Inside the Sick Mind of a School Shooter Mod

[SoulSalmon]

Wow... does most of The Escapists readers suffer from catastrophization or something?

Everyones saying "Oh this has crossed the line it's going to cause the end of gaming as we know it!" Lets break that down a little.

"This has crossed the line" Oh really? What line?
"Innocents are being killed" And the guy you dragged from his car and shot to death in GTA wasn't innocent?
"Innocent children are being killed!" Like the child NPCs you can kill in Deus Ex? You can burn them alove or drown them in most of the Sims games, lets not forget all of the Fallout games! arguably even Bioshock lets you kill children... and these aren't exactly backwater games, these are huge, popular AAA games here. So why is a mod that lets you do this being hated so much then?

"It's going to cause the end of gaming!" Really? how?
"The media are going to pick on this" Oh the media, we wouldn't want to annoy them would we?
So we're going to have the local news show play another "games are evil" clip to go along with their "Best dressed celebrities" and "How you can save money while shopping" stories they always play. yup, go on.
"And more anti-game laws will be passed because of it!" I hate to just dismiss this statement but just gtfo -.- It's been argued to death and quite frankly I'm not about to have a regurgitated argument over this

Heck this whole post is just gonna be ignored or flamed... dunno why I post here really -.- my choices are flamewars, being ignored and being put on probation...

 

[Pheonixe]

Greg, if you can spare it, I ask of you five minutes of your time to consider an alternate perspective.

Let me pitch you a hypothetical. Say this game was called, I dunno, Alien Hunter: Mars Tour 2255. The scenery was barren spacescape, the NPCs were all purple tentacled beasts, and the guns were lasers. Then it would just be yet another shiny Half-Life 2 mod a couple people threw together and called another game. So...what if the game was Nazi Killer: Dresden Tour 1945? Terrorist Fighter: Iraq Tour 2005? Traitor Subduer: Egypt Tour 2011? See where I'm going with this? At what point does the premeditated act of virtually "killing" programmed AI go from relaxation to dimentia? What set of pixels laid over a model crosses the line from funness to sickness?

To quote Extra Credits, "some of my favorite game experiences have been those rare occasions when, out of nowhere, a game changes the way you see the world" (Enriching Lives [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1974-Enriching-Lives], 0:15-0:22). After I finished reading Inside the Sick Mind of a School Shooter Mod [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108065-Inside-the-Sick-Mind-of-a-School-Shooter-Mod], I stopped. Something was nagging at me. I couldn't seem to choose a side which I agreed with. But there was something else there as well. I scrolled eagerly through the comments, seeing if a little extra insight from others might help. And then, without any sort of rhyme or reason, it dawned upon me. When do we begin to take the loss of life of others seriously, regardless of the medium? "Killing" Aliens in Halo or fellow human players in Black Ops is fun when designed well, but then again, so is making tomato soup in Cooking Mama or fighting a legal battle in Phoenix Wright. Are there certain actions so unspeakable that they are irredeemable in any form when expressed in any medium, interactive or not?

And this isn't the only question worth asking nor is it the only topic worth world view reevaluation brought about by this game, this interview. One of the bigger ones the developer mentioned himself: "It affected me as much as hearing about the quakes in Haiti. Which is to say, not very much at all." Ask yourself, how much has the latest tragedy you've been informed about largely affected you when you knew no one involved in the incident? Perhaps you may have been melancholy for the day or the week or maybe even sent some money to a relief organization. How many do you know helped out in some small part? Has our large disconnect between the tragedies that affect and take human lives and the way they are portrayed to us via any form of media jaded us to some of the largest tragedies one can experience?

