Montreal Police "Investigate" School Shooting Game

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Montreal Police "Investigate" School Shooting Game


Montreal police are reportedly "investigating" Dawson College Massacre!, a Flash game based on the 2006 shooting at Dawson College that left one student dead and 19 injured.

On September 13 2006, Kimveer Gill went on a shooting rampage at Montreal's Dawson College [http://www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/home], killing 18-year-old student Anastasia Rebecca De Sousa and wounding 19 others before taking his own life after being shot in the arm by police. A Flash game based on that tragedy was released last week and it has quite predictably stirred up strong feelings among students at the school.

"I couldn't believe it," nursing student Laura James told the CBC [http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/09/14/dawson-college-video-game.html]. "I was like honestly shocked, because why would someone do that?"

"It can hurt people. If someone just falls upon this site that was actually there they could be reliving something that's like really traumatizing in their life," added fellow student Serina Galle. "No one wants to relive that."

One of the sites hosting the game removed it after being asked to do so by the Dawson student union but it's still available on at least three other sites, including Newgrounds [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/547736], where the game's author wrote, "Most of the dialogue is taken directly from quotes of the shooter! I tried to stay true to the reality of this event. In the event everyone did freeze in a way and let Kimveer take target practice in the cafeteria. Had the police not quickly engaged him he would have killed more. The game is made as such to follow these events and at the same time try to add a little fun, but it's mostly to re-live the experience in a way... have fun." He also said he was sorry if people are "offended in some way" by the game.

"Virtuaman," as he's known on Newgrounds, told the CBC that the point of the game is to "draw attention to the reality of school shootings." "I didn't make it to be a sicko or anything. I didn't want to offend the families or any of that, but I guess it's going to," he said. "It's pretty graphic."

It's not actually graphic at all; it includes images of the shooter that appeared in the press at the time and plenty of pixelated blood, but the gameplay and graphics are about what you'd expect from a simplistic Flash game. Nonetheless, Montreal police are apparently "investigating" the game, although on what grounds is currently unclear. Virtuaman added that he doesn't believe he's broken any laws.

Dawson College Massacre! isn't the first videogame to be based on a school shooting. In 2005, Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Columbine_Massacre_RPG] based on the 1999 attack on Columbine High School that left 13 dead and 24 injured, was released to an even greater uproar.


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Loonerinoes

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I'd have a bit more sympathy for the flash maker, if he hadn't chosen to name his game after a specific real-life event.

That decision on his part, on the other hand, tells me he must've been hoping for some of this kind of controvesy to help promote his game. Wether consciously, or not. Why not just make it "School shootout simulator?" Less interest than if you name it after a specific event.
 

Celtic_Kerr

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Andy Chalk said:
Montreal Police "Investigate" School Shooting Game


Montreal police are reportedly "investigating" Dawson College Massacre!, a Flash game based on the 2006 shooting at Dawson College that left one student dead and 19 injured.

On September 13 2006, Kimveer Gill went on a shooting rampage at Montreal's Dawson College [http://www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/home], killing 18-year-old student Anastasia Rebecca De Sousa and wounding 19 others before taking his own life after being shot in the arm by police. A Flash game based on that tragedy was released last week and it has quite predictably stirred up strong feelings among students at the school.

"I couldn't believe it," nursing student Laura James told the CBC [http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/09/14/dawson-college-video-game.html]. "I was like honestly shocked, because why would someone do that?"

"It can hurt people. If someone just falls upon this site that was actually there they could be reliving something that's like really traumatizing in their life," added fellow student Serina Galle. "No one wants to relive that."

One of the sites hosting the game removed it after being asked to do so by the Dawson student union but it's still available on at least three other sites, including Newgrounds [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/547736], where the game's author wrote, "Most of the dialogue is taken directly from quotes of the shooter! I tried to stay true to the reality of this event. In the event everyone did freeze in a way and let Kimveer take target practice in the cafeteria. Had the police not quickly engaged him he would have killed more. The game is made as such to follow these events and at the same time try to add a little fun, but it's mostly to re-live the experience in a way... have fun." He also said he was sorry if people are "offended in some way" by the game.

"Virtuaman," as he's known on Newgrounds, told the CBC that the point of the game is to "draw attention to the reality of school shootings." "I didn't make it to be a sicko or anything. I didn't want to offend the families or any of that, but I guess it's going to," he said. "It's pretty graphic."

It's not actually graphic at all; it includes images of the shooter that appeared in the press at the time and plenty of pixelated blood, but the gameplay and graphics are about what you'd expect from a simplistic Flash game. Nonetheless, Montreal police are apparently "investigating" the game, although on what grounds is currently unclear. Virtuaman added that he doesn't believe he's broken any laws.

