it just doesn't seem right to me. They defend it with war games and stuff... I just don't see how you can take two kids who shot up a school, and say, "Wow this is good fun!".

That is not the point of the game Jeremy. Shooting up the school for fun is not why it was created.

If it wants to be taken seriously, it really can't run with a name like Super Columbine Massacre RPG.

i just played this, and turned it off after a couple minutes. i thought it was stupid.

Making this game was the worse idea ever because wheter or not he made it to be fun, people who play it get sick twisted idea's from it. Fact and proof is the guy in Canada who thought this game was cool and did it to his own school.

He needs to change the name, and the people in it and maybe then it will be looked at different but poking fun at what was the worse thing to happen in high school history in the USA is only going to get him bashed and burned and he deserves it.

It's no different then some idiot making a sim of you crashing planes into the twin towers, its sick wrong, and no matter the reason people will not like it.

Agreed, they really should change it's name. It sounds like some sort of shoot-em-up ramage.

I am a proponent of the effort put into SCM RPG, but this post is a bit silly.

You want games to be taken seriously when "Gears of War" wins the Game of the Year award? It's a fantastic game, but it's not the kind of flagship that's going to broadcast a message to the public that gaming is anything more than a recreational experience. Incredible graphics and great gameplay aside -- you're shooting aliens with a futuristic assault rifle that has a chainsaw built onto it.

And, lest we not forget the horrifying (from a political point of view) Grand Theft Auto Series. There is absolutely no way to pass off GTA3 onward as anything more than a "kill lots of people and police and hire hookers to get money and accomplish goals" type of game. It's not just because the public wants to portray it that way -- killing people is a large part of GTA. While the production value may be higher in current games than at any other time in history, stating that movies are taken seriously is only half-right, since most films are no longer considered as such.

Make a movie that has the impact of "The Godfather" or "Braveheart" within the context of causing any kind of killing, and you will see a bit of a different light. GTA has a decent storyline, but it doesn't compare to the depth and scope of the classic movies that have been viewed as paradigm shifts in the industry. Until games start putting storyline ahead of everything else (note: anime excluded, as it doesn't appeal to the mass media), violence in gaming will be regarded as gratuitous. Sadly, most of the time, that's a correct assumption.

Gaming needs a champion. A wake-up call to the world. Something gripping. Think FF7 (Aeris death in particular) only without cartoon characters and in a more realistic setting.

Name makes me think of Super Mario RPG, but without the Legend of the Seven Stars part.

well if people want to see "art games" so bad, im wondering why no one bought Killer 7... that game was terrific, everything about it,but no one bought it. The masses would agree GoW (God or Gears no difference) is more fun than Killer 7, but which one has a deep story, interesting art and music, and just bleeds uniqueness?

I agree with #4. Maybe that's what turns me off about it, the name. It just seems like the name is joking. Like, it's making it out to be that the Columbine Massacre was just a game. I don't know how to explain it, but "Super Columbine Massacre RPG" just screams, "The fun of shooting up a school in RPG form." Is it just me?

When will "games will stop being treated less like mere child's play and more like a serious medium for thought-provoking experiences"?

Gosh, maybe when games can deal with a horrifying tragedy without resorting to mythical flying dragons from Hell, perhaps.

Yeah, they didn't run my game either, "Auschwitz Tycoon".

at #2jeremy if you're so afraid that somone is going to come to your high school and shoot it up, carry a concealed knife. rarely, do crazed kids (or adults) pay much attention to their hostages, giving you plaenty of time to sneak up behind them and stab them in the neck (don try to slit their throat, that can be messy and difficult, you're better off just stabbing whatever unprotected bit of them that you can, and repeatedly)
i would rather die with my knife stuck in the guys neck than as a quivering fearful hostage. heck, gouge out their eyes with your house keys. people HAVE to learn that people with guns are in no way invincible, and STOP being afraid.

#13, you are insane. #5 the art of games is found in their interactivity, not simply their storytelling, so the perception of actually rolling a bowling ball on the Wii is the same paradigm shift that maybe the Godfather, definitely not Braveheart gave to film (just listing your favorites doesn't mean you are actually naming films that changed anything about the way other films are made). And as far as this game designer goes, I went to his website and read his "Artist's Statement." He just seems like a self-inflated egomaniac who crafted some platitude-laden statement to make himself seem like a modern day philosopher rather than a nut with too much time on his hands.

Dude, South Park didn't even touch the Columbine thing, and that's the greatest social commentary of our time. Seriously, they don't care about social commentary, they want to be famous. That's. It.

Re: #10 "Fact and proof is the guy in Canada who thought this game was cool and did it to his own school."

If you believe that playing this game caused that kid in Canada to shoot up his school, then you're just as naive as all the people who believed that Doom and The Matrix caused Harris and Klebold to shoot up Columbine in the first place.

Sensationalist News Media: 1
Rational Thought: 0

Also, #13...

Holy shit! Sociopath much?

Having played all the way through the game, and having read the artist's statement, I will tell you right now that this game is shit.

{Spoilers}

First, if you're trying to make an original statement, don't spend the entirety of your work quoting other people. If you do quote people, don't quote song lyrics. If you do quote song lyrics, then don't quote the entire song (especially if it goes into a refrain, because then you're just putting the same thing on the screen over and over).

Second, if you're going to make the game less about the gameplay than about the actual message, then make damn sure that you're not forcing the player into meaningless gameplay situations - I'm talking about Hell. Why should I have to fight all these demon's and soldiers? It doesn't contribute to the message in any meaningful way. If you ask me, the game should have been over after the suicide.

Third, the actual gameplay sucked - as a fan of RPG maker, you did it a great diservice.

Fourth, how dare you compare yourself to Gus van Sant? That you think that your game is on the same level of artistry that Elephant is just goes to show how much of an egomaniac you are.

Fifth, (and this is a specific issue) why did you have the cavern of lost souls? What artistic purpose did it serve to have a little boy saying that he wasn't admitted into heaven because he was Islamic? How was this salient to the Columbine shootings? The truth: it wasn't. It was what I like to call "angry atheism". Don't get me wrong, I'm an atheist, but the sheer aggression presented there is unhealthy - and also not relevant to your so-called art.

P.S. plz buy Auschwitz Tycoon

@9
Killer7..."bleeds" uniqueness...teehee. I'm not sure whether that was intentional or not but if you've played the game then you should understand how literal that statement is.

On topic, I could see ways in which the game is meant to be a social commentary, even in the name, but the maker of the game needs to do a much better job of explaining himself. Obviously many people do not see the social commentary he is aparently going for...then again, I guess you could say the same for a lot of (pretentious) modern art and the artists don't seem to care in that case.

Even so, I could see the game being knocked out because of just being distasteful and not presenting a message clearly enough (or for all of the other things wrong with the game on a basic level), but it is sad to see it knocked out because sponsors are getting nervous.