I know not if you were affected by any school shootings, Greg Tito, nor if you knew anyone who was. If so, I am sorry and sympathetic to your loss and the loss of life everywhere caused by tragedies. You have every right to be offended and angry at such a portrayal of something so indescribable with words if you feel it is not showing the topic due respect. I know that if there was an interactive experience that set the protagonist as Cancer or Sickle Cell Anaemia and the player were to achieve success by taking the life of people such as my mother or my lover, I would be outraged with such a work. However, for games to grow as a medium, there cannot be an outcry and harsh labeling of thoughts, ideas, and the products of the mind using words such as sick, depraved, or disgusting. To do so validates everything that those who fight against progress stand for. Furthermore, if such a work is considered 'bad' for one reason or another by the majority of people, it will be quietly ignored and fade into obscurity as with movies or novels.

I may not approve of this game and I doubt I will ever play it, but I will defend to the very last word that I utter the developers' right to create and publish their intellectual property because I think there is art to be found and lessons to be learned from every product that stems from the mind, even (and sometimes especially as Extra Credits may point out) ignoring Authorial Intent.

I don't know this developer 'Pawnstick.' Perhaps he is mentally ill, or perhaps he is a troll, merely feeding off of the sensational attention and outcry that is generated by touching on the painful and controversial. Or, perhaps, this is the beginning of the next Franz Kafka, a "sick mind" who's vile works secretly hid some of the strongest tales and political commentary known to the medium.

 

[V8 Ninja]

To be honest, I don't see the problem. Most games are about killing anyway, so what is the difference between shooting virtual soldiers and virtual children? None, because it's all the same; they're virtual. They don't exist. Therefore, if I'm destroying something that never existed, I'm not doing anything (besides wasting time).

 

[SamElliot'sMustache]

The guy made some surprisingly sound points, especially when talking about how we sensationalized the innocence of the victims and the evil of the deeds, and how gamers enjoy mowing down civilians in GTA (I'll admit, that was the initial appeal for III and Vice City. When I started realizing there was way more to the games than that, I decided not to do it in San Andreas and IV).

One problem I have with his argument is that, once again, someone's buying into the false dichotomy of "fun vs. art." He's right that not everything needs to be 'deep' (what exactly is 'deep,' anyway?), but I'll never understand why people think that having entertainment give us something to think about is not entertaining. The phrase "I just want to turn off my brain and have fun" is stupid, because the brain is what processes things as "fun" (another vague word). Whether or not that actually applies to this game, I don't know, nor do I care, but that mindset is a little irksome.

The part that annoys me the most is that this seems more like a "I'm bored, lets see what I can get away with project" than anything else, as the fact that its a school shooting gives no context as to why anyone would want to play it. You know how he mentions that he doesn't want to show how the victims react afterwards or what consequences this game has? If a game about a school shooting had that as well as perhaps a beginning as to why this person is shooting up a school, I'd start to give it more credit. Why? Because it puts the entire thing into perspective. It gets the point across that the event we are controlling is something that is actually happening rather than some blip in the dark with no real context or purpose. I get that there are several games that do that, including this one, in which it just makes the event without context, and I must admit that Bulletstorm looks good for that, but in the event of a real world thing, something that has to be contrained around the real world's physics, the question has to be asked what the point is? If all I wanted to do was to earn points by shooting "realistic" but bland people in a "realistic" world in which I am solely constrained by that, I might as well just play minesweeper and pretend that my succesful clicks are kills, my mine-marks are placing bombs or something, and clicking on a mine is me being shoot by the police or something. When a game like this offers us something that is so bland that we can already replicate it in other games without its help, the question has to be asked as to what the damn point of making this is.

That's the other problem I have with this. The developer seems to be so against the idea of making something more than "fun" to begin with that it will literally have no merit. There's not many games that are "fun" without some sort of context (Tetris and similar puzzle-games stand out, but barely), and I doubt just randomly loading my blank slate FPS character into a school to start randomly gunning people down is going to be "fun." Even in the GTA games when I would go on a rampage, it was usually precipitated by something that frustrated me in game (like failing a mission for the third time, or because a car rammed me while I was driving), which made it interesting to see (or rather, experience) how rage and violence can spiral out of control, even from something small. This seems to be adopting that method, but removing the inciting incident, so there's no context to derive how all this carnage started, and how sad and absurd it really is. Missed opportunity, there.