Dawson College Massacre! isn't the first videogame to be based on a school shooting. In 2005, Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Columbine_Massacre_RPG] based on the 1999 attack on Columbine High School that left 13 dead and 24 injured, was released to an even greater uproar.


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I live in Montreal. Infact, I graduated from Dawson last year. I was not in school when the shooting took place, but my sister almost was. You have the front door where the shooter walked in, and on the left hand side is a cafe. My sister was there when my parents called her to go have lunch with them. The shooting occured no more than 30 minutes after she left.

Attention doesn't NEEd to be drawn on school shootings. they are tragic enough and we all mourned the loss of Anastasia. Whether one person dies or thirteen die, it's a tragedy, and to make a fucking passtime of it "To draw attention to it" is just pathetic
 

Eumersian

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Sep 3, 2009
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One of the theories as to why crazy people shoot up schools is because they are attention-starved and depressed. Like they feel like their life is worth nothing and they've never done anything worthy of note. One thing that's sure to get news coverage is shooting up their school. They might even take some of the people that were mean to them with them in the end.

If that theory holds even remotely true, I don't know why people would make games like that. It's just drawing unnecessary attention to the concept that nobody wants to hear about anyway. If anything, they're doing exactly what the shooter wanted.

As far as I know, this theory has yet to be proven, but better safe than sorry IMO.
 

RollForInitiative

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I'm going to put aside my own views for a moment purely for the purpose of playing devil's advocate and just wonder, aloud, how many people that find this "disturbing" or "disgusting" are also the people that feel that the Taliban elements of the new Medal of Honor title or the controversial intro of the last Modern Warfare title are just fine.

Yes, the latter may not be based exactly on a real life event, but it's close enough in the end. So, while we're laughing at how ludicrous it is that politicians are calling for the ban of Medal of Honor or that military base stores refuse to stock it, and while we're turning up our noses at the sickening nature of the game mentioned here, take a moment to look in the mirror and recognize our own hypocrisy.

Just saying. After all, it's this mentality that ultimately got "Six Days in Fallujah" canned.
 

Snow Fire

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Jan 19, 2009
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Just my two cents, but the art medium that is video games is being used to depict a tragic event that occurred here in real life. I support this kind of artwork, and therefore agree with the creator. He did nothing wrong here, and it would be wrong to suppress a work of art no matter how controversial it is.
 
Nov 5, 2007
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RollForInitiative said:
I'm going to put aside my own views for a moment purely for the purpose of playing devil's advocate and just wonder, aloud, how many people that find this "disturbing" or "disgusting" are also the people that feel that the Taliban elements of the new Medal of Honor title or the controversial intro of the last Modern Warfare title are just fine.

Yes, the latter may not be based exactly on a real life event, but it's close enough in the end. So, while we're laughing at how ludicrous it is that politicians are calling for the ban of Medal of Honor or that military base stores refuse to stock it, and while we're turning up our noses at the sickening nature of the game mentioned here, take a moment to look in the mirror and recognize our own hypocrisy.

Just saying. After all, it's this mentality that ultimately got "Six Days in Fallujah" canned.
There's a huge difference between a school shooting and and a war, don't act like it's the same thing.

"...The game is made as such to follow these events and at the same time try to add a little fun, but it's mostly to re-live the experience in a way... have fun."
Adding fun to the events? That's just fucking tasteless.
And before people come in here and start saying dumb shit like "hurrr people blaming violence n games", guess what the media and the politicians did over here after the school?
Blame games? Nope, they took steps to further control the sales of guns. Maybe the United-States could learn a thing or two from us.


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SamFisher202 said:
Just my two cents, but the art medium that is video games is being used to depict a tragic event that occurred here in real life. I support this kind of artwork, and therefore agree with the creator. He did nothing wrong here, and it would be wrong to suppress a work of art no matter how controversial it is.
The problem is that it is not used to pass a message or anything, the guy said he decided to show the events and make them more fun. That's not using the medium to create art, it's using the medium as provocation and create shock.

If there's one guy who'll come up to defend games as art it's me but shit let's choose what we defend guys. Let's defend art, not shocking bullshit.
 

Celtic_Kerr

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RollForInitiative said:
I'm going to put aside my own views for a moment purely for the purpose of playing devil's advocate and just wonder, aloud, how many people that find this "disturbing" or "disgusting" are also the people that feel that the Taliban elements of the new Medal of Honor title or the controversial intro of the last Modern Warfare title are just fine.

