The School Shooter Mod

Continuity

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Well I think James and bob are off on this one, it's exactly this sort of thing that gives computer games their unique artistic impact. If you think in terms of contentious modern art, it seems that anything that can provoke or elicit a feeling or a response or even just providing a perspective can be art... A sheep cut in half, a dirty bed, an extire exhibition composed of feces.... This game has that sort of impact that make you think about your judgements and perceptions plus it does it in for a contemporary subject.

Am I alone in seeing this?

Ok the creator may not be intending to Create art but that's not really relevant.
 

Arcane Azmadi

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Jan 23, 2009
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I disagree with all three of the debaters on this topic (I do NOT think this filth can be defended on the grounds of free speech), but most especially with Jim, who I think here is both completely full of crap and either willfully ignorant or shockingly insensitive.

What's makes the School Shooter mod so different from Uncharted, Grand Theft Auto, Saint's Row or any other game where you casually slaughter massive numbers of people? How about the simple fact that while the latter games are escapist fantasies with little to no grounding in reality, the School Shooter mod is nothing more and nothing less than a spiteful, vicious celebration of a shockingly tragic series of real-life events that HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED and will QUITE PROBABLY CONTINUE TO HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE.

In real life, career crooks don't casually decide to go on massive destructive rampages slaughtering innocent bystanders for fun and causing massive property damage and death and destuction on a wide scale before strolling casually away after getting their car instantly resprayed. Anyone who DOES engage in such mindless orgies of destruction is either arrested and executed/sentenced to life in jail (depending on where it happens) or fatally gunned down by police while resisting arrest. GTA wouldn't be so much fun if every time the cops waste you your game saved is erased and you're booted back to the start of the game, would it? Uncharted is basically a cinematic adventure in the spirit of Indiana Jones- sure Nathan Drake is an asshole, but it's basically a mindless action movie experience.

On the other hand, school shooter incidents happen in real life. They're horrific. Tragic. They're meaningless and terrible, they cause many deaths each time and they will continue to happen. And the filthy degenerate who is making this indefensible trash thinks it's a good idea to make a game where you can reenact things like this because it'd be fun. It even goes as far as replicating the shooters' suicides at the end of their rampages as a gameplay mechanic, making the last desparate act of a traumatised and disturbed individual into an objective that, if I remember correctly, gives you a better score or something. It's on the same level as making a 9/11 flight sim where you play a (succesion of) terrorists steering planes into famous buildings with your score determined by how many innocents you kill, with bonus points calculated for the level of national trauma you inflict over the long term (and don't anyone DARE say you think that sounds fun or you'd like to see that made). If you REALLY can't see any difference between this and unrealistic fantasies like Grand Theft Auto (like Jim apparently can't) then you're either an imbecile of the highest order, or there's something SERIOUSLY wrong with you.

Briefly getting back to my original point, I STRONGLY believe this filth should be banned. While I generally believe in freedom of speech for its original purpose (for preventing a government from silencing dissident voices or oppressing groups who disagree with policies) I have nothing but scorn for people who insist on universally defending ANYTHING people say or do without reservation. There should be a line drawn somewhere- there are things that just shouldn't be tolerated for reasons of basic human decency. If someone turned up to my mother's funeral, for example, and started shouting slanderous abuse about her, I'd beat him unconscious with my bare hands (or more likely any blunt object I can lay my hands on) without the slightest cosideration for "his right to express his opinions". There's a difference between "free speech" and "no standards of moral decency" and this evil game crosses the line without a doubt.

Continuity said:
Well I think James and bob are off on this one, it's exactly this sort of thing that gives computer games their unique artistic impact. If you think in terms of contentious modern art, it seems that anything that can provoke or elicit a feeling or a response or even just providing a perspective can be art... A sheep cut in half, a dirty bed, an extire exhibition composed of feces.... This game has that sort of impact that make you think about your judgements and perceptions plus it does it in for a contemporary subject.

Am I alone in seeing this?

Ok the creator may not be intending to Create art but that's not really relevant.
If you think this is art, you are sick. Sick, sick, sick. Seek help.
 

BlindMessiah94

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Nov 12, 2009
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Mouse One said:
BlindMessiah94 said:
Can we please not involve Jim on this excellent series? He's like the school shooter mod in a sense: a stunt, made for shock value. Bob's great, James is great. Let's leave it at that.
Another vote for no Jim Sterling in this otherwise excellent series. Even if you like his brand of argument via (long and unedited) assertation, it doesn't fit with the analytic style of Extra Consideration.
Agreed. I think of Extra Consideration as an intellectual discussion. I don't read it for the lulz or shock value. I don't think Jim can provide anything but the latter.
 

BadgerFang

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May 20, 2011
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After browsing over things I have a lot of trouble understanding why no one has addressed the main issue; so I created a profile here just to put in my 2 cents, take it for what it's worth.

The murder of Children is not just something that American's consider to be unusually callous/evil/taboo/ etc... Throughout history the murder of children is considered to be a wholly depraved act, far worse than killing the old, sick or even the peaceful. Something like a school shooting or a game about shootings that take place in a school is so "taboo" because it involves children; in any decade, century, etc...

Shootings in schools in America (that have been televised since the 70's) are not what started this as taboo. The only thing this developer did by choosing "school shooter" as their subject matter was to get exactly the reaction they did. They got publicity. Their name is now out there. The only thing worse than looking bad in media, is not existing. And now the exist. Why? Because we got angry at an obvious attempt at "trolling" for the sake of grabbing media attention.
 

theultimateend

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DEATHROAD said:
Scrumpmonkey said:
Bam! suprise jim! And i though i could contain him by just refusing to watch his show.
This. Oh god THIS.

OT: I couldn't read this weeks edition of Extra cons for reasons that if i explained them i would be banned for breaking the forums rules on attitude towards contributors.
To be fair the childish whining about a contributor is far worse than any poor contributions.

If you don't like them ignore them, skip their points, move on.

I like the show Castle.

That's the only show on ABC that I like.

I don't complain daily that every show before and after Castle is a waste and should be cleansed from the planet.

Someone out there is enjoying those things, silently, they aren't complaining to me because of my show and so it seems fair to not complain to them about theirs.

He plays a character and the more that people poke at him the more he's going to be that character. It's not rocket science.

Arcane Azmadi said:
What's makes the School Shooter mod so different from Uncharted, Grand Theft Auto, Saint's Row or any other game where you casually slaughter massive numbers of people? How about the simple fact that while the latter games are escapist fantasies with little to no grounding in reality, the School Shooter mod is nothing more and nothing less than a spiteful, vicious celebration of a shockingly tragic series of real-life events that HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED and will QUITE PROBABLY CONTINUE TO HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE.
So by your own admission it doesn't matter if people make these mods because its probable that it would happen again anyways.

Which makes sense since it happened many times in the past without video games.

I'm surprised your post didn't just stop there with a "Oh. I guess I just defeated my own point."
 

Atomic Skull

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Jan 7, 2010
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Jim Sterling said:
but what is a sociopath? Well, sociopaths love to justify their own bad behavior by claiming that what they were doing was "different" and thus more allowable.
Actually that is incorrect. Sociopaths don't even bother to justify anything they do because they don't care. They have a brain defect which results in a limited range of emotions. They experience only the primitive basic emotions that originate in the lower brain, emotions that originate in the midbrain are either limited or missing entirely. They have a complete lack of empathy for other people and thus no need to justify doing bad things.

People have a tendency to misuse the term "sociopath", it actually refers to specific mental disorder rather than just being a general term for "bad people".