 

[znix]

People are way too sensitive.

All this outrage only serves to underscore that games DO have influence. Counterproductive.

Leave the game alone and go about your daily business. By fueling the fire, you're indirectly helping FOX and friends make their point that games really do mess with people's minds.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

"It's going to cause the end of gaming!" Really? how?
"The media are going to pick on this" Oh the media, we wouldn't want to annoy them would we?
So we're going to have the local news show play another "games are evil" clip to go along with their "Best dressed celebrities" and "How you can save money while shopping" stories they always play. yup, go on.
"And more anti-game laws will be passed because of it!" I hate to just dismiss this statement but just gtfo -.- It's been argued to death and quite frankly I'm not about to have a regurgitated argument over this

I'm going to add on to this point, as there's evidence that this isn't going to cause irreparable damage to the industry. Nutcasenightmare's Replaying :the game: [http://www.kongregate.com/games/nutcasenightmare/replaying-the-game?acomplete=replaying] has a particularly gory school-shooting segment, but any media coverage surrounding it was...mild, at best (I don't recall any media coverage about it, actually), and the damage to the industry was a whooping...nothing at all. I think Super Columbine Massacre RPG got more coverage than nutcasenightmare's Flash game, but again, any damage it inflicted to the industry was minor, and even that's being overly generous.

And, really, the oral arguments for the Supreme Court case ended a while ago, so this mod can't even be entered into evidence or used to influence the final decision. If the Supreme Court passes legislation in favor of video games, then the threat of anti-gaming laws suddenly becomes nonexistent. Really, people, the worst that could happen at that point is that stores will refuse to stock games that are really this offensive to people.

I think Jim Sterling said it best [http://www.destructoid.com/school-shooter-the-case-for-sick-videogames-195296.phtml]. What people are doing isn't discussing this game and whatever merits it has to touch upon a controversial subject. Instead, people are taking the Jack Thompson route by being sensationalists about this thing: overblowing the importance of this mod, calling the developers "sick and twisted psychopaths who should be locked up for even thinking this could be fun," and just generally playing the role of moral guardians and wanting to see the developers either sued or shut down based on a single, personal moral judgement. The whole thing just smells of hypocrisy to me.

 

[Jonabob87]

This interview made me shout out loud "SOMEONE'S DEAD INSIIIIDE!"

Seriously what a sad husk of a person.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

Why do you play games? I play games for Escapism. I play games to immerse myself into the role of a character I've never seen before and experience the trials and tribulations of that character. And when a madman charges at that character with knives, forcing him/her to pull out a gun and shoot off the assailant's kneecaps because doesn't want to get stabbed....IT'S SELF-DEFENSE.

My character didn't load up the frikkin game, I did. I, on the other hand, Didn't just shoot a guy; I told my character to do it. I value escapism just as much as the next gamer but there IS a difference. I am NOT my character. I am just interacting with a virtual world doing virtual things, in the GUISE of my character. So, no, I call BS, there is such a thing as Self-Defense in video games. And it is a common (and the best undoubtedly best) justification for the violence we make our characters cause.

In wars, it's perfectly acceptable for Soldiers to gain catharsis from murdering enemy soldiers. It is NOT acceptable for said Soldiers to burn down villages for the same "kicks". Similarly, If you feel good, by murdering innocent people, you're playing (and thus connecting, on an emotional level) with a psychopath. It doesn't necessarily make YOU a psychopath (look above) but if you can connect with an individual like that....there is something wrong with you. That's all I have to say about that.

It's not self-defence. You play the game knowing it's going to happen. How many games have you ever played where you had to fight someone unexpectedly? Where you never expected to fight anyone in the game, and then bam!? It doesn't happen. When you buy a game, you look for these things. In fact, I'd bet money you look for games with combat in them.