Yes, the latter may not be based exactly on a real life event, but it's close enough in the end. So, while we're laughing at how ludicrous it is that politicians are calling for the ban of Medal of Honor or that military base stores refuse to stock it, and while we're turning up our noses at the sickening nature of the game mentioned here, take a moment to look in the mirror and recognize our own hypocrisy.

Just saying. After all, it's this mentality that ultimately got "Six Days in Fallujah" canned.
I gotta say man, You have a professional army fighting one another, and then you have a man walking into a school and shooting students. One is a deranged man with no cause shooting to inflict pain and suffering. The other is two factions fighting for their cause. Even the "no Russian" level had a plan behind it in the terrorist's eyes.
 

Celtic_Kerr

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ShadowKirby said:
RollForInitiative said:
I'm going to put aside my own views for a moment purely for the purpose of playing devil's advocate and just wonder, aloud, how many people that find this "disturbing" or "disgusting" are also the people that feel that the Taliban elements of the new Medal of Honor title or the controversial intro of the last Modern Warfare title are just fine.

Yes, the latter may not be based exactly on a real life event, but it's close enough in the end. So, while we're laughing at how ludicrous it is that politicians are calling for the ban of Medal of Honor or that military base stores refuse to stock it, and while we're turning up our noses at the sickening nature of the game mentioned here, take a moment to look in the mirror and recognize our own hypocrisy.

Just saying. After all, it's this mentality that ultimately got "Six Days in Fallujah" canned.
There's a huge difference between a school shooting and and a war, don't act like it's the same thing.

"...The game is made as such to follow these events and at the same time try to add a little fun, but it's mostly to re-live the experience in a way... have fun."
Adding fun to the events? That's just fucking tasteless.
And before people come in here and start saying dumb shit like "hurrr people blaming violence n games", guess what the media and the politicians did over here after the school?
Blame games? Nope, they took steps to further control the sales of guns. Maybe the United-States could learn a thing or two from us.
Dawson student or just Montreal resident? The sad part is the number of tests you already need to undergo for a gun lisence. They mentioned pictures of guns he had on his site, but ultimately they blamed him. They weren't idiots that brushed it off, they took it seriously, and I'm glad to have seen that
 
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Celtic_Kerr said:
Dawson student or just Montreal resident? The sad part is the number of tests you already need to undergo for a gun lisence. They mentioned pictures of guns he had on his site, but ultimately they blamed him. They weren't idiots that brushed it off, they took it seriously, and I'm glad to have seen that
Nah, just a Montreal guy (well, I go to university here).
 

sirkai007

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Completely in bad taste. Not putting points in the "Games are a legitimate art form" column.
 

Snow Fire

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ShadowKirby said:
The problem is that it is not used to pass a message or anything, the guy said he decided to show the events and make them more fun. That's not using the medium to create art, it's using the medium as provocation and create shock.

If there's one guy who'll come up to defend games as art it's me but shit let's choose what we defend guys. Let's defend art, not shocking bullshit.
I won't be selective in which art I will defend, when you put one area of art up for censorship you weaken the protections given to art as a whole. I completely doubted his intent with this artwork, but no one is a saint. You can't just make the bad go away.
 
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SamFisher202 said:
ShadowKirby said:
The problem is that it is not used to pass a message or anything, the guy said he decided to show the events and make them more fun. That's not using the medium to create art, it's using the medium as provocation and create shock.

If there's one guy who'll come up to defend games as art it's me but shit let's choose what we defend guys. Let's defend art, not shocking bullshit.
I won't be selective in which art I will defend, when you put one area of art up for censorship you weaken the protections given to art as a whole. I completely doubted his intent with this artwork, but no one is a saint. You can't just make the bad go away.
Ok, guess what, art can be offensive and tasteless too. And I never asked for it's removal or censorship, I'm just heavily criticizing and condemning it because I feel I have as a man who believes in the artistic and expressive power of games a responsibility to praise games that are doing a good job at passing certain messages and certain ideas (not the ideas, but the way they are passed), and call out the games that are just being offensive and have no real value.

Not all pieces of work are equal. The ability to choose between what we defend and what we shun will inevitably form what the medium will be.
 

Insane_Foxx

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ok, so.. some guy makes a game where the point is relive the experience of a school shooting.. and have fun. Because when you think fun, you think real life school shootings. Police in Montreal really should be doing better things with their time (unless it's hand out tickets for jaywalking.. in which case this is a better use of their time), but on the other hand. this dude needs mental help.

Or maybe we should just wait for the sequel, having fun reinacting the adventures of Marc Lepine in Ècole Polytechnique. Where you have to go into the college, separate the guys from the girls, and then slaughter as many of the women as you can.