Here's the thing, the idea of "self-defence" in a videogame is just a matter of comfort. It's one of the many we use to excuse what we otherwise consider inexcusable. "Oh, he has a gun!". You knew he had a gun. You he'd be in the game, and you were fairly certain that you'd have to shoot him. Yet you played the game, and considered this event a positive part of the game. That, means you have that little evolutionary bit in you that accepts that killing is part of life.

We all have a little bit of a psychopath in us. It's just a matter of admitting it or being a hypocrite about it.

See you quoted the second part of my comment but apparently Didn't even Skim it. You missed the point of my comment completely. My point is that Self-Defense in a video game is the situation when The CHARACTER is SURPRISED by a HOSTILE Assailant. Should I bold that or...?

Yes, you're controlling the character and you're not exactly surprised. But we're talking about Self-Defense in the context of a fictional storyline, so why would you're expectations have anything to do with it?

I hate pulling out the old "BUT movies can has...!?" card but, what you're saying is the equivalent of calling out any movie that uses Self-Defense as a plot device (protagonist gets framed for defending himself, or whatever), as "faulty" and illogical, because the "actor had already read the script" and thus had prior knowledge of the attack! Sorry mate, but that's broken logic

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

SHIT sorry, sorry Triple post.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

I am Going to Kill my ISP guy......with a blunt axe.

 

[Iron Mal]

The concept for his game is...outragously disrespectful.

His reasons for making it are...not very good.

Don't get me wrong, I love games where I mindlessly gun down huge hordes of enemies (I love Painkiller), and I don't care that much about NPC's in games (God help you if you're an NPC in the Fable universe, because I certainly won't) but there's still something about this that just struck me as downright wrong.

Yes, he has the right to make a game as he envisioned it, but, while there is nothing preventing him from covering any subject he likes in a game, it leaves us in a bad position to people who believe that games are just child corrupters and murder simulators when developers treat sensitive issues like this with a complete lack of respect.

It is really hard to defend a game like this from public outcry, the 'we're just making games, it's not a huge deal' thing doesn't work all the time and makes us appear more trivial and childish the more we fall back on it.

He soils our name and reputation as gamers, any games with artistic and philosophical merit will be swept under a rug in favour of this because this proves the anti-gamer crowd right, it shows that under our good intentions and hopes of video games being held as equals to films, books and music that maybe we aren't mature enough for it.

I don't know any victims of school shootings either but they still deserve my respect and sympathy, any loss of human life is tragic, not just the people you know.

 

[SoulSalmon]

"It's going to cause the end of gaming!" Really? how?
"The media are going to pick on this" Oh the media, we wouldn't want to annoy them would we?
So we're going to have the local news show play another "games are evil" clip to go along with their "Best dressed celebrities" and "How you can save money while shopping" stories they always play. yup, go on.
"And more anti-game laws will be passed because of it!" I hate to just dismiss this statement but just gtfo -.- It's been argued to death and quite frankly I'm not about to have a regurgitated argument over this

I'm going to add on to this point, as there's evidence that this isn't going to cause irreparable damage to the industry. Nutcasenightmare's Replaying :the game: [http://www.kongregate.com/games/nutcasenightmare/replaying-the-game?acomplete=replaying] has a particularly gory school-shooting segment, but any media coverage surrounding it was...mild, at best (I don't recall any media coverage about it, actually), and the damage to the industry was a whooping...nothing at all. I think Super Columbine Massacre RPG got more coverage than nutcasenightmare's Flash game, but again, any damage it inflicted to the industry was minor, and even that's being overly generous.

And, really, the oral arguments for the Supreme Court case ended a while ago, so this mod can't even be entered into evidence or used to influence the final decision. If the Supreme Court passes legislation in favor of video games, then the threat of anti-gaming laws suddenly becomes nonexistent. Really, people, the worst that could happen at that point is that stores will refuse to stock games that are really this offensive to people.

I think Jim Sterling said it best [http://www.destructoid.com/school-shooter-the-case-for-sick-videogames-195296.phtml]. What people are doing isn't discussing this game and whatever merits it has to touch upon a controversial subject. Instead, people are taking the Jack Thompson route by being sensationalists about this thing: overblowing the importance of this mod, calling the developers "sick and twisted psychopaths who should be locked up for even thinking this could be fun," and just generally playing the role of moral guardians and wanting to see the developers either sued or shut down based on a single, personal moral judgement. The whole thing just smells of hypocrisy to me.

I will actually thank you for saying that.
I didn't bother because as I said, the people who want to argue are going to ignore it and most others don't care, but part of me was a bit niggled by it not being covered

People don't care about videogames anymore it seems, they only seem to give two shits about the wrapping, everythings mostly the same stock *genre* underneath... (and that is why I don't really play games anymore... except Minecraft and Kingdom Hearts... but they won't last forever and KH will PROBABLY start to suck soon because no series goes on for this long without becoming terrible... shutting up now before I start a full-on rant!)

 

[tzimize]

-snip-

I really do not see how his quoted statements shows his abilitiy to reflect on his actions.
He states that there are real world problems to be offended about, and thus people should not be offended about fictional entities.
This is an extremely simplistic black-and-white dichotomy, which does impley a strong opinion about something, but not reflection or empathy.

However, I was not actually refering to this part of the interview anyway.
While I personally DO believe that it is legimate to be offended by certain works of art, I do not think that is reason to take down said art.
What in my mind shows his lack of reflection are statements like

"The media is right to dismiss games as "bang-bang shoot 'em ups" and "murder simulators," because at their core, that is exactly what most games boil down to. "
"Gamers are a generally misguided, highly reactionary lot."

Do you honestly think these are statements made by somewhat who regularly reflexts on his own believes, i.e. considers the possibility that they are wrong ?

Nice post, I guess I misunderstood what you feel presents his ability to reflect

I never said anything about empathy. You can reflect without caring about something (in fact thats the preferred scientific method, right? Observe and not interfere?).

Personally I feel the two sentences you quoted still put him across as a reflected guy. The first one, well a lot of games is about killing. In some way or another. Depending on how square you want to be, and how long you want to boil it for I guess he is correct (as he said most, not all). There are games that does not have killing in them of course, and a lot where it is not "the main focus". But still, I'd say its not terribly off the mark to say that most games boil down to that. Again, if you want to be square about it.

Gamers are a generally misguided, highly reactionary lot. Well...yeah. I agree. Gamers are not that different from other folks, only in their field of interest. Folks in general are...well imo pretty stupid. I dont really like, or get people. They have priorities I dont understand, and even find incredibly odd/silly. So in conclusion, most gamers are as stupid as the rest of the world. He seems reflected enough.

 

[Someonetookmyname]

Ive seen the gameplay trailer. even if you'd want a school shooter game, this wouldn't be it. god the game sucks, one room, limited amount of of pupils, he didn't even take his time to make make the pupils look like, you know, PUPILS!


Ps. If it sounds like im pro this game, its a mistake, there is a line, and they crossed it.

 

[SinisterGehe]

I wouldn't call them fail, they had balls to do something that this far no one has done. Would you had the balls to do something like this?

So what, we should praise them for having the "balls" to do something that hadn't been done yet? Should we also praise the first person to actually shoot up a school for having the balls to do that? Not everything should be done - it not having been done yet is not a reason to do it. Granted, games are different from actual actions in that they're an artistic medium, which means they should be free to do anything, really. That's not the question, though. It's not like every time someone makes something that hasn't been done before for lack of courage to do it we should instantly applaud them regardless of the merit or lack thereof of what they actually did. Being first shouldn't get you immunity from scrutiny. If someone makes a game where you just stare at a white screen for six hours then get shocked in the nuts by a taser ejecting from the console, should we praise them? Nobody has had the balls to make that game yet. Of course not - you praise or denounce a game because of its value, not because it broke some arbitrary boundary. The fact remains that there's little, if any social value to the game they've made beyond the ability to revel in the meaningless, contextless killing of innocents, a claim put forward by the author himself. Given that, yeah, I'd say it's pretty damned fail from just about every perspective. He shouldn't be prohibited from making this game, as it's still a form of self expression, regrettably, but that doesn't mean that we can't take one look at it and judge, quite fairly, that it's trash and should be shunned and derided, and hopefully shut off from distribution sites. They have a right to make whatever the hell they want - not for us to like it and/or play it.

Ah, so we could allow people to speak hatefully of American government but ban their right to publish in in any media.
So basically by your viewpoint, hes allowed to make a game like this, but no one is allowed to have access it or that hes is not allowed to share it.

That is quite restraining.
Shall we ban sharing games in which there is discrimination of minorities. No one has right to discriminate right? So we should remove all content in which you can discriminate. Or is this subject simply limited to violence against innocent people, or must they be students so it is bad thing, or only children, are school staff protected also, how about under-aged students who have been removed from school for 2 weeks, is violence against them in video-games banned also. I don't remember there being a law like that.

You know what limiting content that is allowed to be distributed is called: Censorship. Last time I checked that doesn't belong in to western though of freedom.

HE has right to make the game, He has right to share the game in public.
It might be a fail or not in your eyes, It doesn't matter. I think every from of hip hop and rap is stain on musics name and should be removed from existence. But every artist has right to rap about Raping innocent, violence, killing police, Destroying the government and what not and share it to as many they want. Why isn't rap banned then?

 

[AoifeArachne]

I won't play it

Not just for moral reasons sake but because shooting unarmed NPCs is boring.

 

[House_Vet]

To be honest, I don't see the problem. Most games are about killing anyway, so what is the difference between shooting virtual soldiers and virtual children? None, because it's all the same; they're virtual. They don't exist. Therefore, if I'm destroying something that never existed, I'm not doing anything (besides wasting time).

Seriously? You're destroying an approximation of something that does exist - If they are representative of the real thing, then to a degree at least you are acting out. So... yeah this is an antimoral mass murder 'sim'? This is far worse than Manhunt, or anything else I've seen.

Also, the guy who made it - I wanna look at his brain under fMRI - I'll warrant there must be some interesting abnormalities to create a complete lack of empathy like that.

 

[Lord Honk]

Yes, yes! Feed me more controversy! Ooh this is going to be delicious.

 

[DocBalance]

snip

Okay, so let me get this nice and clear: You are saying that killing armed mutants, aliens, and cyborgs in overblown ridiculous ways that would never actually work in reality on some far flung planet as an insane caricature of a human being, is equal to loading up a gun and shooting a bunch of unarmed teenagers?

Here's a "shocking bit of truth" for you: Our psychological minds learn by conditioning. Your mind may not see any difference between these two scenarios, but mine sure as hell does. See, you are right, Bulletstorm would be horrible and sadistic if it were realistic in ANY possible way. But it's not. It's a game where one shot can instantly turn a guy into a skeleton, where a regular human has the upper-body strength to crush heads and blow up doors with a simple kick. Bulletstorm is far, far from anything even resembling realistic. This piece of trash, on the other hand, is gunning for realism. It wants to replicate the experience. While the events in Bulletstorm never, ever happened, the events of "School Shooter" are connected to some of the most horrific acts this world has ever seen. I had friends at Virginia Tech, who barely made it out alive. I knew people there. So unless you want to tell me that you personally knew an alien-cyborg-mutant who had his anus surgically removed with a grenade launcher, your argument doesn't hold water.